MLB Players: The Falling From Grace

What do you think is harder for an MLB player?  The journey to the top or the drop, the falling from grace?  The journey is probably harder.  Yeah, most of you would agree.  Thus, my Mike Wallace-style follow up: What's harder to take?  Never reaching the top, try as you might, or the falling from grace?

The follow up poses the harder response.

One way to answer could be the old cliche/phrase "It's better to have loved and watched your lover torn apart by wild dogs than to never have loved at all."  I paraphrased, but you get my point.

I'm saying the fall may be hard, but you at least reached the summit.  Ask the thousands of people who've tried to scale Mt. Everest.  You think, at 20,000 feet, they're not amazingly disappointed and regretful that they had to stop their climb because of a throbbing, oxygen-deprived headache?  They tried and failed.  That's the bottom line.  If their goal and lifelong desire to reach the top did not get met, they may always feel they didn't fulfill their ambitions.

Conversely, look at a guy like Joe Charboneau.  "Super Joe" had an amazing rookie season in 1980, hitting 23 home runs, driving in 87, and a combined OPS of .846. (I put that in to please the stats geeks; for those of you who don't know what OPS is, just know that an OPS of .846 is good, especially for a rookie and especially in 1980.  I now return you to my regularly scheduled point.)  But after injuries and poor play, Joe was out of the big leagues for good after the 1983 season.

One more example, even more famous:  Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.  In 1976, Mark led the Major Leagues in ERA, the American League in complete games, finished 2nd in Cy Young Award voting and won the AL Rookie of the Year Award.  He was 22 years old.  Over the next 4 years, he would pitch in a total of 27 MLB games before finally being released after the 1981 season.

What do "The Bird" and "Super Joe" have in common?  They reached the peak of their baseball careers at very young ages, both won local and national acclaim that transcended baseball due to their sometimes outrageous personalities, both won major awards, and both never repeated their rookie year triumphs.  They were both done as players much more quickly than the journeys they took to get there.

They both fell from grace.  Quickly.

My question for Mark & Joe, and for all of the others who preceded and followed them, would be this: If you had to do it all over again, would you?  Even if you knew the fall was going to come hard and fast, would you still spend the years trying to master your craft, even if it was for just one season?  Or, if you could do it again, would you have just been a fan of the game and instead worked at a manufacturing plant or in an office cubicle or teaching kids or betting on cock-fights?

As much as I like a good grilled chicken breast, I think Bird & Joe & Bob Hamelin and all the others who had highs and quick falls wouldn't turn in their journeys for a 10-year deal on a Ford assembly line with pension and benefits.  I think they'd covet their time in the MLB Players Union much more than the United Autoworkers Union.  I think they'd accept their fates, their falls from grace, and do it all again. 

At least I would.  Wouldn't you?