Player Comps

Who would you be?

I was going to use a photo of my family for this post, but they hate it when I do that, so please enjoy this picture I took of the Wrigley Field scoreboard instead.

The last few issues of Powder Blue Nostalgia have been on the heavier side, so I thought it might be a good idea to lighten the mood this week with a shorter piece that doesn’t deal with death or self-destruction or the loss of close friends. That said, at the risk of annoying the strict “stick to baseball” crowd,* this week’s post is a light-hearted affair I’ve been wanting to do for some time now. Don’t worry though, baseball is still integral to the piece. It might just take a few tangents along the way.

*I’m sure I’ve lost subscribers because of my tendency to wander away from the diamond, but I use baseball as a tool to write about my life experiences. Sometimes I wander farther away than others, but I never wanted to limit myself to straightforward player profiles or game recaps. That can get boring after a while, and there are lots of other sites where people can get that sort of thing. I want my stuff to stand out and be the type of baseball writing that could only come from me. I think I’ve succeeded in that, for better or worse. And for those of you who continue to subscribe and read my work every Wednesday, I can’t thank you enough.

Over the course of three years, I’ve written a lot about my family and those closest to me, which can be a challenge. It’s one thing to get personal about yourself. I’ve covered a lot of stuff I’m not particularly proud of in this newsletter, but they are topics that are impossible to ignore when telling my story. My family and friends are a different matter, however.

Obviously, I can’t write about myself without also mentioning them. They are the main cast of my life, and what I do affects them, and vice-versa. But I also want to respect them, because their story belongs to them, and it’s up to them to decide what they want to share and what they want to keep private. I’ve tried to honor that, and I feel like I’ve generally succeeded.

With that in mind, I want to pay tribute to my immediate family for putting up with me and my airing of our dirty laundry. And what better way to do this than by comparing each of them to major league player?* Of course, these won’t be perfect matches, but I think they’re accurate enough comparisons. Without getting bogged down in the numbers, here are the players I’ve chosen and a brief explanation of why I think they fit.

*I’m sure they could each give me a list of things they’d rather have from me, but I’m working with what I got.

I’m going to start with my wife. I’ve written about Stephanie on multiple occasions in this newsletter. She’s the love of my life, and the superstar of our family who makes it all tick. So, perhaps not surprisingly for someone of my generation, I’ve chosen Ken Griffey Jr. as her avatar.

Griffey was the star of my childhood, and the questionnaire many of my readers filled out a few months ago only reinforced my belief that he continues to be an icon for fans of my era and beyond. He brought everything to the table, excelling at every aspect of the game in his prime, and even if his later years in Cincinnati (and a few other stops) were injury-prone, he was always elite.*

*Do yourself a favor and look back at his time in a Reds uniform. He had a few seasons derailed by injuries, but the idea that he spent the second half of his career either on the IL or as a shell of his former self is nonsense. He played a lot more games than people generally remember, and he was still damn good. I’m sure why so many people seem to think otherwise. It probably has to do with the lackluster final few years of his career after Cincy, but the back of a lot of baseball players’ cards look like that at the end of the line. Only a handful of players ever can match the back of Griffey’s card for all the years that came before.

Marriage is not always smooth. Sometimes it can get as rocky as Junior’s most challenging seasons in the Queen City, but as a man who has gone through one divorce, I’ve never once doubted her abilities or our relationship in the ten years we’ve been together. So, yes, while I understand it might seem weird to compare my wife to a now middle-aged ballplayer, I can’t think of a better comparison in this context. To me, she’s an icon.

For my oldest son, I went with Greg Maddux, and not because of his pitching ability. Of all my children, he’s always been the least interested in sports, and he’s never shown any inclination to play any of them.* But he does have a soft spot for baseball.^

*Maybe I should have went with Jeff King instead.

^Welp, there goes my Jeff King comparison.

I think it appeals to his analytical nature. He graduated high school last spring, and he’s about to start his first semester at college, where he plans to get his degree in civil engineering. He takes a calculated approach to things, which will hopefully help him avoid the same mistakes I made, and generally keeps an even keel, rarely letting his emotions get the best of him.

That’s why I felt like Maddux was a good comparison. Nicknamed “The Professor,” Maddux was one of the greatest pitchers ever, and maybe the best I’ve ever seen, and not because he had overpowering stuff. Maddux was never going to overpower anyone on the mound, but he was always many steps ahead of his opponents. He pitched with guile and precision, the same attributes I hope will make my oldest son a greater success than I have ever been.

