Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Mitchell: Pedroia, Cano and Magical Thinking
(www.huffingtonpost.com)
Pedroiadolia: The psychological phenomenon of seeing wacko images on dirty uniforms.
Read More...The narratives around the two players, however, could not be different. Pedroia is almost the prototype of the over-achieving “scrappy” player. He is a 5’8” middle infielder who does the little things well. This ignores that he was also a second round draft choice who played baseball at a top baseball school. Cano, on the other hand is bigger, more athletic and does not project scrappiness at all. Throughout ...
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1 2 >“I’m basically on a mission at this point,” said Davis, who kept herself occupied by reading “Fifty Shades of Grey” on her Kindle. “I want his autograph. You can’t really talk to him because he’s not going to sit and talk to you. So I want his autograph. That’s all I want.”
If that's not a Misery situation waiting to happen, I don't know what is. Be safe Jetes!
It's Jeter, so I'm assuming that even his stalkers are underwear models.
"Brad Meinhart, a fan from Orlando, had made his way to the head of the line just in time to watch Jeter vacate the grounds. He dropped his unsigned Jeter poster to his side and appeared traumatized as the line disassembled behind him. The grieving process had begun, and for good reason: Meinhart had left his home at 3 a.m. in order to get a good spot in line. As it turned out, he had not left soon enough."
That just seems really pathetic. These are adults!
That just seems really pathetic. These are adults!
And you even left out the last line of that quote:
do not mess with his mom is all i can say.
wow...just....wow
And then it's why can't he just sign 70 instead of 40
then 100 instead of 70
then 130 instead of 100
The Meinhart example quoted above is just one of a couple of examples in the story that would have me being like Jeter. These people are a little scary. Yeah, spending a few minutes here and there signing is something that players should do at the field I think but someone is always going to be the guy that got told "no" and that person is going to be pissed.
That misses the entire point of a pilgrimage (and make no mistake -- this is a pilgrimage.)
She's a pretty active/entertaining tweeter.
I was using the 40 quoted in TFA. Not that 70's some kind of an imposition anyway; it's 20 minutes.
These people are a little scary.
And, who knows, one of them might be a terrorist. We can never be too careful and it would be terrible to lose Jetes to terror at this vulnerable time in our history.
So why not another 70...or another...or another.
I get your point in the specific case but at some point I think these guys have a right to go home and do whatever the hell they want.
20 minutes isn't an imposition? I get twitchy after about 5 wasted seconds.
World Series SS hero Mickey Stanley would do it. I saw it with my own eyes.
Well, actually I didn't. Once Sugarbear, Sr. saw the hordes at the local mall, he said something along the lines of "Jesus ####### Christ, look at all these people. We aren't sticking around for this ####."
(There's a joke on one of the non-baseball boards I'm on concerning some A's relievers. as in "he's signed all my gear already, I have to ask him to stop")
Which tells us you typereallyfast, I suppose.
In that case, I would strongly advise you not to read this post. You have been warned.
America is now so stacked in favor of the overdog that it lends a touch of poignancy to these stories. The "wackos" have always been there, but they operate in a far different social context than they did a generation ago.
Eh-hem, I see what you did there.
We've seen star worship through every cycle of boom and bust, rising equality and rising inequality. I don't think it has anything to do with the plight of the working man.
The fact that some people are willing to spend 8 hours waiting for a Jeter autograph, or sleep with someone just b/c they're famous is a sign of personal issues, not societal woes.
Yeah, but it's accentuated today because of the potential resale value of those autographs. That's what half these people in line are thinking about. Not that that has anything to do with economic cycles, but it's certainly a phenomenon that didn't exist 40 years ago, when autograph collecting was 99% a hobby and only 1% a business.
How valuable is Jeter's autograph? That one guy has 30.
Since he is giving one away with every 'sleeping buddy', I'd estimate that there will be more Jeter autographs than pennies in circulation by the time he is fifty.
This shocks me because I have never cared one bit about a player's autograph and would never pay for one. But a quick ebay check shows that a Jeter autographed ball goes for $200-500.
Wow, must be nice to be the Jete. If I were him I could walk into any restaurant, order anything I like, not pay, autograph a baseball, and call it even. Assuming they didn't just comp me as soon as I walked in. Of course, there's the fast cars, spacious mansions, beautiful women, and yachts to consider. Being Jeter would make just about everything better. With one exception. Next summer my softball team probably would make me move off shortstop.
As well as bottles of anti-herpes cream.
“I’m stopping at the first bar I see,” I said.
He was just elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, BTW.
Picasso routinely used to pay for meals and things of that sort by drawing sketches.
Ha, ha, ha!
Wow, PT Barnum was right. Soooo many suckers in the world.
I could see paying that for something actually rare, like a real old-timey autographed ball.
But even superstars like Mays, Mantle, DiMaggio, Aaron have done so many card shows that there's just no scarcity value.
If I was never allowed to sell or monetize it in any way, I'd rather have a half-way decent meal than any art Picasso ever produced.
Years ago, I was in a crowd around Gary Player as he signed autographs at a tournament in Nashville. Player signed for a long time, and then he finally started saying it was time to resume his practice. Somebody gave him the "C'mon, Gary, just one more!" and I'll never forget what he said: "You can sign 250 autographs, but if you don't sign 251 you're a sonofabitch."
I'd take Guernica (for example) over a steak dinner. Gotta be a painting though, no napkin sketches.
I want through an autograph phase in my younger years, though mostly via mail. (SASE 4ever!) I don't think I've gotten one in years and years, at least that I can think of.
Yep, the key is finding a scenario where there is a clearly finite, and manageable, number of people around.
The last autograph I ever got (or sought) was Jack Nicklaus, as a teenager. A buddy and I happened around an obscure corner of the country club main clubhouse during a PGA Tour event, and there we spotted the Golden Bear himself. We walked up real polite - but the key, I realized eventually, was that no one else was in the area.
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