Playing through the pain

The start of every baseball season brings new hope, nostalgia, and a plethora of injury reports. This season's no different; we're not even through the first week and we've already seen several key players go down for various injuries. Pedro Martinez (no surprise there) has a problem with his hamstring. Gary Sheffield has a torn tendon in his right ring finger; though he will remain off the DL, he'll be in a splint for about six weeks. Braves' pitcher Mike Hampton managed to mess up his left pectoral muscle while warming up.  And, before he even reported to spring training, perennial disabled-list resident A.J. Burnett somehow managed to catch his right index finger in a car door and tear his nail.  In his defense, this particular can be a real problem for a pitcher, as it cases problems gripping the ball.  He started throwing his curve in March, but we'll have to wait and see whether or not this will cause problems.  

It's tempting to use the way players deal with injuries as a quick way of judging their commitment to the team. The willingness of players to “play through the pain" is easily seen as a signifier of an athlete’s moral fiber, commitment to the concept of team before self, and, for male athletes, a symbol of “manliness.” In the 1990s movie The Program James Caan as a college football coach, puts it bluntly to a young player who has just been tackled and is now lying on the ground:

Coach: (standing over player) Are you hurt or injured?
Player: (gasping)What’s the difference?
Coach: Well, if you’re hurt, you can play. If you’re injured, you can’t.
Player: I guess I’m hurt.
Coach: Okay. Then get up.

Certainly The Program is filled with every possible sports cliché that could be crammed into 112 minutes of film. But last year we heard almost the exact same thing from Toronto Blue Jays general manager J.P. Riccardi, who said of A.J. Burnett in a radio interview that at some point Burnett would have to “just maybe pitch through some pain or realize the difference between being hurt and really being hurt.” Granted at the time Riccardi was annoyed and frustrated at yet another DL-stint for Burnett. But the language is telling. Suck it up and deal with the pain.

Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, was well known for refusing to tolerate complaining or even treatment of his players’ “little hurts.” Lombardi himself, however, didn’t follow his own advice. In his book When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, David Maraniss pointed out that Lombardi would always see his trainers for things like hangnails, upset stomach, or headaches – precisely what he would not tolerate in his players. Maraniss argues that a “characteristic of leaders” is an effort to “confront their own weaknesses indirectly, by working to eliminate them in others” (221). Lombardi’s Packers, of course, would go on to win three straight NFL championships as well as the first two Super Bowls, so perhaps he had something there.

Maraniss’ point about “confronting…weaknesses indirectly” clearly applies to fans as well. As sports fans, we project onto athletes what we want to see in ourselves. We know that we’re expected to stay in shape and deal with both the mental and physical “little hurts” of life. This might help to explain how fans can dial a talk-radio show and savage a player who shows up to spring training a few pounds overweight, and then dial the pizza joint for a double-sausage and pepperoni pie. We can simultaneously be addicted as a nation to caffeine and over-the-counter painkillers, and get angry at the athlete who sets a "bad example" through his or her use of higher-powered medications.  Athletes provide a convenient outlet for expressing our frustration at our own failure to measure up to standards that are, for most of us, impossible to achieve.

Athletes themselves have trouble meeting our unrealistic expectations.  When Brett Favre gets his bust in Canton, I'm pretty sure they'll mention something about his starting every game for sixteen years.  I'm not sure they'll remind us that in 1996 he spent 46 days in rehab to beat an addiction to Vicodin that developed at least in part out of his desire to keep playing. Regardless of how the steroid controversy plays out, I doubt we'll be reminded that Roger Clemens admitted to “eating Vioxx like it was Skittles.” "Playing through the pain," for some athletes, requires a level of pharmaceutical assistance that muddies the godlike image baseball projects and we expect.

I certainly can't countenance abuse of either prescription drugs or performance-enhancing drugs, whatever those may be.  But I also can't ignore my own complicity in the culture of expectations surrounding professional athletes.  Part of my brain, the part I don't like to listen to very often, expects that hurting player to suck it up, take the pills, and get their butt on the field.  Plus, I'm up to my neck in those very habits of managing "little hurts" that plague America.  If I have a headache, I take aspirin. In my world coffee is a "performance-enhancing drug."  And I've been known, after work, to put my feet up and have a beer or two.  None of these things on their own constitute a huge issue, but added up they tell me I have to temper my criticism of the professional athlete who steps out on the field in order, essentially, to entertain me.

So I try neither to be too impressed by Sheffield’s willingness to play through the pain of his finger, nor too mad at yet another suspect injury in A.J. Burnett’s relatively short career. The Boys of Summer get injured both through their athletic endeavors and through idiotic accidents like slamming their finger in a car door. So do we. Here's hoping they can make it through the season without too much pain and through their eventual retirements without too many problems.

Spring Training Wrap-Up

Well, spring training is over, and we're now finally into the meat of the regular season (I only count the Japan Series games under protest).  Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm happy the regular season is here.  But I also think it's important to pay homage to spring training, its quirks, its meaningful moments, and its less-than-honorable ones.

So, in no particular order, here's a "Top 8" list of the more unique moments from the 2008 Spring Training.

