There are few more frustrating moments in sports than watching a baseball player take a called third strike. The player seems passive, his fate claiming him rather than the opposite. “Do something!” the fans shout. “At least if he’d swung he might have gotten a hit.” And if that same player then walks slowly back to the dugout and gets his glove, not even pausing to curse or hit a water cooler, then that player might look like he isn’t even trying. He might look like he doesn’t care.
J.D. Drew takes his fair share of called third strikes – it’s the necessary byproduct of seeing lots of pitches – but what he doesn’t do is overreact, slam his helmet to the ground and steam in the dugout afterward. He gets his glove, and he gets ready to play the field. And this, it seems, pisses off a whole lot of people. They see his selectivity as passivity, and, I think, they see this as being somehow less than masculine. As proof, I’d offer the many homophobic and sexist insults hurled at Drew, but, really, I’d rather not.
Baseball is unique among sports for many reasons, and one of the more important ones is that it is the one of the few sports (golf might be another one) where one can’t ‘try’ their way to greatness. You can’t swing harder and expect to get a hit. In fact, added effort often leads to worse play in baseball. Pitchers overthrow, missing the strike zone badly. Hitters flail at pitches they have no chance to hit. In football, a player can “dig deep” and overpower the man on the opposite side of the ball, simply by brute physical force. In basketball, you can out hustle the other team, finding a reserve of strength to dribble past a defender or out work someone for a rebound or a loose ball. Not so in baseball, and I think this bothers a lot of people.
We desperately want our sports to reflect the best of our society. If you show up everyday and try hard, you can succeed. Isn’t this why we celebrated Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games played record? Here was the embodiment of work ethic, a guy who showed up everyday. It was baseball’s award for perfect attendance. But I’ve always thought of Ripken’s streak with ambivalence. How many times did he cost his team by playing through an injury? How good was Ripken at sixty percent, and might the Orioles have been better off with a healthy player in his spot occasionally? I see this at work, as well, where employees come into work with colds, work at diminished capacity and infect others with their germs. Wouldn’t it have been better to stay home and recuperate? I think it would be, but that’s the not the American way.
J.D. Drew is the anti-Ripken; he sits out roughly a game a week, often at his own behest. If he tweaks his ankle or pulls a muscle, he sits out rather than play through the pain. The result is that he averages 130 games played out of a possible 162. He doesn’t play unless he’s nearly completely healthy. This earns him the label of being soft or fragile, not a tough guy. It makes him seem almost feminine, and in sports, that isn’t a compliment.
There are other aspects of Drew’s game that, at first blush, appear less than hyper-masculine. For instance, he rarely dives to catch a ball in the outfield. Some fans see this as soft, that he’s afraid to hurt himself by diving to the ground (Many baseball analysts judge a player’s level of effort by the dirt on his uniform). Of course, the reason he rarely dives is that he’s often in position to catch the ball without diving (He gets to an above average number of batted balls for a rightfielder). When he makes an out, he doesn’t throw a tantrum or sulk. When he’s going well or when he’s in a slump, his demeanor is always relatively constant. You’re not likely to see J.D. Drew instigate a brawl with the opposing team, as fan favorite Kevin Youkilis has been known to do on occasion.
I think it’s no coincidence that this year is the first season I’ve really appreciated Drew’s talents. This year I watched fewer games on TV than ever before. When Drew makes an out on Gameday, his avatar just disappears, same as Kevin Youkilis or Derek Jeter or any other player. When Drew makes a catch in right, I can’t see whether he dove or not. I can’t see how dirty his uniform is. It’s easier to appreciate J.D. Drew when you aren’t watching him, as so many of his skills come with the double-edged sword of frustration.
This is also precisely why sports talk radio hates him – all of their analysis is based on what they can see and what their gut tells them. To give J.D. Drew his fair credit is to admit that preparation and skill are more important than effort, that raw aggression isn’t worth much in baseball, that hyper-masculinity doesn’t reign on the diamond as it does on the gridiron or the court. It’s also, I think, to acknowledge that there are real measurements for greatness in baseball, and that those measurements, with a bit of effort, are equally accessible to everyone – professional and amateur alike. To acknowledge that is to admit that, for lack of a better phrase, you are full of shit.
