Is There Any Fun Left in Baseball?

Before I get started, I would just like to thank Scott Rolufs for sending me this article; it sparked an idea for my next post: what has happened to the fun in baseball? I don’t literally mean that the professionals don’t find baseball fun, but why have teams chosen to forgo signing a player because of his personality. In a sense, it seems that in this case, the team doesn’t trust the player’s “brand”. Given, at the end of the day, the product that these teams/organizations offer is high quality baseball, but to what degree are players urged to act as time-ticking robots both on and off the field? Perhaps before I carry on, I should pose the question: is it the player’s responsibility to regulate himself, or the teams responsibility to regulate the player?

I am not the first person to bring up Manny Ramirez, and I certainly will not be the last. One of the best hitters that our generation has seen (too bad I can’t say the same for his fielding), has done everything from making a phone call during a game, to high-fiving a fan during the play. Because of his off-beat antics, people attribute his behaviour to the coined phase “Manny being Manny”, but at what point does this become detrimental to the team’s ultimate goal (winning a championship).

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

One positive aspect is that it’s clear that Manny is having fun while playing. It seems obvious to me, that if you try and govern a player like this, there is no way that he will be as proficient as possible. Is there a need for balance, obviously, but who am I to judge? The flip side of the argument is that if Manny was able to produce while being robot like, he would probably have signed one of the biggest contracts in baseball history, based on his past stats.  One thing’s for sure though, he’s quite popular with the fans.

-Faiz