Would you like to see a really bad tweet? Just a truly, honestly, godawful example of tweetery? Well, too bad, because I’m going to show it to you anyway.
Here we have ESPN college football analyst Booger McFarland stating that the players, who already incur massive health risks for no pay as a part of their — uh, “job” is definitely not the right word, so I guess we’ll call it an activity? A hobby? Sure, let’s go with hobby — hobby, should also be willing to subject themselves to one more, in exchange for…nothing.
Less than nothing, really, if you take into account that a good number of them will develop COVID and a percentage of those guys will have short- and long-term health effects. So some people lose and no one gains anything. Why, I’m surprised they haven’t done it already!
When I see someone so unserious and dismissive of the public health catastrophe unfolding in this country with no end in sight, I have to remind myself that a huge majority of the country supports mask mandates. When I see Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger sent home by the Indians because they went out after a game, I have to remind myself that most teams are taking the virus very seriously, doing their best to get a season in. When I see that the Cardinals have played 13 fewer games than the Giants because they keep getting new positive tests in, I have to remind myself that, oh yeah, nobody should be doing this at all, which I think everyone kinda knows but is ignoring because it’s easier that way.
So when Marcus Stroman opted out of the season yesterday, everyone was obligated to say all the right things, and then that’s what they did. Probably some members of the Mets front office grumbled to themselves about their plans for the season turning to ashes, and how the trade they made for Stroman last year wasn’t worth it. You have to imagine that from a pure value perspective, there was a contingent of people whose jobs it is to make the Mets good who were unhappy that they gave up a lot to acquire Stroman and it was all for nothing.
Would you like to see a good tweet? I can do that for you. I have the power.
Will Middlebrooks, who won a World Series with the Red Sox in 2013, has a point here, and unsurprisingly, it is the exact opposite of Booger’s point. The players have an obligation to do what’s right for themselves. They don’t owe their teams a goddamn thing, and the teams have proven that over and over again by manipulating service time to keep players cheap and under team control for another year, and by keeping payrolls steady while revenue exploded.
A player who puts his health in jeopardy for the sake of the team will get praised by his front office and his team’s fans for being selfless and displaying the many virtues of a good soldier. That player will also be an idiot. Sacrificing yourself for someone who sees you as a temporary, expendable thing is no way to live your life. You only get one. Don’t risk possibly permanent heart damage for them. It’s not worth it. It could never be worth it.
It feels wrong for a player to put himself above the team, but this is the world that the teams created. They did it by colluding in the ‘80s, by cashing the checks from steroid use in the ‘90s until they could demonize the steroid users in the ‘00s, by purposefully tanking for years in the ‘10s. Every one of those moves sent a message about what the owners’ top priority is, was, and forever would be, and that priority sure isn’t winning.
Teams have been putting money above everything for decades now. Above the quality of the game, above relations with the players, above expanding the fanbase by selling tickets at reasonable prices. This is where baseball, as a whole, has gone. It shouldn’t be surprising that the players have followed it there.