A few days ago Top 10 Kansas City Royals prospect Danny Duffy decided he was going to leave professional baseball. After having an outside shot at being a part of this year’s pitching staff either to start the season or almost certainly during, an injury caused a delay to his big league dreams. Well, maybe they weren’t his dreams after all.
I’m sure in the next couple of weeks, and months, we’ll begin to hear about the circumstances that led to Duffy to leave pro baseball*. I’m sure in the next couple of days, and months, we’ll begin to hear, even though we’ve already started to hear some, about how he’s a quitter and how he’s throwing away a tremendous opportunity, or how he’s a myriad of derogatory adjectives. I’d like to caution all of us to not get caught up in the world of nonsense that is sports blogger rage.
*Since Duffy, there have been two other Royals minor leaguers have decided to leave the organization. They won’t be last. They won’t be the last in all of professional baseball this year.
All we know, all we need to know, is that a young man has decided that at this time in his life, baseball is not for him. For whatever reason. We can only begin to speculate why or what, but doing so would be irresponsible. We’ll find out soon enough. Someone will talk to someone, who will talk to someone, and we’ll have our “answers.” As if we needed some anyway. Unfortunately until then, Duffy is going to be chastised for somehow being less of a man.
I grew up in Kansas City and spent all of my adult life to this point living there and being saturated with all things Royals. I remember the day it came out that franchise savior Zack Greinke was taking his leave of absence from baseball and how everyone had their thoughts on the matter. There was the name calling, the questions of how tough he was – cause you know, the one thing Sport is good at is making a man less of one if for some reason his sport isn’t everything that matters to him – and the confusion over how someone could pass up this “opportunity.”
Sadly fans and journalists alike got lost in the fact that this wasn’t their life, it was Greinke’s. Well this isn’t our life either, it is Duffy’s. It’s all of these players’ lives.
The juvenile name calling, the questioning of his toughness, the calling him a “quitter” is irresponsible. The young man made a choice. Nothing more. He decided that at this point, baseball wasn’t for him, and that’s fine. Perfectly fine. That does not make him a quitter, that makes him just like everyone else who ever worked at a job they didn’t like and wanted to try something different. Just because it’s baseball, doesn’t mean it’s not a job.
Sometimes we lose touch with reality when it comes to professional athletes. We expect all of them to have this unshakable drive, this unrelenting desire, and this ultimate love for the game the way we do. Well, not all of them do.
Some pro athletes play because they can, and for no other reason. They don’t play because they love their sport, they play because they’re better at it than you or me, and well, they might as well. And that’s perfectly fine.
Bit when that fine line of admiration is crossed into the ugly world of jealous, it’s not fair. Just because Duffy - or any player choosing to leave the fame and do something different with their lives - has left doesn’t mean he quit. It just means it’s not want he wanted. It’s not his fault it may have been what others wanted.
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