The Athletic (paywall’d): MLB players complain about how hard their lives are because they have to work all summers
Honestly, I didn’t intend on actually reading the article, because the quotes in a teaser post were all I really needed to get all hot and triggered and ready to lay blast onto a bunch of overpaid professional athlete man-babies. But I clicked the link in order to get the URL to link to, and must’ve gotten lucky or something because the paywall didn’t come up before I could copy the whole article, paste it into a document and actually read it after all because fuck paywalls.
But the TL;DR of the whole thing was apparently an anonymous (of course) poll went out to all MLB players and apparently the query of what the biggest misconception about the lifestyles of baseball players was a hot button topic, because it spawned this entire snowball rolling downhill to where it became an article, and snarky broggers like me use it as fodder to air out my own grievances with the wealthy complaining about first-world problems.
More than 130 anonymous (of course) players basically were quoted with some absolutely asinine and tone-deaf lines about how hard their lives are, despite the fact that the league minimum this season is $760K. And almost every one of these quotes is easily rebuttable and can chalk up to the fact that some privileged millionaire is complaining about things that most anyone that wasn’t a professional athlete would gladly switch places with in order to just get a taste of.
And for the sake of my own amusement, I’m going to take guesses and switch in names of all these anonymous baseball players, because frankly it’s probably not that difficult or too far off to identify who’s been saying some of these idiotic quotes.
Our life is awesome, but it’s not as easy as people think it is,” one National League pitcher Zack Wheeler of the Phillies said. “I don’t know if fans realize that when we say we spend more time with our teammates than our families, we’re not exaggerating. It’s not even close. That’s why I say if you want to be a good dad, a good husband, it’s not easy.”
As both a husband and a dad, I’ll admit there are times in which I’ve felt the want for some general freedom from any sort of attachments. From what I’ve gathered from all sorts of professional athlete autobiographies I’ve read in my life, I’m sure a lot of pro athletes on the daily probably aren’t complaining about the general nature of getting to be alone and unattached when they’re on the road for 3-4 months of a season.
Frankly, I bet the underlying message between Wheeler’s remarks is the fact that it’s hard for him to be a husband and dad when he’s home, because he’s all used to being among bros and the team and struggles to turn it off when he’s actually home. And if that’s the case, that’s more a matter of his maturity and priorities than it is baseball being hard
Added another National League pitcher Blake Snell of the Dodgers, “I haven’t seen my mom on her birthday in 17 years. Little things like that that matter to me. People are like, ‘Yeah, but you’re getting paid, you’re getting treated great.’ . . . I’ve missed so many things for so many years, even before pro ball. Like, I couldn’t go to my prom because I had a baseball tourney, you know? It’s just little sacrifices you make over the years that you never get back.”
I would wager money that this actually was Blake Snell who said this, because this reads as exactly the weak type of argument that he’d make because he’s a grub that grubs for money and has made a career of trying to do the absolute least amount of work as possible while getting paid like a rockstar. Frankly, the man has had a genius of career of seemingly grasping the what-have-you-done-for-me-now nature of salary negotiating leveraging, the way he’s turned the dial up only when it could impact his future earning, and there’s almost nobody who seems to hate baseball but wants to get paid like a baseball player than Snell.
I’m sure Balakey’s mom isn’t sweating the 17 years of birthdays, not getting to see her son, while she’s living in an extravagant home with a luxury car, and has no bills or responsibilities to worry about, all bought and paid for by her son’s arm. And citing not being able to go to the prom is about the softest thing I’ve ever read, because honestly if I could go back in time, I’d rather have not gone to my prom, and pocketed the $500 worth of expenses I sunk into the whole pointless exercise.
Added an American League pitcher Max Scherzer of the Blue Jays, currently on the injured list, “People don’t fully understand the travel. Getting in late at night and going on short rest. Playing at night. Playing 162 games. I don’t think people fully see everything that goes into that, and how it affects your body towards the middle to the end of the year.”
I’d also wager money that this was actually Max Scherzer who said this, because there’s no roster in baseball that might actually have a leg to stand on than the Toronto Blue Jays, the lone franchise in a different country. Lots of people have been made aware of the added time Jays players have to endure going back and forth through customs when they go from home than on the road and back.
Plus, Scherzer is old and at the stage of his career where he’s determined to farm as much gold as possible while doing the least amount of work, which is why he’s basically been on the injured list all year long, citing a boo-boo on his pitching hand’s thumb. And old people don’t like doing things at night, like driving, or his responsibility of hurling a baseball, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular quote actually came from Scherzer himself.
