What to Pack (One Sixty-Two: Day 114)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Fourteen: Pat Burrell, San Francisco Giants

My mother-in-law has taken some flack throughout the years for her packing habits. Her vacation prep consists of folding up half of her wardrobe and stashing it in her minivan. She’s been known to pack her car full of plastic storage bins – the kind normally used for holiday ornaments – with loads of shirts, pants and enough shoes for a small village inside those bins. This year, her daughters counted 21 pairs of Capris packed for a 14-day vacation.

My wife and I joke with her mom about this, but a closer look at our own suitcases shows that we’ve got our own issues with overpacking. We typically stash twice as many clothes as we need in our duffel bags, and we never seem to change our ways, even as we find ourselves lifting piles of untouched clothing from our bags back into the dresser.

It’s human nature to want to make sure you’ve got enough for a trip, even if that means overpreparing. Of course, it’s also human nature to forget things. We may pack six more sweaters than we need, yet forget to bring along our toothbrush in the process. Even with long checklists, we still find it hard to pack perfectly.

There can be packing problems in sports, too. A team bent on winning at all costs can stock up so much talent that the club loses the critical element of team chemistry along the way. The 1994 North Carolina men’s basketball team was one of the most talented college basketball teams in recent memory, but the club had so many go-to guys on the court that players struggled to figure out their roles; in turn, the team was upset early in that year’s NCAA Tournament. The 2005 New York Yankees had more home-run hitters than most championship teams, but the Bronx Bombers didn’t have enough table-setters to get on base for the power hitters and do the little things that every strong offense needs. As a result, the Yankees lost in the first round of that year’s playoffs.

This year’s San Francisco Giants have been trying to add some offense in recent weeks to supplement their excellent pitching and remain in the National League West divisional race. But in trying to do this, the Giants have placed right-handed sluggers Pat Burrell and Jose Guillen in the corner outfield spots. While these guys might help the Giants score some runs, they could actually cost more runs than they produce because of their defensive deficiencies. ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer pointed out that Burrell and Guillen are two of the worst defensive outfielders in the game. In a closely-matched division, run-prevention becomes at least as important as run-scoring.

In trying to bolster their hitting, the Giants may have overpacked, and forgotten something essential along the way. If so, they’ll find their season ending by late September. By that time, the San Francisco players will have a lot of time available for vacations. I would just suggest that if they do go away, they avoid those plastic storage bins. You’ve got to pack light eventually.