A bad trend of disparaging rookies Remember when rookies acted like rookies? Or when they were treated as such? It has never been harder to be a first-year player in professional sports than it is now, with the Information Age and instant analysis giving projections on how a person’s career will pan out before they’ve finished their first season. There are perks, with contracts being what they are. St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford might be done for the year, but he’s got plenty of that $50 million contract leftover that he signed upon entering the NFL. But the scrutiny that players go through is even worse. I wrote about Yasiel Puig this past summer and how we as fans need to take our time before anointing him the next great thing in baseball. Now I find myself coming to the defense of the 22-year-old Cuban defector because I don’t understand the cries coming from the old timers that constantly hold baseball back. The World Series begins tonight and there’s going to be lots of excitement in the stands and in living rooms all across America. But there better not be any excitement in those dugouts. For you see, the Winter Class shouldn’t be about players celebrating big moments and showing their enthusiasm for the game. Baseball players should walk around like robots, performing their tasks with as little emotion as possible. Or so that’s what we’re led to believe after the air strike of insults that Puig was bombarded with after the L.A. Dodgers were eliminated in the National League Championship Series by the St. Louis Cardinals. Puig has been pinned as a guy “who doesn’t get it,” that’s self-centered and only worried about himself. This all came to a head during Game 3 of the NLCS when Puig raised his arms in victory, watching a fourth inning fly ball heads toward right field. He thought the ball was going to clear the wall, but when he realized it wasn’t getting out, he took off around the bases. He managed to get an RBI triple, standing up, even though he gave the outfielder a five-second head start, essentially. Was this kind of stupid? Yeah, considering it would have been cool to see if Puig could have gotten an inside-the-park homerun, but even after the Dodgers got the win, columnists and bloggers everywhere ripped Puig for celebrating too early. Isn’t this guy a rookie? Aren’t they allowed to make mistakes? Why was it wrong for him to clap his hands in celebration after he made it to third? It’s totally hypocritical, considering no one ripped Shane Victorino for pumping his fists after hitting a grand slam in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series to help the Boston Red Sox reach the World Series for the third time this century. Victorino, by the way, acted exactly the way you’re supposed to when you notch a huge hit like that. The same thing happened a week before on Oct. 8, when San Jose Shark Tomas Hertl scored four games in only his third game of his career. This 19-year-old from the Czech Republic wowed all of America, and his mother who was in attendance for the game, with a hat trick before scoring a nasty goal between his legs to give his team a 9-2 victory over the New York Rangers. After the game, some analysts thought he was rubbing salt in the wounds of the Rangers, although they had no problem with his fourth goal. Some thought he should “act like he’s been there before.” He’s a rookie, remember? He’s not even old enough to legally drink in our country. He’s never been there before. It’s absurd the standard we hold rookies to sometimes, but maybe they’ve brought that on themselves — considering the way first-year players like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III have all performed recently. Believe it or not, there was a time when rookies sat on the bench most of their first year and learned the game at the pro level. Not any more. You better be able to deliver early or find yourself in early retirement. But remember, they are just rookies, for goodness sake.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:12:55 +0000
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