September 29, 2024
***
Readers, please respond to the following:
There are two lines of thinking regarding Aaron Judge and the fact that he sat out Friday's game. Either he asked to sit, or the Yankees sat him. It's one or the other.
If it was you, if you had Judge's stats, with three games left to go in the season, and a chance to set a number of historic milestones, would YOU have sat out that game?
UPDATE (11:00 a.m. ) - There is a great discussion here which is all well and good, but the question, which I felt was unqiue, and a different take on any of the previous points so many have made, isn't "Did Judge or the Yankees do the right thing?" - the question I'm asking here is, "If it was YOU, would you have sat?" If you were in that situation, would you have played in the game?
***
I would have played. DEFINITELY, I would have played. I would have wanted to play really badly. Burning desire to.
However, team management may not want me to play. It I was the manager or the GM or the owner, I would not have let me play, because whenever a professional baseball player takes the field, there is always the risk that he will be injured during the game. It's a risk that team management, running a team that is going to the playoffs, one that is on the verge of clinching the top seed, may not want to take. The only way to avoid a player getting injured in a game is to not play him in that game.
I suspect I would have played, just because I like to play. Someone who plays for his profession though may look at it differently. Judge talked of "partying hard" and "taking a day off", so I suspect he didn't need to be talked into it, and the numbers didn't mean much to him.
This the latest example I see in players with priorities different from players in the past, and from the preferences of us older fans.
Many of us fans don't see the reason to celebrate clinching a wild-card, but the players do.
Many of us love the days when the All-Star game was a highlight of the year and something for players to play to win. Not so…
I would have played!
Unless I was hurting for some reason, I play. And it has nothing to do with 60 home runs or any other individual stat: I play until the Yankees clinch AL best record. And that's even if I'm not making $40 million a year.
well to answer the question, i will say, I like the way Ted Williams handled it in 1941. and I know we have seen some gaffes, some of them slightly mind numbing, from Soto of late, BUT, personally, I still appreciate his approach- meaning I want to be on the field of play doing everything I can EVERY day. no Fuster I do not think he does that because he is greedy and trying to add to his future contract. if that were true, it would have been a recent change. he has done that since day one of his MLB career. he has always been a player who almost NEVER misses a game
so, yes, personally, I would have…