erstad

darin erstad plays baseball for the la angels.

he epitomizes what someone who specializes in a sport and plays it for big money at the highest level should be, (unfortunately, not what they are.)

erstad is no nonsense. when he holds a runner on first base, he does not talk to him as if it's two guys from the "got-rich-in-the-show club," stepping aside for a brief chat. it's all business w/ him. erstad treats the runner like he's from the other team, the one trying to beat his team so they do not make the playoffs so they do not ultimately win the world series, practically taking food out of his family's mouth. and this is as it should be.

in the last six years (or so,) erstad has changed positions more than john kerry, and like kerry, he did it for the right reasons. he did it for the good of the team, sacrificing the chance to please his agent by establishing a top dollar reputation at one position, (his natural being centerfield where his speed and daring earned him a reputation as one of the best in the game, even displacing a pretty good ballplayer in jim edmonds,) opting instead to play the game to win the game, which has involved shuffling back and forth from center to 1st base a few times.

erstad is a singles and doubles hitter. but, the key word there is hitter. he is the embodiment of that word. he hits in a lineup of utterly undisciplined hitters. vlad guerrero and garret anderson are first pitch swingers who make up for their lack of plate discipline by being great bad ball hitters. in other words, when they guess wrong, as baseball players often do, they often still do damage to hopeful pitchers.

free swinging hitters can be a dream to a pitcher. if he's on and he has some luck getting those guys out, it's a long night for the angels because his pitch count will be so low he can stay around for the late innings.

erstad takes pitches and he does it for the team. he gets many of his hits, (he is currently batting .295,) with two strikes on him. why? for the team, damnit! this is who he is.

i guess he's from fargo, north dakota. i don't really care to know much about his personal life. it's none of my business. but as a baseball fan, (and one who slung some leather in my day,) i appreciate his pro-style game.

a couple weeks ago he gave johnny estrada, (the atlanta brave's catcher,) a concussion bowling him over as he scored a run. he came in hard, saw the ball was going to beat him and that the catcher was partially blocking his path to the plate, and despite the likely pain that would ensue, he crouched forward on the dead run and layed a shoulder into estrada that produced five, square-dancing, tweety birds just over estrada's cranium. had estrada held onto the ball, erstad would have been out. the ball rolled free on contact and from the heap, erstad rose and stretched out over the fallen catcher to record the run.

why do we watch sports? to pad the ego of some guy who spent all his time playing one game in order to excel and cash in instead of reading the works of rushdie and viewing the films of the young, mexican directors, and getting a feel for all the various sports and having a head for politics and becoming a scintillating conversationalist, and understanding the light and dark sides of human nature and growing into a citizen of the world, mostly at peace except in the face of injustice, violence and intolerance?

not that all the rich jocks are dumbasses, but the majority possess a singular focus which is likely why they are able to play at the level they do. it follows then they do not have the luxury of variety, the luxury of time to explore the corporeal world of the modern man, (though surely the cash affords them abilities to see much of the physical world and really, to pursue virtually any endeavor or passion.)

i hope we merely tolerate asshole athletes. i hope we watch sports for the excitement of the contest and for the prowess on display. i think we draw parallels in our lives to the games, and we use them to escape too, or as a pastime.

like many angel fans i booed jose guillen tonight, from my living room. i booed him not for the mistake he made last year w/ the angels that caused mike scioscia to demand the organization trade him at the end of the season while they made him leave the team for the pennant drive and the playoffs. i booed him for losing his temper last night. (no other player lost their temper in any visible way.)

it is said the blue-collar worker gets paid for the sweat of his brow, while the white-collar worker gets paid to swallow the natural urges and tendencies toward aggression that humans have. this means, when someone says something you do not like or disagree with, you practice the ability to not act out, especially with violence or anger. if a person can swallow those natural urges and respond in any other way, ideally w/ reason, besting the act or word that sparked the urge to begin w/, well, the better a person is at it the better they are at white-collar work, the greater their chances of getting promoted and making money, (or, more money,) in that environment.

guillen's behavior suggests baseball is blue-collar work and surely, the players who play games sweat. but w/ compensation so high in professional sports, i think we hope the players also possess white-collar skills.

it is understandable that tensions run high-a game is a competition after all. but today's athlete is conducting himself in front of millions of fans almost nightly. comportment should be a top priority. when a player misbehaves, (in fact whenever i used to see lou piniella acting like a fool out there throwing bases around as part of a tantrum,) i think of his parents and how poorly it reflects on them. (if he grew up an orphan or something like that, he gets some slack in the form of forgiveness but only some.) otherwise? bad parents.

erstad strikes a pretty good balance. he is a fierce competitor as evidenced by his hard-nosed style of game, but he is also utterly classy. five years ago he lead the league in hits, (pre-ichiro,)-he was more of a free swinger then. now he hits for average, getting on base often for teammates to drive in while increasing pressure on opposing pitchers.

even a-rod with his sculpted image, (and similar hair,) does not compare. he is a nice guy but he sounds like a robot, (though his game is absolutely above reproach.) his answers to interview questions sound like they have tested well in demographic studies.

erstad simply avoids the limelight. if a reporter asks him a question, he tries to answer it honestly, from what i can tell. what he says does not make for flashy journalism. good for him. it's refreshing a player does not seek out the limelight and try to make commercials for some hair product or another.

every team that wins a world series in major league baseball has chemistry. a good example, (though they did not come close to winning the championship,) is last year's dodgers. that team had chemistry, which is what took them as far as they went, further than any dodger team during all the years eric karros and mike piazza were there.

last year's champs, the bosox, had johnny damon and david ortiz, (and perhaps a few others.) clutch guys who came up w/ clutch hits. manny ramirez was and is the talent on that team but these guys get manny somewhere he would be unlikely to go without them: winnersville. (in a playoff series in which the sox swept the angels, erstad had a great series but seemed like a one-man show at times.)

in 2002 the angels won it all. erstad was the guy i'm describing. what? down a couple runs in the 7th? erstad will get that key double down the line that starts the rally to win the game.

if baseball had more guys like erstad, contests would be more fiercely fought and the level of play would elevate. (there are other guys like erstad and damon and ortiz around the league too, michael young of the texas rangers comes to mind. looking at a perennial spot in the all-star game he agreed to move to shortstop when a-rod left for the big apple despite the fact he would be an unlikely candidate to ever get there going up against the likes of miguel tejada and derek jeter and the rest of the best infielders in baseball.)

these are the guys we, as fans, should hang some glory on. i'm tired of that guy who has a huge year in a contract season. some guys focus like that constantly, (adrian beltre.)

as for erstad, i don't mean to be his apologist. he's just a ballplayer, though one who is easy to respect for his talent, style and choices.