Christian Lopez: Class act [x], Hero [ ], Victim [ ]

                Alright, I’m going to try keep this short (spoiler: I failed), because I talked about baseball last time and I’m going to do sports again tomorrow when I analyze (complain about) the ESPYs, so hopefully I can get some non-sports in later tonight (spoiler: I won't).  Christian Lopez is a class act.  For those of you who don’t recognize the name, he caught Derek Jeter’s 3,000^th hit (which happened to be a home run) ball, and returned the ball to Jeter, although he likely could have sold it for upwards of $200,000.  In return, he received three each of signed balls, bats, and jerseys, and four seasons tickets in the luxury box of Yankee Stadium for the rest of the season, including the playoffs, should they make it that far.  This package is worth approximately $50,000, though it could go higher, depending on the Yankees’ postseason run.  Not bad, but still well short of what he could have made.  It was a classy move to give the ball to Jeter.  Christian Lopez, however, is not a hero.  Nor is he a victim.  Nor is he a charity case.  I understand the Yankees gift to him, and it was totally appropriate.  I even understand Miller High Life offering to pay his taxes on the gifts, which will amount to somewhere between $5,000 and $14,000; it goes perfectly with their advertising strategy and their series of commercials deeming those who are and aren’t deserving of living the High Life.  What I don’t get is the following:

Both [Mitchell Modell, CEO of Modell's Sporting Goods] and Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports, guaranteed Lopez at least $25,000 each toward his outstanding student loans of $150,000.

Steiner said he got a call on Wednesday from his buddy Modell, and they got the ball rolling. Steiner set up an auction of memorabilia that eventually will include baseballs signed by both Lopez and Jeter and said Modell is pledging 5 percent from the sale of Yankees-related merchandise at the Modell's chain during what will be called "Christian Lopez Week."[1]

Besides wondering how the fuck a 23-year old ended up with $150,000 in student loans (Did he decide to go to one of the most expensive schools in the country, despite apparently not having any money and being offered no financial aid?), my first reaction to this was sheer disappointment.  I’m sorry if I’m not going to feel bad for a kid who just had a windfall of prizes worth $50,000 tax-free and the worship of a nation fall into his lap, especially considering that apparently the tickets to the game were given to him by his girlfriend (isn’t she the real hero here in the end, or in the beginning, or whatever?)  There are a lot of people a lot worse off than he is right now in this nation (and probably more than half the world’s population outside of this nation), that don’t even have luxury box season tickets to fall back on.  Not only that, but a lot of these people are suffering through little or no fault on their own; I don’t think there’s a lot of starving children, or AIDS babies, or cancer victims out there who we can blame for spending $150,000 they don’t have on a top education that allowed them to become a cellphone salesman.  I understand the companies are mostly doing it for the publicity, but I’d be a lot more willing to buy from a company that comes out and says: “In honor of Christian Lopez, we’re going to make a donation of $25,000 in his name to help wipe out Malaria.”

                The other category that Lopez does not fall into is hero.  Well, that and baseball player, which is why it makes no sense that Topps is planning to make a baseball card featuring Lopez to be available later this year.  First of all, if I opened a pack of baseball cards and found this guy staring me in the face, I’d feel pretty ripped off.  More importantly, he gave a ball that he received through sheer luck to an athlete worth over $100 million dollars, and was rewarded handsomely for it.  How does that make him worthy of a baseball card?  When Tim Forneris got his hands on McGwire’s record breaking 62^nd home run ball, he gave it to McGwire, even though that ball would have sold for millions, and he just got a trip to Florida (to be fair, he worked for the Cardinals at the time, but it appears from my research that he would have had the legal ownership of the ball).  I understand it’s not the same because Jeter is the greatest and classiest and clutchest Yankee/baseball player/athlete/human in the past, present, or future, along with being the second coming of Jesus Christ, whereas McGwire, even before the steroid allegations was, well, not any of those things.  I still don’t see how this qualifies Lopez for the hero status that he has assumed.