My middle son is often the polar opposite of his older brother. He is ruled by his emotions, sometimes to his own detriment, and he possesses an impulsivity that sometimes gets him into trouble. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that he’s the most likely to repeat my mistakes, but I’m not selling him short. He’s incredibly smart and talented, and I predict he will accomplish great things in this world, even if he sometimes struggles to stay out of his own way.

For those reasons, I chose Gary Sheffield as his comp. I thought about Albert Belle, but Belle just seems like too much of a jerk. My son has his bad days, but all teenagers can be jerks sometimes. Sheffield’s swagger and stubbornness sometimes made him hard to like, but I always got the impression there was more to him.

I could be wrong about that, but there’s no denying what he accomplished on the field. In terms of hype surrounding a prospect, he was one of the closest I’ve ever seen to Griffey’s level, and while things didn’t always go as smoothly with Sheffield as they did with the Kid, it’s hard to look at his numbers and accolades and call him anything but an outstanding ballplayer. Steroid allegations from the latter half of his career and his combative personality have kept him out of the Hall of Fame, but anyone who knows baseball can not deny his talents and abilities.

For my youngest son, who has recently become obsessed with baseball, I went with the still active Salvador Perez. Not only because Salvy is one of his favorite players, but because of the crossover in their personalities. He is the most outgoing of my children, and he imbues almost everything he does with a sense of joy. Some of that might be due to his youth, but I hope he follows Salvy’s lead and never loses that as he grows older.

Perez is a borderline Hall-of-Famer* who is still building his case, but the Captain has become a Kansas City legend over the last decade-and-a-half. His numbers and accolades speak for themselves, and I’m so glad he’s been able to experience winning baseball again at the tail end of his career, while he’s still capable of contributing to it at a high level. Salvy has played in two World Series and won a championship, but for the majority of his career, he’s played on bad Royals teams. He never changed his approach, however. He’s brought the same intensity and joy to the ballpark every day, regardless of where Kansas City was in the standings.

*I’m obviously biased, but even if I wasn’t, Salvy would still be a surefire HOFer to me. But then again, I don’t always value the same thing HOF voters do.

I sincerely hope my youngest son does the same thing in whatever path he follows in life. Unfortunately, he’s cursed with my genes, so it probably won’t be on a baseball field— not as a player anyway— but he’s got the smarts and the heart to be as successful and beloved as Salvy, wherever life takes him.

Now that I’ve finished with my family, I’m not sure I can end this without making a comp for myself. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it might seem. Outside of my family, I tend to look at myself as a AAAA player.* I’ve had my successes and I can’t feel bitter, but not at the level I aspired to, if I’m being honest.

*In case you don’t know what a 4A player is, it’s a term used to describe a player who gets to the big leagues, even if it’s just for a cup of coffee, but doesn’t have the talent to do much when they get there. Their peak is really AAA, but they caught a break, hence the extra A.

Of course, I’m not a baseball player, so I have a longer timeline to work with, and I haven’t given up yet. I’d settle for being the equivalent of a one-year wonder, a player who came out of nowhere, and for a brief time, excelled beyond anyone’s expectations. Simply publishing a novel or selling a screenplay or something along those lines would fit the bill.

Or, if I wanted to be more ambitious, maybe I could have a second-half of my career surge beyond one single season, and break out as a star after everyone has given up on me, sort of like Jose Bautista.* He bounced around as a journeyman, including an unremarkable stop in Kansas City, before it finally clicked in Toronto and he became one of the game’s premier sluggers.

*The irony of comparing myself to Joey Bats is I absolutely despised Bautista. He seemed like such a conceited a-hole, I took pleasure in seeing him lose. But I can’t deny he was good. If he had sucked, I probably wouldn’t have cared either way. I doubt I would have even noticed him.

Even though he never failed a drug test, I always suspected Bautista was on something. That whole Blue Jays team was filled with guys who turned into elite sluggers later in their careers, so I assumed the Canadian pharmacies were cooking up something in the labs that MLB’s tests couldn’t pin down. Perhaps that was unfair on my part. But even if I was right, I’ve ingested my fair share of drugs. They weren’t performance-enhancing,* but who am I to judge? I’m not saying I would take a short cut, but I’ll take any kind of break I can get at this point.

*If anything, they were the complete opposite.

That said, even if I never catch my big break, I’m more than happy to be a part of this roster. There’s no lineup card I’d rather pencil my name onto every single day. Even if I’m the first one on the bench.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. What player do you see yourself in? Let us know in the comments, and feel free to share any other comps you feel are relevant while you’re at it.