Segura's Tragedy Offers Moment of Reflection

I just read about how Brewers' Shortstop Jean Segura's nine-month old son died last night, and felt compelled to write something.  I kind of feel bad about this, because I feel like I'm using that tragedy to draw attention to myself (or something like that), but I hope you trust me when I say this is done with good intentions.  Back to Segura ... when I found out about the death of his young son today, I obviously felt bad - felt bad for him, his family, his son, and kind of oddly, Brewer fans.  I felt bad for Brewer fans (myself included) because Segura's recent misfortune - his son had been sick for a while - wasn't in the news until the child died hours ago.  We had no idea.  All we knew was what we saw on the field, and that was that Segura, as well as the Brewers as a whole, are struggling mightily as of late.  After such a great start to the season, how could the Brewers (and/or Segura) be this bad?  We needed an explanation.  As far as Segura goes, that explanation grimly led us to the harsh circumstances of his reality.

I can't put my finger on when it was exactly, but at some time or another, I sort of flipped the way I looked at sports.  Before, I never thought twice about blasting the "over-paid, selfish athlete" for hurting my team's chances to win.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with rooting for a sports team (that's what makes it so much fun).  But when you root for a team, you tend to lose sight of the individual players that make up that team.  Often, team takes precedent over the athlete(s), and it becomes easy to be overly critical of said athlete(s) in the name of allegiance to team.  We applaud teams for trading or releasing under-performing players, or celebrate when an opposing player goes out with an injury.  It's all done in the name of team.  We root for the cursive-M with the barley leaf underline found on Segura's hat more than we care about the man wearing the hat.  Much like the cliché-ish story of the comedian who got heckled in the club going to the office job of the audience member to heckle them, athletes' work is out there for all to see, warts and all.  And because their jobs dictate that they play in stadiums in front of large crowds, the criticism of their work is public, if not infectious.  But athletes don't come to our workplace to yell at us for our deficiencies.  Even as I wrote the first line of this note, I felt a little uncomfortable writing "Brewers' Shorstop Jean Segura," as if his identity exists only as property of the Brewers organization, and even more specifically, that patch of dirt between second and third base where he can be found game-to-game.  But Segura (and all athletes) are so much more than [Insert team/position-followed by-name].  

For Segura, he is a son, husband, father, player, and native of the Dominican Republic.  Baseball led him to America.  Baseball will make him millions (if it hasn't already).  Baseball will leave him suseptible to boos and taunts coming from fans in a language he still doesn't quite have a full grasp of.  But in the wake of the death of his son, baseball means little to nothing.  He would toss aside that navy blue hat with the cursive-M and barley leaf to have one more day with his son, and nobody would blame him.  But over the past month or so, we have sat in the seats at Miller Park, at our homes, or at our favorite bar criticizing Segura for his regressing stat line.  Little did we know his son lie dying, and we were yelling at him for an errant throw to first base or for *only* managing to connect with a 95 mph fastball enough to hit a lazy grounder to third base.  We had no right to know his son's status, but it's stories like this that give me pause when the urge hits me to throw an athlete under the proverbial bus in order to rationalize the struggles of my favorite team; it's stories like this that make me lean back on my barstool of judgement and think "When I turn off Fox Sports Net, these guys have lives that continue, these guys have sons that are sick, or daughters that are facing real-life challenges, and I'm evaluting their play like it represents their entire existence."  We've all let personal issues affect our lives in ways that has nothing to do with those personal issues, we do this because we're human.  

It's easy for us to stand by our favorite athlete in the face of tragedy when Brett Favre goes out and throws 4 touchdowns hours after his father's death.  It's hard to ease off the criticism of a slumping Jean Segura when we don't have context.  But given that context, we find out that we were bitching about Jean Segura's 0-for-4 game at the plate while his son lie dying.

