Foe or Hero
T.R Sullivans, "With 10 Ks, Darvish breezes past Yanks," he discusses Yu Darvish's phenomenal performance against the Yankees when he led the Rangers to a 2-0 victory. Being up 3-0 since he came out as the pitcher for the Rangers, he has been the talk of the season, his career and game performance growing with each new competitor to come his way. While the article mentions how his teammates are excited about his talents and having Darvish as part of their team, also how they are beginning to adapt to his playing style to work together better as a team, over all he is under the spotlight of the team at the moment, being placed under that "hero" title.
When ever there is a new athlete on a team, they are automatically placed under the microscope and put under harsher scrutiny than their team mates because they are in the trial stage. When they perform to peoples standards, or above, they are then placed under this hero title. It's like the Tebow period where "tebowing" become a dictionary word, and fans looked up to him for his unique playing style and personal morals. Darvish is being put under the same pressure and a similar spot light. Now the question is, does this early pressure and spotlight cause these athletes to break, will it cause Darvish to break, or can Darvish continue his incredible streak and break through the trial period?
As mentioned in "Mythology," we have now created a myth about Darvish being the Rangers future, being their and our hero, but what if his performance starts to deplete like Tebow's? People forget that by putting them in this spot light during the trial period, we are putting more pressure on them and raising the odds of continual failure once that winning streak is broken. We forget that they can't win everyone and automatically change that spotlight to a negative connotation when they finally do lose. The real hero is the athlete who can come back through the negative.
Woah, woah wow now...let's not begin to compare Darvish to Tebow. I mean, Darvish can probably throw a football. ... ... ... (Just letting the laughter fizzle down). Anyhow, in some sense, I agree with you- we are setting Darvish up for unjustified amounts of scrutiny. He will have to be better than everyone- but to truly gain the public favor, he has to win some kind of championship.
ReplyDeleteBaseball is an odd sport. It has double the games, or more, than every other professional season (that matters (which is up to my judgement (if you think about it, I can't be wrong))). Tebow played like thirteen games this season- Jeremy Lin played like forty- yet, if Darvish makes it through forty games, he will have only played maybe eight. In a strange way, he has much less opportunity to prove himself than players in other sports. It ain't easy being a pitcher.
So, I guess my point is that it is hard to gauge what pitchers will do. It is, unfortunately, the most indeterminable position in all of sports. You can go out one night and pitch like Mo (for nine innings!)- then head out another night and pitch like Lindsay Lohan after a Hot Wheels Convention.
I guess my ultimate point is nothing more than an agreement with yours. Pitchers have it rough; they can't fuck up until they haven't fucked up enough.
But then again, to return to an earlier point- they can win a championship and then they enter baseball's easy street (See most pitchers from the Yankees organization from the late nineties into the early oughties).
comment #2.
I agree that there is a lot of pressure on Darvish and that the myth being created about him adds a lot to that pressure. Pressure can do a lot to an athlete. Ask Albert Pujols or Carl Crawford. Both of those guys signed huge contracts with new teams and Crawford has never been the productive player he was with the Rays. Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the game and has hit 0 home runs since signing his huge contract with the Angels. However, creating a myth about a guy early in his career, like what is occurring with Darvish, has the potential to give him some leeway in his performance. Your example of Tim Tebow is a perfect example. Tebow could complete 35% of his passes in a game and the Broncos could win 17-14 on a late drive, and Tebow is the hero. He may have had an awful game and strung together 2 good drives, one of which happened to be late in the game, but he is the man and the reason the Broncos (or Jets now) won the game. The same thing could happen with Darvish. He could have a few horrible starts and if the Rangers offense bails him out, he will still be the hero. I think Darvish has the potential to be a great pitcher, but he also has the potential to be the expensive disappointment that Daisuke Matsuzaka has been to the Red Sox. Only time will tell.
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