Though certainly lacking the universal appeal of "Remember the Alamo," pop-culture enthusiasts and avid baseball fans alike can recall the oft-repeated phrase "cowboy up!" from the Boston Red Sox 2004 run to glory. "The Idiots," as they took to being called, used the slogan to preach the importance of rising above adversity by displaying mental and physical toughness.
Facing a three-games-to-zero deficit in the American League Championship Series versus the hated New York Yankees, each near-elimination-experience was countered with a proud exclamation of those words as the Sox somehow, someway managed to scratch and claw their way to an improbable World Series berth and an even more improbable World Series title, their first since 1918.
While no sane and self-respecting baseball fan could possibly conclude that those words actually helped Boston to the title (other than perhaps on an inspirational, mind-over-matter level), a case certainly can be made that the concept is a solid one: it is wise to put the greater good of many before the good of one.
As they say, sport does imitate life and all too often in today's social environs we see individuals negatively impact the direction, performance, and goals of the group by overstating the personal implications of an action or by not sacrificing singular glory as it would compromise individual worth. Relating that to athletics and to professional baseball in particular, all too frequently we see a player spend two weeks on the bench because of a blister, an earache, or a slight twinge in a joint somewhere on their person.
Not to say that it is an easy or even a practical course of action to "play through pain," especially when it could compromise a player's ability to do the job with which they are tasked. But it can certainly be brought into any argument that if pro baseball players are going to constantly remind us that "being a player is a job," then they should be held to as high a standard as you or I.
Coincidentally, this last point relates back to the original premise of this article — the theory of pulling up your big boy pants and slogging through the mud as a team served that historic Beantown team exceptionally well, yet it seems more and more you see "workers" in pro baseball calling in sick rather than honoring their responsibilities as "employees." These actions make one wonder why more championship-starved organizations (Wrigleyville, I'm talking to you) don't demand their players to follow the lead of those unlikely baseball history makers — it makes one wonder where all the cowboys have gone.
Everywhere you look in both leagues, you see pitchers racking up more DL time than innings pitched. While I will give this group of broken and battered combatants the benefit of the doubt considering the violent nature of hurling a baseball upwards of 90 miles an hour, I will just as diligently point out that starting pitchers are maxing out their season production at 200 innings these days, and this generally is a precursor (excepting the obvious performances of some the league's consistent greats) of marked loss in production for the year immediately after the season in which the pitcher gave anything approaching yeoman's effort.
In the old days, this sort of glad-handling of pitchers was unheard of. It wasn't even 20 years ago when the Mike Scott's, Frank Viola's, and Bert Blyleven's of the league were racking up over a quarter of a thousand innings pitched and double-digit complete games. There arms held up fine over time and their consistent performances year and year out led to a great deal more stability for baseball franchises throughout the land. When they had an "ouchie," they sucked it up, took a painkilling injection, and hit the hill with their "B" and "C" stuff. As a result, their toughness and guile got them through those outings and they were all the better for it the next time they came up stiff or bruised.
Nowadays, young guns like Josh Beckett sit out with blisters (now I will admit that pitching with a blister is tough, and I haven't actually seen the blisters Beckett gets, so perhaps they are like bleeding ulcers, but it is little more than painful ... suck it up and put your curve and slider away for a night), the Kerry Wood's of the world seem to come up more and more stiff with each homer they allow and elbow surgery is as common as Sammy Sosa's back-ne. Again, sport so often imitates life and just as the corporate world is seeing an all-time high in absenteeism, the professional sport community is seeing a shockingly large number of days missed due to nickel-and-dime laments.
As was expressed earlier, these missed starts or lessening of appearances by MLB's pitching corps will get somewhat of a pass. Perhaps the shortening of pitcher shelf life is a result of sliders being taught in the minors or maybe it is because today's aces actually rely on their arms to succeed rather than emery boards and belt buckles. But there is no such bevy of excuses for the position player.
Pete Rose, who is a favorite of mine for his undying passion for his sport, would have likely played with severed fingers. Cal Ripken, Jr. couldn't possibly have been one-hundred percent in each and every start in his remarkable string. Even the "soft" Wade Boggs played through twisted ankles and bruised knees on a semi-regular basis.
Today's "gladiators," however, can't wait to miss a start. Lance Berkman, who is a player of whom I think the world, recently missed four games with what was described as a twinge in his hamstring. Lance is a first baseman. He has no speed. He is paid to knock people in and catch other player's tosses across the infield diamond. He can do this with a "twinge in his hamstring."
I understand the thinking behind this (well, sort of). Why risk losing a player for a month when you can rest him early in the year? This mindset creates a two-fold problem. First, and more obviously, when you run out of games come October and you look up and the standings and find yourself one or two games out of the race, those few games in May where you sat your star loom large. Secondly, this sort of behavior actually creates those problems you try to avoid.
Explain, you ask? Don't mind if I do. Imagine yourself in the heat of a baseball season, playing every day, rolling along, and putting up nice numbers. Suddenly, one unseasonably chilly afternoon you feel a bit of a tug in the back of your leg, nothing too painful, but certainly a new and relatively unsettling sensation. You mention it to your trainer and than your skipper and the three of you decide that perhaps you should take a few games off.
During your few games off, you watch your team lose by a combined score of 34-5. You haven't done much running or taken any batting practice in an effort to protect your leg. Now you have a road trip coming up. You jump on the plane, sit for three hours, and spend the rest of that afternoon in the hotel. Game day comes and you are finally cleared to play — with the first pitch, you hit a weak dribbler up the third base line (remember, you are now out of the groove having taken a few days off, so your swing is more conducive to this type of contact). As you scream down the line, you feel a substantially more noticeable tug in the back of your leg.
While many will say that this is unavoidable, a freak injury that certainly would have occurred had the player continued to play through the pain, I beg to differ. Maybe you, as a manager, can pinch-run for this player late in games to save him from starting and stopping multiple times in high-pressure base-running situations, but players have played through pain on all levels and it seems that those significant injuries occur much more frequently to the player who nurses said injury in and out of the lineup than that player that plays through the pain.
Many more readers out there will state that a player isn't doing his team a service by playing through these ailments, but I submit that logic as being flawed in most cases. Sure, a marginal player won't help your team if he is at less than 100%, but he likely isn't helping your team anyway. But if you tell me that cement-footed and uni-browed Mike Lamb is any better an option than a one-legged Berkman, I'll tell you about some beautiful oceanfront property I have for you in Oklahoma.
In basketball, the Pistons and Spurs are both consistently in the running, and they also consistently sport the same starting lineups. In football, the Patriots and Eagles have spent the better part of the 21st century defending division titles (minus the occasional hiccup) — those two teams have featured a toughness of attitude as they have players play through breaks and tears and twists each and every week. Baseball's two Sox, Red in Boston and White in Chicago, have taken home the last two trophies. They've done this by "cowboy-ing up" and playing through adversity.
A novel idea, if you ask me. Too bad there aren't many cowboys left in the world to learn from the lessons of others.
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