Fydrich: On being real

The death of Mark Fydrich brings to mind simpler times in the world of professional sports.

When Fydrich embarked on his very brief major-league career in 1976 and was stunningly successful, he caught the tradition-rich sport somewhat off guard. He had a quirky nickname (“the Bird”) and peculiar habits on the field, which have been well-documented (talking to the ball, spending time on his hands and knees re-working the mound, running to congratulate teammates on the field of play…). And while he put off some people, he radiated a boyish enthusiasm which made him popular well beyond his injury-shortened big-league career. He evidently led a simple, hard-working life as an adult. Media reports tell of neighbours who recall him as just another guy, a truly nice man who never played the “I was a somebody” card.

Why was he so popular, then and now? Well, we need only look at the way sports–and athletes–have evolved over the past 30 years to understand some of the reasons why.

Athletes now, while still playing for ‘the love of the game’, are unbelievably well-compensated. Injuries are attentively treated, rehabilitation is precise to ensure an athlete does not return before they are one-hundred per cent fit. (This is not to say that athletes today don’t play with injuries–football and hockey players prove that point regularly.) But it is to say that modern medicine and methods of training and education are simply superior, thankfully, to what was in place 30 years ago.

That said, we also often see athletes as corporations unto themselves. They are media-wary, image-conscious (see Alex Rodriguez), and often surly when the media probes too much. Not that this never occurred in generations past, but it seems ever-more the case these days. Athletes now are in tremendous physical condition (baseball being the exception, in some cases). They come to training camp in shape, not to get in shape.

Things are just very different. Sports is very much, as is often said, a business.

When Fydrich came on the scene, he was the classic wide-eyed rookie. Happily, despite his brief career (he could never duplicate his 1976 season after he hurt his arm in 1977), by all accounts he was a contended individual who was a good guy to the end. He was seen as engaging and joy-filled in his 50’s, much as he was in his 20’s as a ‘star’.

How much would Fydrich be ‘worth’ these days, in crass economic terms? Hard to say, but talent-wise it would likely start at 15 million a year. In terms of what he would mean to baseball in terms of goodwill off the field (no need for performance enhancers, an engaging, extroverted and genuinely friendly personality) the sky would be the limit.

This doesn’t even touch what he would earn as a corporate spokesperson.

In the 70’s, baseball was in a bit of a slide, as I recall. Because of the courage of Curt Flood, and after him the impact of union boss Marvin Miller and the court cases leading to player free agency, the game was changing. The game was popular, but football–both college and professional–was clearly surpassing baseball in terms of overall popularity.

Fans were still coming out to the ballparks, but buying tickets to a game was not hard. In Detroit, if I remember correctly, the Tigers might draw 10,000 or so to a game, depending on the opposition. That season that Fydrich joined them and created a storm, 50,000 would show up to watch him in action. Every time. Non-baseball fans went. He was that much of an attraction, a curiosity, a star, a draw. He must have made the Tigers a ton on the “bottom line” that season, as he was likely drawing a rookie salary of ridiculously small proportions compared with the modern day.

I didn’t know Fydrich and never had the opportunity to interview him in the years I was involved in sports broadcasting. Looking back, I wish I had. Un-rehearsed and natural, likeable and delightful in good times and bad, he was unlike most of what had followed.

Today, we tend to knock that naturalness out of our young athletes. Make them corporate, dull, rehearsed. It is easy to understand, as the media have a long history of falling very quickly in–and out of–love with young “stars”.

Fydrich leaves a mark, as good people do. Not, perhaps, because he was a baseball ‘star’, but because he never played that part.

Baseball just can't save itself from its own stupidity...

Baseball is a passion in Missouri, evidenced by not only the tremendous history of, and fan support for, the defending World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals but also by the continuing interest in the struggling Kansas City Royal franchise-- years past their 1985 World Series glory.

In recent years the Royals have had (relatively speaking) low payrolls and non-competitive teams.

Yet fans still go to the beautiful ballpark (formerly Kauffman Stadium, after the respected former owner of the club) that is the home of the Royals, because they love baseball and love the Royals.

Now, the Royals are trying to build with youth, and lots of it.

They recently faced a dilemma. Their first draft choice in the 2007 summertime baseball draft (second overall) is a high school player represented by Scott Boras, an agent well-known for pushing the ‘demand envelope’ for unproven players.

That’s his “job”, of course: to get as much as he can for his clients.

But it does make a person wonder what the thinking process is for the young player and his family. In this instance, we are told, according to various media reports, that the player was seeking more than 3 million dollars as a signing bonus.