                It may not seem like it from the last couple paragraphs, but I honestly do like Lopez.  As I said before, I think he’s a class act.  I almost feel bad for being as hard on him as I am, but it’s pretty obvious that nobody else is going to do it, and my job is to criticize where criticism is necessary.  Lopez earns my praise; I hope it’s clear that the media is the target of my criticism.  I also feel bad for one other thing: not keeping this post very short.  Lots of sports this week, but don’t worry, I have plenty of criticism stored for all aspects of society in weeks to come.

BV

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[1] http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/6765849/companies-line-help-new-york-yankees-fan-christian-lopez

Home Fun Derby!

                As I write this post, tonight’s Home Run Derby is playing on my television in the background.  The Home Run Derby, in my opinion, is one of the best ideas in sports.  It takes the best players and showcases them doing the only thing in baseball that’s actually intrinsically exciting (I actually love baseball, but to me the excitement of baseball mostly comes from the sport’s ability to build drama and pressure better than any other sport, as opposed to innate exhilaration that exists in many other sports simply from watching athletes perform inhuman tasks of athleticism).  Moreover, they’re all having fun, and pretty much everyone is good guy; there’s competition, but it mostly takes the form of rooting for your favorite player to hit more home runs, rather than rooting against everyone else.  It takes place on a night when no other major sports are being played, and it’s a great lead in to the All-Star Game.  Since it started in 1985, it’s become arguably an even bigger event than the All-Star game itself.  An ESPN.com poll from a couple of days ago showed that more voters were interested in the Derby than the All-Star game itself (I can’t find a link to it, but you can take my word for it (or just correct me if I’m remembering incorrectly)).  Although, to be fair, that poll may be flawed, because if I remember correctly it showed that about 5% were most interested in the future stars game, which doesn’t make sense because there’s no way that a full 5% of the poll’s sample were the parents of future stars participants, who I’m pretty sure are the only one’s watching that game.  Anyway, Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby: awesome, exciting, cool, fun.  How could anyone not like it?  Well, I’m glad I asked, because I happen to have an answer.

                Quite honestly, I have found the Home Run Derby in recent years to be painfully boring—worthy of nothing more than being played in the background on mute while I attend to more pressing forms of entertainment.  I feel this way despite the fact that total home runs in the event have seemed to increase as a general trend in recent years.  This, however, is no coincidence; the same change that has led to more home runs has also ironically led to a more boring Home Run Derby: the participants have gotten smarter.  That is to say, they’ve started taking many more pitches.  Taking pitches is, of course, among the most boring things to watch in all of sports (others include pick-off attempts, challenges in football, and the entire NBA regular season and the first 46 minutes of every playoff game).  I understand that the players want to win, and when there’s no penalty for taking your time, waiting for the best pitches is undeniably the best strategy.  But in my defense: this shit is fucking boring!  As of this very second, it is 10:10 pm.  My TV guide says the Home Run Derby ended 10 minutes ago, and yet when I watch the screen, it appears we’re not even half way done with the second of three rounds.  I could crank out home runs faster if I tossed a single wiffle ball to myself in my back yard and had to chase every ball on my own (and my back yard has a lot of bushes: finding that ball is not easy).

                I don’t blame the players for this unfortunate development in America’s beloved Home Run Derby.  The strategy behind the event has led to somewhat of a prisoner’s dilemma: everyone would be better off if everyone took less pitches, but the dominant strategy for any individual is to take as many pitches as necessary.  As I stated before, as long as taking pitches is not penalized, players would be stupid not to wait for that perfect pitch.  The solution, then, is simple: to some extent, they have to penalize taking pitches.  I’m not saying that players shouldn’t be allowed to wait for a good pitch, but at least give them a maximum amount of pitches they’re allowed to takes per round before they start counting as outs.  Either that or start counting pitches in the strike zone as outs.  I don’t know which one the players would prefer, and I don’t really care, but they better do something.  No one wants to watch three hours of their favorite baseball players standing still, doing nothing on a baseball diamond, except, of course, when there’s an actual game.

BV

Side note: To that kid who made a sick catch in the outfield during the Derby: get over yourself.  Cool: making a sick catch on national television in an albeit meaningless context, acting like an adult, and getting the adulation of all your friends who saw it when you see them the next day.  Not cool: making a sick but completely meaningless catch while shagging balls for professionals playing in an only slightly less meaningful event, and then getting up and acting like your play just won your team a state championship.