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 Seventy-Eight: Roy Oswalt, Houston Astros
“I’m going to take my talents to South Beach,” LeBron James said. “I think it will give me the best opportunity to win, and win for multiple years.”
For a man with all the money he could ever need, the focus turns to winning. So as the fans in Cleveland fume, and some even turn to burning his No. 23 jersey, James leaves his hometown for the sunny skies of Miami, and the opportunity to play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh under the tutelage of Pat Riley. It’s a winning combination, one that will likely bring these men some NBA titles.
Ho-hum. The rich get richer – again. What’s new?
We see it in sports all the time – players who’ve made more money than most of us could ever dream of choose a franchise with a tradition of winning over another that lacks said tradition. They search for the best chance to claim a title, and leave their old team without much hope. LeBron James did this last night, but he’s not the first. Nor will he be the last.
Roy Oswalt is 32 years old, and he’s in his 10th season pitching for the Houston Astros organization that drafted him. Oswalt has won 143 games for the Astros, one shy of the franchise record for career wins. Oswalt’s right arm helped lead Houston to its only World Series appearance in 2005, and to playoff appearances in ’04 and ‘01. But in 2010, the Astros are well on their way to their third losing season in the past four years. And Oswalt, who has earned approximately $75 million during his 10 years in Houston, is ready to leave the Astros behind.
It happens every year. Oswalt won’t be the only big-name baseball player traded this month – Seattle Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee could be traded as soon as today. But like LeBron James, who played seven seasons with the Cavaliers team that drafted him, Oswalt wants to win now. That means leaving behind the franchise that had been his home.
So if you’ve got a No. 44 Astros jersey, wear it today. Tomorrow, it might be out of date. Someday, after he retires, the Astros might bring Oswalt back and retire that number. But for now, in July of 2010, that number is about to be exchanged for Double-A prospects.
Oswalt wants to win. If he could shoot from the outside, the Miami Heat would love to have him. But he’ll settle instead for a pennant race. In a new town. It’s kind of like shopping in a mall – you feel no connection to the place, and there’s nothing there that feels like home. But you get what you want, and you go home with stuff.
Everyone wins, in a way. Except that no one establishes roots. And when there are no roots – when you don’t hang with a place long enough to live through the ups, downs and everything in between – it’s hard for you to ever become what the greatest of our athletes and coaches have been called:
A legend.
Showing posts with label Miami Heat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miami Heat. Show all posts
Friday, July 9, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
The Underappreciated Man: Tweet All About It (One Sixty-Two: Day 77)
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 Seventy-Seven: Michael Young, Texas Rangers
This evening, we received news that Nick Swisher had been voted to the American League All-Star team in the increasingly popular fan vote to determine the final member of each league’s team. Swisher, who has a wildly popular Twitter account, spent part of this week actively promoting his cause via tweets. He edged out Boston’s Kevin Youkilis, who received a heavy dose of support from Red Sox Nation.
A little while later, ESPN broadcast the most-hyped free-agent signing announcement in the history of the world, in which LeBron James sat before Jim Gray, a group of youngsters and a VitaminWater vending machine to announce that he’ll be playing pro basketball for the Miami Heat this fall. LeBron’s announcement was broadcast via a one-hour special, which ESPN titled “The Decision.”
It was a day for self-promotion in sports. But what day isn’t? The potent combination of sports and electronic media in the 21st century has placed individual stars under the microscope more than ever before. Swisher and James, to their credit, seemed to be trying to maintain some humility in discussing their triumphs. But try as they may, they could not erase the fact that each had helped turn an event into a media frenzy.
Michael Young doesn’t do media frenzies. The Texas Rangers third baseman finished fourth in the American League fan vote, leaving him out of the midsummer classic for the first time since 2003. The Rangers certainly encouraged their fans to vote for Young. But the 33-year-old did not speak out on his own behalf.
And if anyone had a right to do so, it was this guy. No active major-league player has been as clutch in All-Star play as Michael Young, as he drove in the game-winning runs in both the 2006 and 2008 All-Star games. Young is a six-time All-Star, who at age 33 has more than 1,700 hits and a .302 career batting average. He rarely misses a game for Texas, and has agreed twice in his career to change positions when the Rangers asked. In 2004, he moved from second base to shortstop to accommodate Texas’s acquisition of Alfonso Soriano. Last year, months after winning a Gold Glove at shortstop, Young moved over to third to make room for the younger Elvis Andrus.
Humility may be hard to find in sports these days. But over in Arlington, Texas, the first-place Rangers have a healthy dose of it at third base. Michael Young may be the most underappreciated player of his generation. But he won’t tell you that. He won’t tweet it, either. Sometimes, just knowing for yourself is good enough.
Day Seventy-Seven: Michael Young, Texas Rangers
This evening, we received news that Nick Swisher had been voted to the American League All-Star team in the increasingly popular fan vote to determine the final member of each league’s team. Swisher, who has a wildly popular Twitter account, spent part of this week actively promoting his cause via tweets. He edged out Boston’s Kevin Youkilis, who received a heavy dose of support from Red Sox Nation.
A little while later, ESPN broadcast the most-hyped free-agent signing announcement in the history of the world, in which LeBron James sat before Jim Gray, a group of youngsters and a VitaminWater vending machine to announce that he’ll be playing pro basketball for the Miami Heat this fall. LeBron’s announcement was broadcast via a one-hour special, which ESPN titled “The Decision.”
It was a day for self-promotion in sports. But what day isn’t? The potent combination of sports and electronic media in the 21st century has placed individual stars under the microscope more than ever before. Swisher and James, to their credit, seemed to be trying to maintain some humility in discussing their triumphs. But try as they may, they could not erase the fact that each had helped turn an event into a media frenzy.
Michael Young doesn’t do media frenzies. The Texas Rangers third baseman finished fourth in the American League fan vote, leaving him out of the midsummer classic for the first time since 2003. The Rangers certainly encouraged their fans to vote for Young. But the 33-year-old did not speak out on his own behalf.
And if anyone had a right to do so, it was this guy. No active major-league player has been as clutch in All-Star play as Michael Young, as he drove in the game-winning runs in both the 2006 and 2008 All-Star games. Young is a six-time All-Star, who at age 33 has more than 1,700 hits and a .302 career batting average. He rarely misses a game for Texas, and has agreed twice in his career to change positions when the Rangers asked. In 2004, he moved from second base to shortstop to accommodate Texas’s acquisition of Alfonso Soriano. Last year, months after winning a Gold Glove at shortstop, Young moved over to third to make room for the younger Elvis Andrus.
Humility may be hard to find in sports these days. But over in Arlington, Texas, the first-place Rangers have a healthy dose of it at third base. Michael Young may be the most underappreciated player of his generation. But he won’t tell you that. He won’t tweet it, either. Sometimes, just knowing for yourself is good enough.
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