Keep in mind this young man, while projected to be an outstanding pro, has played only at the high school level.

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, if the player is not signed by the deadline, he goes back into the draft pool for 2008, provided he attends a Junior College and not a school in the NCAA.

Presumably he would then go to college for a year, and be drafted by a team that can afford to pay him what he wants the next time around.

Sadly, we have again hit a time when the salary expectations of athletes have become simply outrageous. We see salaries in the NBA, for example, that are long-term --and absurd. In so many cases we hear, within a year of the signing, that that NBA player can’t be traded because no one wants --or can afford-- his outlandish contract.

The NHL is clearly walking down the very same path that led to a lockout only three years ago. Salaries are climbing again, and for a league that can’t get a decent TV contract south of the border—much less find any real fan support even in markets where they actually have teams—this will surely prove a recipe for future disaster, however much revenues allegedly are growing.

And then there is baseball, where the players union and Bud Selig nearly killed the game in 1994, and instead of juiced balls produced juiced players to ‘save’ the game through the later1990’s and into the current era.

This is a sport that refuses to establish a legitimate salary cap, where one team can spend 200 million to buy players and other teams such as the Royals can barely field a Triple A- caliber team.

This sport has no effective rookie salary cap to prevent the absurd request of 18 year-olds who think they are “worth” millions of dollars before they even step on a pro field.

Who will step up—a player, an agent, a family, a commissioner—and say this is insane, utterly insane?

This is not to say this young player won’t become a fine professional player. In all likelihood, he will.

But if he does become a tremendous player, he will earn his millions in due course.

If he doesn’t, why over-pay before the young man establishes legitimate market value?

Here’s hoping that young ballplayers such as the one in question, if they choose to turn down huge money after being drafted because their agent feels it isn’t “enough”, head off to Junior College and play for free for a season, and then stay healthy. (To close the loop on this story, this particular young player signed for $4 million dollars at the signing deadline, almost a million dollars more than Major league Baseball’s “slotting” system suggested for the second overall selection.)

We’ve all heard the stories of players (and in some cases known players) who waited and waited and sat out for that big payday, only to suffer a serious injury and see their market value plummet overnight.

Hopefully this and other such stories will have a happier ending than at.

The Disconnect Grows

For those who have a sense of sports history who are over, say, 40, the response of the Indiana Pacers fans to Reggie Miller in his last game against the Pistons in the playoffs this spring was at least a little heartwarming.

The ‘disconnect’ between many professional athletes and the public seems to grown by the day, and the issue is not as simple as the ‘revelations’ (as though we didn’t know) steroids in baseball. It has been building for years and goes much deeper than that.

Why is there a disconnect? Well, the reasons are many and everyone reading this could add their own thoughts and plug in a reason or two.

Among many other things, we don’t see many athletes retire with the same team they started with, especially after 18 seasons.

There aren’t many Bill Russells’ left in basketball, as there are few Al Kalines’ in baseball or Jean Beliveaus’ in hockey — individuals who played the game at such a high level, and left the game with their reputation unsoiled and their dignity intact after playing their entire (lengthy) careers in one city.

The lack of “loyalty” to one’s team is not itself in itself to kill the traditional bond between athlete and player. And there have always been some players who didn’t much care about the fans.

But many other factors have crept into sport as well.

NHL players, for example, are fighting a battle to salvage a gravy train that should have — in the minds of most fans — been shut down years ago.

NBA players seem destined for a similar fate, apparently unhappy (at least the most powerful agents in the sport are) at the mere thought that if NBA owners had their way, ridiculously-long guaranteed contracts might be a thing of the past.

I mean, who wouldn’t want 18 million dollars a year for 7 years, instead of ‘only’ 5, for example.

Yes, the tongue is planted firmly in my cheek as I write this.

It’s also hard to miss the daily reports of “unhappiness” around the NFL. Edgerrin James skips mandatory mini-camp with the Colts, displeased with the fact that he can only earn 8 million dollars this coming season because he was placed under the team’s ‘restrictive’ franchise tag.

Granted, it is hard to plan for your family’s financial future when your team won’t give you all the millions you want for as many years as you want.

There’s the tongue again.

Eagles’ receiver Terrell Owens — while demanding to have his contract re-worked only one year into a seven-year deal he gladly signed — is quoted as saying he is concerned about feeding his family.

These examples of — what can we call it, politely?— a lack of perspective are obviously way to many to number here.

But the fans are left numb.

