Long-Term Relationships, Sacrilege, & The Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Major League Baseball

Don Mattingly is the root to all my fascination with the game of baseball as a religion and sports fanaticism in general. It’s a topic that I’ve starting diving into deeply recently in the writing I’m doing for this project known as “Diary Of A Mad Fan”, which chronicles my now 27 year relationship, passion for, and at times obsessive worship of the New York Yankees and the sport of baseball. For the next few weeks, the writings associated with this project will rely heavily upon the coming experiences that await during my escape from a broken heart and journey to Grapefruit League Spring Training for a two week period. and I will delve into this subject in a few paragraphs. As for now, let’s talk “Donnie Baseball”.

Seeing Mattingly sporting his #8 Los Angeles Dodgers uniform and performing his duties as the skipper of the Los Angeles Dodgers during a televised game between the Cubs and Dodgers recently on WGN brought mixed emotions from this long-time fan of the former Yankees captain. While on the one hand, I’m excited to see what he is able to accomplish as a manager, it brings out deeper thoughts with regards to change.  

For anyone who followed the career of the 1985 American League Most Valuable Player, the lack of a World Series championship to culminate his stellar career is an all too familiar tale. Moreover, his passing over as the New York Yankees mangerial choice following the departure of Joe Torre is to some degree even still a touchy subject. While it is debatable and impossible to know if Mattingly had been hired by the Yankees instead of Joe Girardi, the end result of the 2009 season would have been the team’s 27th World Series title, what’s not debatable is the images of Don Mattingly in any other uniform than that of the New York Yankees is still an odd sight to see.

For this fanatic, as I’m sure it is for a great deal of you reading this, there is something  to be said for players who spend their entire career with one team.  My journey south in a few short hours will provide me with the possible opportunity to see Albert Pujols play versus the Detroit Tigers on March 16th when the Cardinals visit Lakeland, Florida. Pujols’ contract status has made him the latest in a line of “the face of a franchise” players over the past few seasons who have publicly stood on the verge of what may very well be the final season with what has been his only team.

Players who remain with a single team for the duration of their entire career have of course become increasingly rare since the adoption of free agency. While free agency has not created an environment in which has every player at Matt Stairs level uniform changes, the number of players the likes of Mattingly, Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., Craig Biggio, Barry Larkin, and George Brett remaining with a single club are becoming all the more a rarity.

While attending and writing about MLB Spring Training, I will be spending the bulk of my stay in Tampa, Florida watching games at Steinbrenner Field, home of the New York Yankees who currently have three players in Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada who have played their entire careers calling the Bronx home, serving as the core of the Yankees’ most recent dynastic run.

A quick scan of rosters throughout the league as of today shows little in the way of a team that can boast to having any group of players remotely similar to these men, which is why the threat of Pujols leaving St. Louis seems all the more troubling to not only fans of the Cardinals, but the contigent of baseball purists that still exist. While an entire season will have to be played in order for fans of the game to know the answer to this rumored 300 million dollar question, what we do know is that the relationship between teams and players in the current era seem far less about legacy, loyalty, and love and more about landing record setting contractual agreements.

While fans may be inclined to give a different answer to the following statement, I’m sure if you were to ask any general manager across the league about “falling in love” with an individual player and they’d say it’s a crucial business mistake. Such approaches tend to give way to an inability to negotiate contracts or even make a trade that could very well improve a team’s chance of winning. I’m in no way saying that keeping a player like Pujols, or even trading him for that matter, would be a mistake that would put the Cardinals franchise into the realm of the Pittsburgh Pirates recent lack of success column in regards to wins and playoff appearances, but for the sake of Pujols’ place in respect to legacy and his place in the history of the game, seeing him “take his talents” anywhere but St. Louis would be considered sacrilege here at the Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Major League Baseball.

For example, despite all my years as a Yankees fan I’ve admired Atlanta Braves Third Basemen Chipper Jones a great deal, to a degree that of all the seemingly countless number of players acquired via free agency and trades the only player from another roster I’ve ever dreamed of playing for the Bombers who hasn’t is Jones. However, could anyone who has followed the game since Jones entered the league with Atlanta in the early 1990s imagine him in any other uniform besides the Braves?

Granted, baseball is a business and player movement and turnover is the nature of the beast. But in some respects, this is just another example of the game reflecting similar social norms outside of its confines. We see players throughout the league like business moving to various states based on income tax rates and not only their chances of winning titles or staying put out of an understanding of legacy and its impact. Public break-ups and squabbles over money that are more suited for divorce courts and celebrity tabloids than the lead in story on ESPN television programs.  Relationships throughout the league are becoming more and more dysfunctional in the current financial climate, which seems to be trending away from the muli-year multi-million dollar deals as seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More and more faces of franchises across the league are being sent off for players to be named and for greener pastures, and what might be better somewhere else. While less and less seem prone to hanging in working it out or “doing it for the kids”.

One can only hope that Albert and St. Louis can reconcile. Trust me, I know the pain of losing your franchise player in the game of life. It’s not something you can ever replace.

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I’ve mentioned the phrase The Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Major League Baseball several times already in the two entries I’ve made thus far. And while you obviously won’t find a street address or phone listing for said establishment, it is a very real place in the wild wiring in the brain of yours’ truly.

I coined the phrase due to the fact I jokingly referred to my religion on Facebook as Major League Baseball. As I progress through this writing process I will go into much greater detail with respect to just how much of this statement is fact as oppossed to an attempt at comedy. The various baseball parks I’ve attended over the years have always been called, “my church where I heal my hurts” which is borrowed from a song by the musical group Faithless’ song “God Is A DJ”. Likewise, I’m a huge fan of the Rolling Stones and was also inspired to create the name thanks to lyrics from their song “Far Away Eyes”.

I grew up in a very religious household and have traveled throughout the world to some well-known relgious sites, most often that of the Catholic faith. While I am technically unaffliated, for lack of a better term, I have a great respect for the Catholic faith and the icons and tradition associated with it. So I feel I must add that, I mean no disrespect when writing such statements as my being “the Pope” of the Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Major League Baseball, or any statements or literary approaches which draw comparison to it or any other traditional religion that will be written by me and appear here.

As with any topic, I am only hoping to show its parallels between the game of baseball. So on that note, I hope you enjoy what is to come here at DOAMF.

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Looking over at the clock, I am now at the eve of my departure to Tampa, Florida. I have to close this out before I turn into a pumpkin. Besides there’s a saying that nothing good ever happens after midnight, I wouldn’t want to press my luck, I’m going to need all of it I can get for March Madness wagers and St. Patrick’s Day.

Until next time….