As I told you last night, I’m reading up on all the players on the Giants in preparation for the World Series. Tonight I’d been on the computer for about two hours and was looking at relief pitcher Jeremy Affeldts blog. jeremyaffeldt.wordpress/ There was a video of him talking. It was two minutes long. I didn’t feel like watching it. I thought I already knew enough about him. Plus I was tired. But something compelled me to watch. And I’m glad I did. In fact afterword I thought, “I’ve got to share this.” If you’re not familiar with Jeremy Affeldt, he’s the guy who talks to himself on the mound while he’s pitching. They always show tight shots of him and I always think, “I wish I could read lips.” He’s also the guy who was accidentally overpaid by the Giants. They gave him an extra $500,000. Legally he could have kept it. But he said there was no way he could do that: I talked to Bobby (Assistant GM Bobby Evans) the next day and said, I cant take that money. I wont sleep well at night knowing I took that money because every time I open my paycheck Ill know its not right. Now back to the video. It’s just Jeremy Affeldt talking to the camera about what’s important to him. And I was touched by some of the things he said, especially this: “I was getting bored with the baseball world in the sense of… is this it?? I love what I do. But entertaining for me… if that’s all it is.. if I don’t make an impact on everybody around me… by what I do for a living.. I was starting to feel shallow as a major league athlete.” Thats why Affeldt helped start an organization called “Not For Sale”, to fight human trafficking. Its just one of many causes he works for outside of baseball. On the video Affeldt also shows the tattoo on his forearm. It says: “No Man Shall Live For Himself.” And it sounds like that’s the kind of guy he is. Affeldt says: “I want my life to mean something. I don’t want to be known for what I do on the field. I want to be known for what I do off the field.” And he ends the video by saying this: “Thank you for your help and I encourage you to continue fighting for humanity.” Thats pretty impressive to me. I was a big fan of Jeremy Affeldt before I saw this video. Now I’m an even bigger fan. Go Giants.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 05:07:02 +0000
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