One of the most common gripes in Major League Baseball – and all professional sports really – is that the players only care about money. It comes up every time a player spurns their “hometown” team for a bigger, better offer or when a club doles out hundreds of millions on a big free-agent contract and the player they just signed talks about why this was the best fit.
It’s about the money!, fans yell, reporters think and television pundits scream.
But when it’s not about the money, when we watch players —the best players in the world— play mostly for pride and the honor of wearing their country across their chest? We get mad at that, too.
When Mets closer
Edwin Díaz joined a pile of exuberant Puerto Rican players celebrating like Little Leaguers after beating a behemoth Dominican Republic team, the reaction among a subset of people when Díaz suffered what
Mets GM Billy Eppler would announce on Thursday as a full patellar tendon tear was outrage.
Why is Díaz playing in the World Baseball Classic when the Mets are paying him millions of dollars? The WBC doesn’t matter, winning the World Series does. How can teams allow their players to do this?
To do what exactly?
Play baseball?
Jump?
Exist?
Guys have gone on the injured list during
MLB’s regular season for sneezing, using a tanning bed and getting a massage, and that’s just the start of some of the more bizarre injuries. Should teams get full-time bodyguards for players since guys have gotten hurt just walking and tripping on multiple occasions? Where’s the outrage for the
Dodgers, who allowed shortstop
Gavin Lux to run the bases in a meaningless spring game? How dare they? Lux tore his ACL and is out for the season. Don’t get me wrong: it’s terrible for the Dodgers and the sport. But most people heard about it, shrugged and went about their day. I didn’t see anyone call for disbanding the Cactus League. When pitcher
Marcus Stroman tore his ACL in 2015 fielding a bunt in spring training, I didn’t see people yelling pitchers should stop practicing fielding in meaningless practices.
Díaz didn’t injure himself because he was playing in win-or-go-home games in the WBC. He didn’t run out to the playoff-sized crowd at LoanDepot Park in Miami, rear back and try to throw harder than ever before and then clutch his arm. He didn’t pitch four innings to close out the game for Puerto Rico. His injury — like Lux and Stroman and hundreds of others— was a freak thing, a result of some big humans jumping up and down on top of each other on unpredictable terrain in a celebration.
Well, celebrations don’t happen in spring training! Except they do. One team even practiced winning the World Series and jumping up on top of each other to celebrate. That team? The New York Mets.
If the WBC was truly a meaningless tournament, none of these guys would want to play in it.
Did you see
Francisco Lindor’s
inside-the-park home run? How about Mike Trout, who
told Ken Rosenthal he’s having the time of his life? Trout signed up to play after
watching Adam Jones’ terrific catch six years ago.
Bryce Harper told reporters he was excited to play before he was even asked. (Harper is rehabbing back from Tommy John surgery instead.)
These guys are playing because they love the game and love the competition. This might be the purest form of baseball you’ll ever see. Teams are celebrating big hits and plays like they’re in Game 7 of the World Series. There’s a lot less money at stake. The winning WBC team will walk away with $3 million, which after being split with the home federation, translates into a roughly $50,000 payday for each player on a 30-man roster. To put that in perspective, last year’s World Series playoff shares were worth $516,347. An extra $50,000 dollars for the trophy? Guys can get that for making the All-Star Game. Trout’s contract is worth more than $426 million. Lindor is at $341 million. Dìaz signed for five years and $102 million. Do you really think Puerto’s Rico’s animated celebration Wednesday was about a chance to potentially make another 50 grand rather than a small island upsetting a powerhouse Dominican team picked by most pundits to win it all?
The Mets and their fans have every right to be upset or disappointed. Losing their closer to an injury with an expected eight-month recovery time stinks for a team that has World Series aspirations. But let’s not act like they, or any other big-league team, has figured out a surefire way to keep these guys healthy all spring. Díaz could have injured his knee running on a back field or lifting after a spring outing. No one batted an eye when
Padres starter
Joe Musgrove dropped a weight on his toe earlier this spring. As far as I know, all 30 teams continue to strength train.
The WBC, the first tournament since 2017 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been electric. The games have been well-attended and well-watched. South Korea versus Japan had more than 62 million worldwide viewers. The most-watched World Series game ever in the U.S.
drew 54 million U.S. viewers – in 1980. Try to watch a spring game with a fraction of the fervor as Wednesday’s Puerto Rico-Dominican Republic matchup. You can’t. The tournament has shown a rarely-seen side of some of the game’s best players. It’s proof that, at the heart of it all, love of the game and pride in your country matters.
The sport is trying to grow, to get more popular and to showcase its stars on a global stage. Perhaps it will inspire the next Edwin Díaz, Francisco Lindor or
Shohei Ohtani to pick up a glove. To say the WBC should be disbanded or MLB players should be barred from playing in it is shortsighted. And blaming the tournament for Díaz’s injury is too.
