So how are you enjoying your offseason so far?
Anyway, I'll bet you didn't sign a $54 million contract. I know I didn't.
On the other hand, none of us will have to pitch in front of the Mets' defense next year. Pedro will. At least we'll have some peace of mind.
Ah, Pedro, I guess now we really do know ye.
Nah, we don't. That's the central lesson we never seem to learn, or want to learn. We really don't know them.
I got one of those angry e-mails yesterday. You know, the ones that decry the "modern" player, with his lack of loyalty, as opposed to the old-timers who played for "the love of the game." Because of Pedro, this e-mailer was henceforth through with baseball. He'll find something else to do next summer, rather than follow the Red Sox. Sounds tough. Maybe he will, and maybe he won't.
But these are almost invariably the sort of people who don't know that Hall of Famer Edd Roush sat out the entire 1930 season because he could not come to a contract agreement with the New York Giants. Mr. Roush did not play solely for fun. He played for money, as do they all, then and now.
As Latrell Sprewell would say, a man's gotta feed his family.
The longer I've been around professional sports, the more I realize I should always pay heed to the wisdom of the incomparable Roger Angell, who warned us long ago that, when the subject is baseball players, "they are what they do." In other words, we should fix on their talent, not their perceived humanitarianism.
Of course, I usually appreciate the full extent of Angell's dictum after the fact.
Pedro's a pretty good example. During his first two or three years in Boston, he was almost in the too-good-to-be-true category. He was a great pitcher, for sure. He appeared to be a team guy. He was bright, witty, and accessible. His command of his second language was so good that I once told him he could teach an English course to Hispanics during spring training. He wasn't just capable of translating his thoughts from Spanish to English. He was idiomatic. He had English slang and references. His postgame explanations were often pitching clinics. All this made him immensely appealing from an American writer's viewpoint.
We were also told that some of his vast earnings went toward construction of a church in the Dominican Republic. What a guy.
As time went on, the quirkiness became evident. He became increasingly sensitive to perceived slights, whether they came from management, the media, or the fans. It was no longer possible to praise him enough. But he cleverly wanted it both ways. If he pitched less than great, he would say, "You know, I am just a man, not God. I can have bad days." Fair enough. But only he could say or write that. He wanted complete control of the praise agenda.
