It’s funny how my sports allegiances change throughout the years. There was a time when I was all aboard the Red Sox bandwagon, and was clinging on every at-bat and pitch in the 2004 playoffs. I used to detest the Houston Astros because they kept knocking the Braves out of the playoffs, and Roger Clemens pitched for them, but now I don’t have any gripe with them at all. There was once a time where I loathed the Chicago Cubs, and rooted vehemently for the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series. One thing, however I don’t think stands much chance at changing, and that’s that I still detest the San Francisco Giants.
However, I’m warming up to the Cubs lately. Now, I’ll still be pulling for the Braves, ironically, since this is the last year at Turner Field, but the reality is that they’re just as likely to lose 90, and hopefully 100+ this season, no matter how much I may or may not want them to do well when I go to see them. And so since it’s actually nice to have a team to pull for that actually has a chance at doing well, I think if there’s any team out there that I might root for on the side, it might just be the Cubs.
If for any reason(s) at all, it’s because they’ve got a team that I kind of respect for how they came to where they are now, through savvy drafting and player development, they have a manager that I respect as a near-legendary manager of human beings in Joe Maddon, and they made one of the biggest splashes of free agency by signing former Brave, Jason Heyward, whom I still can say, am a fan of.
But there’s one guy on the Cubs that I’m a bigger fan of, and that’s David Ross, who had recently announced that 2016 will (probably) be his last year.
Most people haven’t heard of David Ross, especially outside of places like LA, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Boston or Chicago, all places where David Ross had played for. But just about anyone who knows of David Ross, pretty much likes David Ross.
He’s never been a guy that’s been as good as a Hall of Famer, he’s never hit .300 in a season, and only once has he ever hit more than 20 home runs in a season. Most of his career, he’s been pegged as a backup catcher, and has been employed as such, but there’s very much a reason why a guy with a lifetime .228 batting average has been able to stay employed for over 14 seasons.
Simply put, David Ross is a glue guy, a term used to describe a guy that, regardless of his actual sporting talent, is an individual who has the innate ability to bring his team together, become more cohesive and productive, and basically make those around him better. Whether it’s through being the guy that organizes extracurricular activities amongst teammates, to the guy that acts as an auxiliary coach or mentor to those younger than him, David Ross has been a guy that’s been very well known to be the guy that simply makes everyone around him better.
I was introduced to David Ross when he signed with the Braves in 2009, to be the backup catcher to then All-Star, Brian McCann. Prior to this, the Braves had endured nearly five years of a black hole at the backup catcher position, with guys like Corky Miller, Todd Pratt and Brayan Peña contributed basically nothing every fifth day or whenever McCann was on the disabled list. David Ross immediately absolved all mediocrity prior to him with reliable production , and most notably this warm and outgoing personality that made everyone from his teammates to casual and diehard Braves fans like him. In 2010, when I was still writing for Talking Chop, I appropriately described him as basically, the best backup catcher in all of the Major Leagues.
The Braves got extremely lucky in 2011, when Ross decided that he liked Atlanta, and re-signed with the team for two more years, despite the fact that he basically could have gotten a job anywhere else he might have wanted, because not lost to the rest of the baseball world was this tremendous glue guy that was actually not a half-bad backup catcher. But the Braves were the lucky recipients of David Ross’s services, and he gave the Braves one fantastic moment in his final game with the team, being the home run in the otherwise abysmal atrocity known to Braves fans as the 2012 National League Wild Card game.
I was happy for David Ross, when he won a World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2013, and I know Jonny Gomes, also a reputable glue guy, gets a tremendous amount of credit for the beard revolution that the whole team embarked on en route to a championship, but I would wager a good bit of money that behind the scenes, David Ross probably had a tremendously equal if not larger part in bringing that magical Red Sox team together as well.
In spite of my waning interest in baseball in more recent years, it was not lost on me when news of David Ross going to the Cubs broke in 2015. With the Cubs organization coming to shape, helmed by Theo Epstein, the Zack Morris-lookalike that basically resurrected the Red Sox organization, and the acquisition of Zen-master Joe Maddon, the addition of the alpha glue guy in David Ross all but assured that the Cubs would be a team on the rise.
While the Braves were losing 90+ games, the Cubs went on to win 90+ games and have a fantastic season where they vanquished their arch-rival St. Louis Cardinals, before ultimately and unfortunately getting swept by the Mets in the NLCS. And to no surprise, David Ross spent the 2015 campaign basically being David Ross, which is to say that he did absolutely all of the little things, from raising team morale by emergency pitching in a blowout loss*, to being the auxiliary coach that was a big brother and mentor to the army of young super talents on the Cubs.
*it should be worth mentioning that despite being a career .228 hitter, David Ross’s ERA is a sparkling 0.00 (two perfect innings pitched over two appearances)
When ESPN managed to actually get their noses out of the NFL’s rectum and actually write something about baseball, they put together this particularly fantastic article that encapsulated everything that’s right about David Ross, and precisely why the Cubs held such high regard for a backup catcher that was hitting below the Mendoza Line throughout the year. I loved this article so much, I actually bookmarked it on my work computer.
Which brings us back to the present, where David Ross has announced that 2016 will (probably) be his last, and the Cubs are a legitimate favorite to potentially win the World Series. Now a guy like David Ross probably isn’t going to get standing ovations and gifts from every single team, like guys like Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera did in their final seasons, but I actually do expect the Braves to give a little bit of love towards Ross when the Cubs make their trip to Atlanta at some point this year.
But it’s okay, because his teammates have already begun showing David Ross the love and respect he deserves, like getting him an automated caddy to carry his gear bags, and a Rascal because he is old and walking so much is difficult. But more seriously, it goes to show how much guys like David Ross means to other players, like when Jason Heyward, who debuted with the Braves while Ross was already there, and now reunited with Ross on the Cubs, decided that he was going to personally upgrade every single hotel room to a suite for Ross in 2016, as a sign of gratitude and respect.
Now I can’t promise that I’m going to go all gung-ho about watching baseball again this season, but I do plan on actually going to a few more baseball games this season, since this is Turner Field’s last season. Perhaps I should go when the Cubs are in town as well, so I can possibly see an awesome guy like David Ross again, but aside from the Braves, I think it’s a safe bet that I’d be rooting for David Ross, and the Cubs by proxy.