"Respecting the Game" is Overrated

If the critics of Carlos Gomez, Yasiel Puig, ect. are correct, and these players are “disrespecting the game,” then those critics need to tell me where and why this “respect of the game”  originated.  The first Greatest Player of All-Time, Ty Cobb, sharpened his spikes so when he slid feet-first, he’d spike the defensive player trying to get him out.  Wasn’t he trying to one-up his opponent?  The unanimous Greatest Player of All-Time, Babe Ruth, pointed into the stands BEFORE THE PITCH to show the pitcher where he was going to hit it.  He wasn’t showing up the pitcher?  Specifically with Gomez and Puig, that’s where this starts and ends, no?  Isn’t it because they “show off”?  They stand to admire a hit a little too long instead of running the bases and petty things like that, isn’t that it?

If what Gomez did against the Pirates is in the wrong, then some of baseball’s greatest moments can be put under the same microscope and every single criticism of Gomez can be applied to these legendary moments.  Surely Kirk Gibson  pumping his fist rounding first was worse than Gomez watching the ball fly a little too long and flipping his bat a little too flipp-y.  How about Carlton Fisk  waving and begging the ball to be fair?  Shouldn’t he have just put his head down and ran the bases? 

Furthermore, was it not “respect for the game” that was (one of the reasons) used as justification for keeping Jackie Robinson and other Negro Leaguers out of baseball?

Come to think of it:  As noted above, Ruth, Gibson, Fisk, and Cobb were all guilty of “disrespecting the game” in a far greater manner than Puig or Gomez; that is, if Puig/Gomez is where you’re setting the standard.  Doesn’t seem the slightest bit odd that (with the possible exception of Bryce Harper) every player that gets hit with “not playing the right way” is a player of a minority ethnicity?  Why’s that?  It’s also always white players that take exception to these guys.  Last year, the Atlanta Braves were the gate-keepers of Baseball Morality.  They (Brian McCann, Freddie Freeman, ect.) took issue with the actions of Gomez and Jose Fernandez for showing them up after getting hits. How come Brian McCann gets to be Baseball Policeman?  Who had the problem with Gomez in Pittsburgh?  Gerrit Cole.

I'm not saying there's anything directly racist going on here, but I am saying there's a culture clash between ways of playing the game, and to say one way is better than the other kinda makes it racist in a round-about way.

There’s obviously a line to be drawn somewhere.  I think we can all agree that the Black Sox and Pete Rose disrespected the game by throwing games or betting on games which they managed.  But to classify showing emotion on the field as “disrespecting the game” is just stupid.  It doesn’t hold any water, and never has.  Anybody who says Gomez/Puig “disrespect the game” either knows nothing about baseball history or is under the illusion that players of baseball past were somehow more moral than today’s players – which is utter nonsense.

If you wanna talk about disrespecting the game, let’s go back to the creation of baseball.  According to Ken Burns’ Baseball documentaries, upon the creation of one of the first organized baseball leagues (the National Association of Baseball Players), the first three rules of the game were:

      1) An umpire was given authority to call balls and strikes
      2) No player was allowed to catch the ball in his cap
      3) Above all, baseball was to remain an amateur game; no player was ever no be paid to play

So if we start at the beginning, getting paid to play was “disrespecting the game.”  That waved bye-bye long ago. 

One thing that irks me with this whole thing is that we’re criticizing a player for showing emotion – for not playing as if they’re robots – and for not acting like “they’ve been there before.”  I don’t know about you, but if I were able to hit a home run in a Major League Baseball game, I’d like to think it’d be as fun the 500th time as it was the first time.  So what the hell is that argument all about?  The other thing is that, if you were to watch a game with these people who preach “act like you’ve been there before,” I’d bet most of them would get as emotional watching their favorite team play as anybody.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe my sports fandom gives me carte blanche to criticize players for things I myself could never, and would never live up to.

All this is to say:  If you’re a big enough fan of baseball, or sports for that matter, and I were a magic genie that granted your wish to play one professional game for your favorite team, I’d bet you would play that one game the same way Carlos Gomez or Yasiel Puig play every game.