Yes, regular readers of the blog, this is my third consecutive post about the great game of baseball. I am forced to listen to this country fawn all over hockey for eight months a year, so I think I deserve to talk ball whenever I want.
I watched the New York Yankees play the Kansas City Royals last night (kudos to Sportsnet to broadcasting different MLB games pretty much every night. It’s the next best thing to actually paying for an Extra Innings package).
New York first baseman, Mark Teixera, came to the plate in the early innings and I saw an interesting graphic about the switch hitter. He’s only hitting .260 at this point in the season, but .500 in his past seven games and over .380 for the month of July. That led the announcers to happily discuss that ‘Tex’ is heating up and what it means for the Yankees offence for the rest of the year.
Also, they talked about how Teixera always seems to struggle early in the season, but heats up along with the weather. They called him a ‘notoriously slow starter.’ For some insane reason, no one has a problem with this.
Well I do.
In what other profession are you allowed to start your day/week with very low levels of productivity with the caveat that you will ‘eventually come around’ and start producing to your potential?
This reputation has followed Teixera throughout his entire career. He plays terribly in April and May, but is terrific for the rest of the season. If I’m an owner, why would I want to pay a guy millions of dollars a year for great performances in only 75% of the games? Shouldn’t he only get 75% of his salary?
That would be like an office worker going into his job on Monday, sitting on his ass doing nothing until Wednesday morning and then start working all the way till end of day Friday. Would that worker be employed very long? Doubtful.
The excuses given for Teixera are that he needs time to ‘find his swing.’ Isn’t that the point of spring training? Or maybe start working out in January so you have the ability to play five innings without being winded in early March.
A few years ago, Vernon Wells had an uncharacteristically hot start and it was all apparently due to his commitment to his offseason training and he was applauded for that. Seriously? A professional athlete who works out in the offseason deserves our praise? I would think that should be expected; it’s not like these guys have winter jobs to help make ends meet. What else do they have to do?
Rasheed Wallace took the whole ‘playing into shape’ idea to a new level with the Boston Celtics this season. He was fat and terrible until the playoffs started. He literally took the entire regular season to get himself up to par. Sheed managed to have both a slow start and a slow finish.
He kept telling the media that he would ready to go once the playoffs rolled around? That would be commendable if he wasn’t making millions of dollars turning the regular season into an extended training camp.
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