It's that time of year. You have to get your roster together for the upcoming season. If you are lucky, that weak player who was getting older, slower, and dumber finally retired (no that will never be me so deal with it).
And someone else decided he was too good for your team now, or someone's wife had a baby, and he is not allowed out of the house any more.
Or even if your lineup remains intact, you want to get that extra superstar who will get you over the hump, or if you won the championship last year, will ensure that you can defend it.
In any case you have to find someone new.
Invariably, someone comes up to you and says they have this awesome player who can play anywhere and will hit .700 with pop. Of course the team doesn't have practices; you are stuck with having to decide on spec whether the guy is the real deal. And your starting left fielder had shoulder surgery.
One of two things happens. Either the guy never shows up, or he does, and you wish you never had to see him again. And as we all know the hardest thing to do is get someone not to show up after they are on the roster.
One time on a team sponsored by the company where I worked, a guy showed up in the mail room that wanted to play. Someone said he had been in a minor league camp not too long ago. We added him to the roster. He played two or three games, and must have gotten two or three hits total. He didn't fit in with the rest of us either. What to do. And then - in one of those "this story is so bizarre I couldn't be making it up" - the guy got busted stealing credit cards in the mail room that were getting sent to employees. Well I shouldn't say busted...when they found out he had put $5000 in charges on the cards, he bolted for Mexico. My recollection is that they eventually found him. He goes down in the history of the team as the only one that did hard time.
Just to prove that the exception proves the rule, there is a another story. Another work team that I coached. One night, the Engineering Manager comes into my office and tells me he has a new player from one of the vendors that 'hits .700'. I rolled my eyes and said Oh Sure, Here We Go Again. But he showed up. And showed up. After two years his average stood at exactly .700. Over the years, time averaged out his stats some but today 12 years later, his career average is .664. Not bad. And he's a good guy too, and we are good friends. But he never spent a day in minor league camp.
And someone else decided he was too good for your team now, or someone's wife had a baby, and he is not allowed out of the house any more.
Or even if your lineup remains intact, you want to get that extra superstar who will get you over the hump, or if you won the championship last year, will ensure that you can defend it.
In any case you have to find someone new.
Invariably, someone comes up to you and says they have this awesome player who can play anywhere and will hit .700 with pop. Of course the team doesn't have practices; you are stuck with having to decide on spec whether the guy is the real deal. And your starting left fielder had shoulder surgery.
One of two things happens. Either the guy never shows up, or he does, and you wish you never had to see him again. And as we all know the hardest thing to do is get someone not to show up after they are on the roster.
One time on a team sponsored by the company where I worked, a guy showed up in the mail room that wanted to play. Someone said he had been in a minor league camp not too long ago. We added him to the roster. He played two or three games, and must have gotten two or three hits total. He didn't fit in with the rest of us either. What to do. And then - in one of those "this story is so bizarre I couldn't be making it up" - the guy got busted stealing credit cards in the mail room that were getting sent to employees. Well I shouldn't say busted...when they found out he had put $5000 in charges on the cards, he bolted for Mexico. My recollection is that they eventually found him. He goes down in the history of the team as the only one that did hard time.
Just to prove that the exception proves the rule, there is a another story. Another work team that I coached. One night, the Engineering Manager comes into my office and tells me he has a new player from one of the vendors that 'hits .700'. I rolled my eyes and said Oh Sure, Here We Go Again. But he showed up. And showed up. After two years his average stood at exactly .700. Over the years, time averaged out his stats some but today 12 years later, his career average is .664. Not bad. And he's a good guy too, and we are good friends. But he never spent a day in minor league camp.
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