I wasn’t quite born when Joe Dimmagio retired in 1951, and I don’t doubt he tried to make as much money as he could, but somehow, players such as he, Mantle, Berra, Ford and many other Yankee greats were closer to the hearts of the fans of yesteryear than today’s Arod-style one-man corporations are.

Until some athletes stop thinking about getting more and more, and agents stop demanding more and more, and ownership stops capitulating constantly to ridiculous demands, the disconnect will grow.

No hockey, who cares?

No baseball. We all survived.

No basketball next season. We’ll get used to it.

No football in a couple of years?

Hey, replacement players worked the last time, in the 1980’s. The players quickly realized the sports world could and would go on without them.
What player, in which sport, is going to be a real leader and show the fans that athletes are not only about making millions and forever wanting more and more?

Yes indeed, Joe, where have you gone?

So Little Perspective

Much has been and will be written about the opposing “sides” in the ongoing NHL labor dispute — a dispute which could last well beyond the 2004-05 season.

There is no lack of points of view concerning who is to blame (if blame can be attributed in such a circumstance).

What does seem clear is that both parties go to great lengths to defend their positions in public, in an effort to create awareness and understanding — and perhaps even a twinge of support, if not sympathy — for their position.

Inevitably, comments will be made which leave an observer shaking their head.

One example: A prominent NHL’er with a Canadian-based team recently reacted to an appearance by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the CBC National news.

Newspaper reports quoted the player as saying “I know Mr. Bettman likes to think he knows a lot about hockey. But I’ve never seen him stop a puck, or bleeding when he gets a shot in the face or getting needles in the arms, back and stomach. Players are rewarded handsomely, we understand that, but at the same time we work very hard for what we have.”

This is not simply to chastise this particular player, who has a reputation as a tough, hard-working player.

Clearly, few who have any sense of what it truly takes to become a professional (or high-level) athlete — especially a professional hockey player — doubt the talent, hard work and dedication required. Most would acknowledge, and could not themselves tolerate, the severe physical toll hockey takes on individual players.

But it is difficult to comprehend the argument that that physical toll means the average NHL salary should be almost $2 million dollars a season per player, when the “average” person works 50 weeks a year to earn maybe $40,000 a year. Brilliant surgeons, who can save lives, for example, do not make anywhere near the kind of money top NHL players make.

Oilers General Manager Kevin Lowe made a simple but revealing remark when team stalwart Ryan Smith was in a contract stalemate some time back. Lowe basically said the team had done all it could to keep Smith happy over the years, and alluded out loud to the fact that Smyth — still a very young man — had earned something like 17 million dollars in 6 or so seasons with the club to that point.

Smyth is a fine player, full of heart, indeed. But 17 million dollars already?

Those who follow pro sports realize that there are “superstar” players in sports who have earned more than 15 or 20 million dollars a season. Many people do not like the idea, but recognize that the “best of the best” in the entertainment industry are paid beyond what makes sense.

But Lowe’s simple comment, about a someone many see as a solid yet unspectacular player, likely struck a nerve with many fans. 17 million dollars in a few short years. That is way, way more than most hard-working people would earn in several lifetimes.

Public appearances by athletes for financial and public relations purposes aside, there is a real disconnect nowadays between many athletes and the people who support them.

More to the point, perhaps: if an NHL player truly believes he is “worth” millions of dollars a year for playing a game, what is the young man or woman “worth” who fights to defend their country in times of war? Whether one agrees with the notion of sending young people off to fight to preserve freedoms, it has been and is a political and life reality.

These young men and women risk more than a physical toll. They risk their very lives. And if they return home at all, they risk returning home with lifelong physical ailments.

And they aren’t doing what they do to simply entertain other people.

While that is an extreme example, it is nonetheless a comparison worth noting. But there are many other people who work hard at what they do who don’t receive the kind of income, compensation, perks, “freebies” and adulation that pro athletes receive.

If the players want to “win” the public relations battle, they would be well-advised to communicate through the media with the public a little differently.

The average person can no longer afford tickets to watch NHL teams. Do the players care?

When you hear quotes like the one above about Bettman, the old quote rings true about “protesting too much”.

The players can protest all they want. Few are buying that they should continue to receive the kind of income they have achieved simply because of the competitive realities owners face to field competitive teams.

I recall a comment a prominent NHLPA member once made (he’s still an active player). When asked about the fact that many dads could no longer afford to take their kids to an NHL game, the player said, in essence, “well, maybe that dad shouldn’t be taking his kids to the game if he can’t afford it.”

That comment was made years ago.

Have the players learned any lessons since?