They are proud. You must start there. In order to play Major League Baseball for any considerable length of time, it’s essential to understand the pride that lines the skin and the soul of the men who populate the game. And especially those who excel at it.
Rafael Devers became a pariah in Boston because of his refusal to play first base, and this is largely the reason he is now a San Francisco Giant. Nobody likes it when an athlete says “no.” Our knee-jerk reaction almost always is something to the effect of, “Pay me $10 million, I’ll play wherever you want me to play.” Understood. We are still a sporting society raised to respect the authority of a coach. That’s the default position.
What nobody wanted to hear was that Devers might be averse to playing first base because he realized he wouldn’t be any good at it. Again, first reaction: Too bad. Suck it up. Of course, if you caught some of Devers’ work a few weeks ago against the Mets, the first thing you realized is this: He isn’t very good at it. He is, in fact, quite bad at it. And major league players don’t like to look foolish at a game that’s hard enough to play when you focus on what you do well.
So look: Maybe you don’t give a gold star to Giancarlo Stanton, who Monday night against the Twins started his second game of the year in right field and did so flawlessly (although the closest he came to touching the ball was watching Trevor Larnach’s home run fly over his head for a home run in the sixth). As usual, Stanton earned his salary with his bat: a 107.3 mph rocket of a single in the first (even managing to go from first to third on a subsequent hit, a stop-the-presses moment for sure), then a 399-foot blast of a solo homer in the third. The Yankees won 6-2. Good times in The Bronx.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
