Wassit3
01-19-2008, 08:32 PM
Doug Glanville, the graceful former outfielder and Ivy Leaguer who retired in 2004 following a nine-year career in the big leagues, wrote about a fear that drives ballplayers -- sometimes the wrong way -- in an op-ed article published in the New York Times.
"Yes, baseball players are afraid," Glanville wrote in the newspaper's opinion section on Sunday. "Not just on opening day and not just because of the 400-page Mitchell report and not just because of a Congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball -- like the one that took place Tuesday -- but because they always have been afraid. A player's career is always a blink in a stare. I retired at the ripe old age of 34 following a season of sunflower seeds and only 162 at-bats. I had been a starter the year before. In this game, change happens fast.
"Human nature wants to put the brakes on that rate of change. While your clock is ticking, faster, stronger and younger players are setting up their lockers next to yours. They usually have better sound bites and lower salaries, too. In 1998, I was the new kid in Philadelphia, battling Lenny Dysktra for the center field job. Five years later, I was mentoring another new kid, Marlon Byrd, so he could replace me. Faced with that rate of career atrophy, players are capable of rash, self-serving and often irresponsible decisions. Enter steroids."
"There is a tipping point in a player's career where he goes from chasing the dream to running from a nightmare. At that point, ambition is replaced with anxiety, passion is replaced with survival. It is a downhill run and it spares no one."
Glanville, whose articles have been published by a number of media outlets before and since his retirement, added perspective to the current controversy.
"We're scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up -- and in the quest to conquer these fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat these odds. We call it "drive" or "ambition," but when doing "whatever it takes" leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity. The game ends up playing us."
http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080118&content_id=2350277&vkey=mlbpa_news&fext=.jsp
"Yes, baseball players are afraid," Glanville wrote in the newspaper's opinion section on Sunday. "Not just on opening day and not just because of the 400-page Mitchell report and not just because of a Congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball -- like the one that took place Tuesday -- but because they always have been afraid. A player's career is always a blink in a stare. I retired at the ripe old age of 34 following a season of sunflower seeds and only 162 at-bats. I had been a starter the year before. In this game, change happens fast.
"Human nature wants to put the brakes on that rate of change. While your clock is ticking, faster, stronger and younger players are setting up their lockers next to yours. They usually have better sound bites and lower salaries, too. In 1998, I was the new kid in Philadelphia, battling Lenny Dysktra for the center field job. Five years later, I was mentoring another new kid, Marlon Byrd, so he could replace me. Faced with that rate of career atrophy, players are capable of rash, self-serving and often irresponsible decisions. Enter steroids."
"There is a tipping point in a player's career where he goes from chasing the dream to running from a nightmare. At that point, ambition is replaced with anxiety, passion is replaced with survival. It is a downhill run and it spares no one."
Glanville, whose articles have been published by a number of media outlets before and since his retirement, added perspective to the current controversy.
"We're scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up -- and in the quest to conquer these fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat these odds. We call it "drive" or "ambition," but when doing "whatever it takes" leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity. The game ends up playing us."
http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080118&content_id=2350277&vkey=mlbpa_news&fext=.jsp