System Of A Downward Spiral - Dealing With The End

I wrote about Mark Fidrych & Joe Charboneau the other day, how they reached the top of the baseball world quickly and fell even faster.  A reader sent me a link to a Sports Illustrated article written in 1986 that follows Fidrych ten years after his dream year.  As you can imagine, his life changed dramatically after The Fall.  He would have done anything to get back into the game:

"Most of the next six years were spent in the minors—the last year and a half with Boston's Triple A team in Pawtucket, R.I. He tried doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors, hypnotists and psychologists, long rests and no rests. He gulped aspirin and anti-inflammation pills by the handful and rubbed all sorts of strange substances on his arm. Fans called and wrote in with miracle cures, suggesting that he stick the troubled arm into a swarm of bees, that he pack it in red Florida clay. An old man with arthritis-swollen knuckles drove to Northboro from New Jersey to give him some red gook that smelled like kerosene. All the old guy wanted was for Fidrych to sign a contract guaranteeing him 10% of his salary once Mark was healed. Fidrych signed the contract, but the stuff only made the shoulder stink as well as hurt."

In the article, Mark makes a telling statement: "I know I could get a major league hitter out now," he says. "I know it."

I had a conversation with former Braves, Pirates and Red Sox pitcher Zane Smith last week that you'll hear soon enough on Jimmy Scott's High & Tight.  Zane, who was done at 36 years old and is now 48, said the same statement.  "I could still get guys out today." 

When Doug Glanville was done, he believed he could still hit.  Former All-Star and two-time World Champion Ed Sprague spent his final year of pro ball playing in AAA.  Mike Torrez played in a senior league in Florida.  Desi Relaford cut his own minor league deal with Texas that got him one final month in the bigs before a winter of watching his phone and waited for a call that never came.  Brian Boehringer cut his own deal with the Cubs, was released, and went the Independent League route.  Eric Valent went to Japan, just like former minor league teammate Chase Lambin is doing at the end of this month.

When the end comes, how do you know how to deal? 

I think baseball is like a relationship.  Quick story about me: On January 18, 1987 I had a date with a girl who would become my first major league love.  My, oh my, she was everything to me.  I would have given everything up for her.  Everything.  It was that powerful.  On June 18, 1988, exactly 1 year and 6 months after our first date, she dumped me.  She gave me my unconditional release. 

I was devastated.  I was depressed, crying and vowing to get her back.  I even stalked her once, which came to a quick halt when she saw me at her house one afternoon.  The look on her face, the fear of being in my presence...  I still cringe at what I did. 

The thing is, I didn't know how to deal with our breakup.  Just like MLB players don't know how to deal with the end of their careers.  Zane Smith told me he could have used something, like an outplacement service to help him figure out what to do with the rest of his life.  As corporate and powerful Major League Baseball is, they don't have that.  Let's say you're 23 and was just released from your AA squad.  You were a 38th round pick and got a bonus of maybe $50,000.  That money's long gone.  And now you're 24 and just starting the rest of your life.  Do you keep trying to make it?  Do you use your competitive zeal, the internal power that got you to AA?   Do you quit and regret you didn't try one last time?  What do you do? 

A dad and mom can only help so much.  Your non-baseball friends are too envious, too beholden to the mindset of fans; they can't give you the advice you need.  Nobody in the game will talk to you.  Your agent might call you back within the week, but time is of the essence.  Before long, you are labeled as "done."  You're like a burger at McDonald's sitting under the heat lamp, waiting for someone to snatch you up.

What if nobody does?  Then what?  Do you shrivel and eventually get tossed into the back alley dumpster?

Hope is on the way.  Relaford and Glanville are working on something that will help players, who suddenly become former players, with the transition.  It's basically the outplacement service that baseball is missing.  And it may launch as soon as the spring.

Until then, and for the rest of time, there will always be guys like Mark Fidrych, guys who are done long before they expected; who don't know what to do with the rest of their lives.  

"Ten years," Fidrych said almost 23 years ago. "It's hard to believe. I got no regrets. I'd do it like that all again. I got memories, I'll always keep them alive. You never know when it's gonna disappear. You can't think about it; you gotta just go until something happens."

He lingers. "You know, I still get fan mail. I wait a week before I answer it, so it builds up. It sounds crazy but it makes me feel more important. Please, just end this story by saying thank you to the people. Thank you to our society."

 Hopefully, Desi Relaford and Doug Glanville can turn the downward spirals of players into something better.