1. Cardinals play their AA team.  Friday 3/28 saw the Cards make a visit to Springfield to play their AA club in front of a whopping crowd of 9,567.
2. Yankees play Virginia Tech.  A class act, made even classier by ensuring the game was played in Blacksburg.
3. Yanks sign Billy Crystal to a one-day contract.  He did work the count to 3-1...
4. Dodgers play the Colosseum.  About 120,000 came out to see a pretty fun show.
5. Dodgers and Padres play China. A long trip it was...
6. Red Sox and Oakland versus the Japan League.  The MLB teams managed to win their four exhibition games versus the Japanese league teams, but they weren't all easy.  Seems that pretty much every article contains at least one MLB player commenting on the noise level in the games.  Check out this link at MLB.com for coverage of the Sox' dust-up with the Hanshin Tigers.
7. The Yankees-Rays rumble.  How often do suspensions have to be handed out during Spring Training games?
8. Tommy Lasorda comes out of "retirement" to manage the Dodgers.  While Torre and Co. took the Dodgers to China for some sightseeing and baseball, the legend came out to manage a few games for the boys in blue.  Tommy's low-key style went over well, as in his first game back Lasorda got into it the umpire over a call.

Getting started

I didn’t grow up a baseball fan. I grew up to be a baseball fan.

My first introduction to fantasy baseball was through a work league. Its first year I, for some reason, was not involved. I vaguely remember receiving an invitation to participate, but shrugging it off, using one of the multitude of excuses in my life. I’m too busy. need to pay more attention to my family. The dog won’t like it. I don’t know enough about baseball.

That last one was probably the big one for me. I knew about baseball fans – I mean, serious baseball fans. The kind of people who grew up with a copy of The Baseball Encyclopedia in their house. They could quote statistics, tell you who played second base for the Dodgers despite being Yankee fans, and swing a bat with at least some degree of competence. I sort of knew what batting average meant, but I couldn’t name a member of the current Dodgers, and when I tried to actually play the game… well, let’s just say there my lack of competence truly showed itself. My father, whatever else he may have been, was not the sort of dad to take his son out back for a game of catch. I vaguely remember one day at summer camp, being herded onto the field with a group of other kids for a game. A bat placed into my hand, I swung three times, and the only thing I hit was the ground after swinging so hard at the third pitch I fell on my ass. Dusting the dirt off me as the other kids laughed, it was clear that baseball was not my sport. So when the option to participate in fantasy came, I didn’t step up. Not my thing.

And life went on. Yet after a while, I noticed that I was, like the proverbial kid on the bench, left out. My work colleagues were participating, and I knew that some of them knew even less about baseball than I did. Yet they were having a blast. Smack talk bounced around the lunch table. Trade offers of varying degrees of complexity were hinted at, informally offered, with various sweeteners (beer primary among them) thrown in. A trophy was created, displayed, and by the end of the season flaunted. Remember the ad on ESPN a few years ago with the guy drinking coffee out of his trophy? That might as well have been our office and our champion.

I wanted in. And even before the invites went out, I made it known I wanted in. Pick me.

My first draft day happened. It was, I learned, a 5x5 Yahoo league. I didn’t really know what that meant. There was a lot else I didn’t know, including most of the names on the draft board. I let the computer do the work for me.

I got my butt kicked. It may have had something to do with the fact that pitching staff was built around the highly touted Jose Contreras, who ended that 2004 season with a whopping 5.64 ERA. Halfway through the season, I was so far out of contention, I don’t really know why I kept playing. Except that, even when I was losing, I was having fun. I managed not to finish in last place. That dubious honor went to a colleague who, after drafting, forgot the password to her account and went on to forget about her team.

The next season was better. I learned more about strategy. I learned about the players, position scarcity, and why batting average is one of the least accurate reflections of player quality in use. I learned how to trade. I did better.

More than that, I came to love the game in general. XM Radio’s baseball coverage helped here. I found myself listening to games at night, choosing games as much for the coverage’s potential entertainment value (Bob Uecker) as the quality of the game. I spent a summer week in Cape Cod, watching college kids try to master the fickleness of the wood bat. I went to a few more live games than usual.

The next season, I won. More than that. I housed my competition, beating the second place team by 17 points., setting the league record for most points in a season. I was hooked.

Since then, fantasy sports has become, if not an obsession, at least a significant hobby. I won’t profess expertise – there are many, many people on the web who are experts in fantasy sports, and I’m not one of them. I’ve had some success – I finished my league in second last year, choking in the last two weeks after leading most of the season. I also won my first season of fantasy football, despite knowing almost nothing about fantasy football. Hence the title, “A Fantasy Fluke.” I can talk a bit about why I’ve done well, but that doesn’t mean I can explain it – or repeat it. So if you’ve come here looking for how-to-win strategies, you are in the wrong place.

What I intend to do here is write about fantasy baseball from my own perspective. How it impacts my life, what my team is doing. I’ll probably write about the fantasy industry as well, which generated around $1.5 billion in revenue in 2005. I hope you enjoy.

Next entry, I’ll write about my team this year. We just drafted last night, and I am not a happy camper.