Being a fan of a particular team doesn’t mean you have to hate every player who isn’t on that team. Really, no one has ever said, "Oooh, I just hate that Joe Mauer!" He’s a Minnesota kid representing a Minnesota team -- his talent and background make him as likable as players get. There are always compelling stories and players to root for, even if they have nothing to do with your team. Here are three of my favorites this season:
Why It’s Okay To Root For A Royal. Or A Phillie, Or An Astro.
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The “there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect” thing has always bothered me a little. There are a lot of good pitchers in the major leagues. Most of them were highly rated prospects. It’s not like the development of a durable and talented pitcher is some rarely seen comet, as if Sports Illustrated would have “Year of the Pitcher” as a cover story, and it would be about just one pitcher. He’s here! It took 50 years, but he’s here!
Then I remember a pitcher like Francis. He’s a reminder that individual pitchers really do have the success rate of Praying Mantis babies. The existence of good pitchers isn’t proof that the health of young pitchers is over-analyzed; it just obscures the fact that there are thousands of young pitchers who are eaten by their mothers before they can reach the majors. Metaphorically, of course. Francis wasn’t exactly a prospect fresh out of AAA -- he made 99 starts for the Colorado Rockies from 2005 through 2007 -- but he was still young when his shoulder gave out. With the Rockies’ staff featuring some prominent homegrown pitchers, it’s easy to forget that there was a good decade before the Rockies came up with a pitcher who could pitch at Coors Field. Francis was a pretty big deal for that franchise.
Now he’s trying to come back with the Royals, which is extra-special redemptive. It’s like a movie with two down-on-their-luck characters who are trying to come back from whatever obstacles life has thrown in their paths before beating the odds! Or it could end like "Sid and Nancy." Chances are better for the latter than you’d like. But the pairing is off to a good start, with Francis throwing quality starts in his first two appearances this year and the Royals off to a fast start.
Imagine walking into a cocktail party and being greeted with this:
Oh, let me introduce you to the fellas. Stephen is a brilliant astrophysicist who came up with the Spinks-Harbaugh Theorem, and Charles is a classically trained pianist who trained under Zzarodric Szmbbz before composing sixteen well-received concertos. Marcus is a Rhodes Scholar who also starred in an off-Broadway production of J.D. Salinger’s musical Just Pick Up the Phone and Call, and Norrin rides some sort of galactic surfboard around the galaxy to serve as a herald for a god-like cosmic entity.
And this is Joe Blanton. He likes to pick his nose and eat it.
Congratulations. You’ve just been introduced to the 2011 Phillies. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Blanton finished with the best ERA of the bunch? Wouldn’t it be amazing if he racked up a K/BB ratio of 210/31 in 244 innings, en route to a Cy Young as his cohorts all implode? It’s worth noting that Blanton is a perfectly capable big-league pitcher, but he’s being discussed as if he has a rotation spot because his dad owns the team. I’m pulling for him as a nod to all of the forgotten people in this world. (If this were an ‘80s movie, the music would swell right about here.)
When I was a young lad, my favorite team was the Giants. The team that I first remembered following in the newspapers every day was the 1984 Giants. They weren’t very good at all, but every morning I would rush downstairs, grab a paper, and sift the box score. Eventually my eyes would drift to the “League Leaders” section, and there he’d be: Jack Clark. He’d be maybe eighth in batting average. That was it. But, lo, how that meant something to me. There was a Giant, right there among the league leaders!
That’s what I’m hoping for with Pence. The 2011 Astros are talent’s antonym. But maybe Pence can be that guy for some poor young Astros fan out there. Maybe he can hit .350 with power, and when that poor young Astros fan rushes downstairs to not grab a newspaper in the morning, maybe he’ll check the league leaders on his phone. If not Pence, then, any Astro will do. There’s, uh ... okay, so it has to be Pence. Best of luck to him.
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