The strain that baseball puts on relationships with friends and family also came up often among our respondents. The schedule forces players to miss milestones. “Can’t go to any weddings ever,” one pitcher Mike Clevenger of the White Sox said.
Clevenger absolutely is the type of bro, who despite being an MLB player making MLB money, still loves his high school life, his high school friends, and would absolutely jeopardize his career in order to go to a rager with his high school crew. But somewhere in his family, probably one of his parents has managed to keep him committed enough to his job in order to keep getting paid, but not enough to stop him from sharing his salt about having to miss some of his Florida white trash friends’ weddings over the years.
But in all seriousness, the so-called weddings that have been missed, the people in them probably aren’t sweating the no-shows, because they’re probably more interested in the distinction of being able to say that they’ve got an MLB player present, and it’s probably more important to them to retain an MLB player as a friend than it is for the MLB player to be friends with them. Weak excuse. baseball is so hard
It strains the connections with friends. “I haven’t had a summer since I was eight or nine,” one American League hitter Anthony Rendon of the Angels said.
This excuse is so bad, it could only have come from Rendon, the de-facto guy who hates baseball more than anyone inside MLB, while enjoying the luxury of getting paid $30M a year to not play. He’s said so much incredibly outrageous things over the last few years to exemplify his disdain for his job, that by the time this survey came around, not being able to enjoy a normal summer is pretty much all that’s left.
The reality is that yes, baseball players don’t get to have summers off, but on the flip side, they absolutely never have to worry about playing on Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Years like basketball and football and hockey players do. They work eight months of the year, nine in any season where they go deep into the playoffs, but otherwise still have 3-4 months off a year. Few occupations without a tremendous amount of tenure come even close to that kind of off-time, while also clearing $760k a year. baseball is so hard
It puts stress on your partner and children. “When you have kids and you’re away from home half the month, going city to city, it’s just not as glamorous as people think,” another National League pitcher Corbin Burnes of the Diamondbacks said.
When you retire at 35 with generational wealth and zero worries for the rest of your life, and mostly assured that your kids won’t either, even Mrs. Burnes probably agrees that losing a few summers isn’t that big of a sacrifice.
Added another American League pitcher Bryan Abreu of the Astros, “Yes, the living is good. Yes, we make good money, some way more than others. But the logistics behind everything, moving your family, paying for two to three mortgages and the stress it causes some families. You’re always on the move and until you’re on a guaranteed contract, you’re kind of living out of a suitcase. There’s a lot of logistics and not knowing that I don’t think people understand.”
100% this quote is from a Hispanic player, because ain’t no other demographic in the game that’s going to willingly by taking on 2-3 mortgages without absolute Hispanic family devotion. The easy solve is to not be taking on 2-3 mortgages in the first place, but like I said, Hispanic familia culture is way more cohesive than any other, and in the case of a guy like Bryan Abreu who is kind of a journeyman relief pitcher, he actually holds a little more weight in this survey, because being someone in his general position probably is among the most stressful, not always knowing when your next contract will be, if at all.
Some of these gripes may not be well-received. It may be hard to find pity for the American League hitter George Springer of the Blue Jays who groused that “nobody realizes we have to pay big-time taxes on our salaries.”
100% this quote came from a player from the Toronto Blue Jays, because Canadian taxes on American money is notoriously high, and there have been many players who have gone to the Jays and whined their way out of the team or their careers, over the massive Canadian taxes they have to pay on their checks.
But still, when the league minimum is $760k, even having to eat 50% of that in taxes is still substantially more money than lots of doctors and other essential personnel in the working world net. Nobody feels sorry for you bro, or absolutely anyone else mentioned or referenced in this entire post and corresponding story.
Anyway, I could go on and on and dissect even more quotes, but I feel like the point is made. A bunch of overpaid 1% man-babies complaining that their lives as baseball players is so hard
Frankly, I don’t know what the New York Times or The Athletic was thinking when they put this piece out, those nerds had to have known that this wasn’t going to be received very well. I know baseball is eternally feuding with the NFL and NBA in terms of popularity, but if the intention was to harm MLB, then I think they’re on the right track; any other objective and it was as much of a colossal whiff as the tone-deafness of this entire article.
As the kids say, the fuck outta here
