http://www.newyorker.com/onlin...league-baseball.html
Rich
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Good Read!
It is a good read and thanks for sharing PIS. Very interesting perspective. Two passages really stuck out for me:
"I quit because baseball was sacred to me until I started getting paid for it. The more that “baseball” became synonymous with “business,” the less it meant to me, and I saw less of myself in the game every time I got a check.... from the Philadelphia Phillies Organization, the Oakland Athletic Company, or the Chicago Cubs, L.L.C. To put it simply, other players were much better than I was at separating the game of baseball from the job of baseball."
"Of course, I have regrets. The irony of the business of baseball is that the business has a seriousness that the game lacks: the fortune of a billion-dollar company rests on the shoulders of the twenty-five players competing to hold their spots on the roster, and an enormous pride comes with being one of those players. Now that I’ve quit, I will never again find myself in a position where the stakes are so high and I’m held accountable. I miss that the most. But quitting, for me, was still the right move."
After reading the article I think there is another side to the story? What am I missing, I guess I just don't understand what he was trying to say. Burnt out maybe and enjoyed school more? I don't no, but the story left me with wanting to read page two, but there wasn't one.
He spent seven years in organizational ball and had 60 total MLB at bats with a .183 BA. While he was more successful that many, many draftees, I am sure he fell far short of his and his employer's goals as a 1st rounder in 2006, which likely played a role in his career change.