People purchase and proudly wear jerseys with someone else's name on the back, living vicariously through the borrowed identity. Sidney Crosby might think it peculiar that a tubby 50-year-old would sport his name and number, but he's far too diplomatic to say so.
An entire industry has grown around the desire to be a player. Middle-aged people pay thousands of dollars to attend fantasy camps that purport to simulate the experience of being a major league player, if only for a week. Campers get a regulation uniform, a baseball card of themselves and they presumably learn the fine art of scribbling a consistently illegible autograph. They're not really players, but they get to put sunglasses atop their caps and walk the walk for a few days.
Baseball fantasy camps routinely sell out the available spots, despite the big price tag. There are no dentist fantasy camps, where wanna-be's get to wear scrubs, lecture on the importance of flossing, and bark orders for a set of bitewing x-rays.
Sports grip us in a special way. Surgeons and Senators daydream about patrolling the outfield in Wrigley Field on a sunny afternoon or stepping to the plate with the World Series on the line, the way that Bill Mazeroski did.
But if you pay attention, it works the other way, too. You see things in sports and silently give thanks that you don't have that kind of problem. You wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Here are some people whose Florsheims you're grateful not to occupy these days:
--Roger Goodell: Sure, he has the big bank account and his signature is on the footballs, but he looks awfully stressed now. He completely botched the Ray Rice issue, and he's backpedaling faster than a cornerback trying to cover Calvin Johnson.
Reports of off-field misdeeds are springing up like dandelions, leaving Goodell scrambling like Fran Tarkenton, and causing some observers to overuse similes and reference old players irrelevant to anyone under 40.
--Billy Beane: The Oakland GM had the team with the best record in MLB, and decided to improve it. The master of Moneyball, who has skillfully built on a budget, uncharacteristically broke the bank to beef up his pitching. He boldly acquired starters Jon Lester, Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, shoring up the one potential weakness.
But while those pitchers have generally done well for the A's, the offense went south. They've gone from a four-game lead in the division to a double-digit deficit, and they're now in a final-week scramble to nail down a wild card spot. Beane blew a hole in the offense when he dealt cleanup hitter Yoenis Cespedes for a two-month rental of Lester He potentially bought years of future regret by surrendering prime prospects for the other two pitchers.
--Pedro Alvarez: There he sits on the Pirates bench, felled by a foot injury. It's the latest indignity in the scatter-armed summer that saw him removed for defensive purposes and lifted for pinch hitters. It's no fun to be a detached spectator as the team makes a late charge to a postseason berth. He's being paid nicely, but Alvarez has to be suffering in what's turned into a lost season for him.
--Mike Johnston: His first chance to coach in the NHL comes at 57, and he gets this soap opera. He has two superstars who seem to be less than happy, and ownership expects a Stanley Cup, even though the team is clearly at least a notch below the current Kings/Blackhawks standard of excellence. The GM who hired him has one foot on his retirement property, his goalie has a potentially-distracting contract issue, and he didn't even get to pick his top assistant. Welcome to the NHL!
Perhaps it was all best summed up by the philosopher Barry Bonds. He had a memorable reaction when told a mid-level Pirates executive with whom he had clashed had been dismissed in a budgetary move. Bonds grinned widely, then gleefully cackled, "See ya! Wouldn't want to be ya!"
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