A couple of weeks back I wrote about the salary issues in baseball. The issue never really left my head, as I watch the game religiously and I observe the verbal and non-verbal communication the players give off. The non-verbal communication is really telling of the emotional state of a player. As time has passed since that dissent on salary, I have reflected even further on all of the variables of the game. My naivety on certain things is pretty evident to me. My love and passion for the game, sometimes eclipses the economic logic and statistical analyses of the business. …I romanticize the game as a fan… naturally.

Since I last wrote about the game, I have been troubled by fans of my team who seem to lose site of the humans playing the game. Yes, the players are human. They are the labor of the game. The workers. Their mental status and health determine so much within the game. Baseball is a really challenging game as failure is more common than success. Many fans sort of treat the players as commodity for the purpose of celebrating wins or production. Their humanity is lost on them. I think ownership groups and management also treat these players as commodity in much the same way 18th and 19th century enslavers operated. The trades, demotions, promotions, and releases all have an emotional effect on the player themselves. …I empathize with them…

So, I am guilty from time to time of losing site of the man behind the player within my passion for the game. Last season the number one pitcher on the Nationals was a young man named MacKenzie Gore. Gore has great skills on the mound. His breaking stuff is excellent. I personally couldn’t hit his stuff if you gave me a cricket bat or even a 2×12 board. What bothered me the most about Gore’s playing was his lack of emotional control. He would not get a call on a pitch, and his emotions would flounder out of control. You could see the frustration mount on his face. His micro expressions and contempt for the umpire would end sabotaging the rest of the at bat and sometimes the whole inning. I watched him lose more games from this perspective than I wanted to. People on our National’s social media pages would come to his defense and talk about his electric stuff, etc… I didn’t come to his defense. I actually and rudely called out his weak mindset on the mound as his greatest issue. Who am I, from a thousand miles away, qualified to diagnose the issue? I’m not qualified. I perceive an issue… I’m not helping an issue… I dissent with myself…

The Nationals traded Gore to the Rangers last spring. He still has electric stuff, and things still are not going in the trend we want to see a successful pitcher go. Well Gore and his wife welcomed their first child recently. This experience changes one’s mindset. My teaching colleague at school who is a Ranger’s fan told me he looks different on the mound as of late. Sharper, crisper, less laborious. Could that event, welcoming a child, place the game into perspective for Gore? Time will tell. I want nothing but the best for him and his family. He has worked hard to get where he has gotten. I lost site of the human whilst focused on the player of the game. I regret this. Reflection is a 20/20 hindsight process.

Lately I have seen fans on the same Nationals social media page criticize our shortstop C.J. Abrams for some recent struggles. They have also rhapsodized on and on about how good the trade of Luis Garcia Jr to the Yankees was for us based on peripheral statistical analysis. Meanwhile our star outfielder James Wood is sidelined with an oblique injury. Literally the fans are objectifying all three young men as players to be plugged into gaps, rather than the human beings they are. Like my own analysis of Gore, this fan behavior is anything but respectful. After all these men perform their labor for us fans to romanticize about…

Garcia was my favorite player on the Nationals. He was an emotional leader playing his role like a professional should through some awful seasons. The Nationals traded off their stars one by one following the 2019 World Series championship to rebuild and retool. Garcia joined the Nationals in the Covid shortened season of 2020 at the age of 20. He played the game hard and regardless of the situation always wore a smile on his face. Garcia has always been criticized for inconsistent hitting and fielding by hard core fans. I loved his work, because he showed joy regardless of the situation. It appeared he embraced the game much like I did as a child. The one difference he gets to play this game as an adult. Garcia has been up and down between AAA and the Show multiple times over the years. Since 2024 he has cemented his role as an infielder (2nd or 1st baseman) within the organization. This year Garcia, Abrams, and Wood all have had a breakthrough year statistically. Our offense was the number one run scoring team well past the all-star break. Then they traded Garcia to the Yankees.

This trade from all appearances has affected the labor of the team. Garcia’s quiet leadership is gone. At 26 years of age Garcia was the longest tenured National. He welcomed all of the new faces from the Scherzer/Turner trade to the Dodgers, the Soto/Bell trade to the Padres, and others with a handshake and a hug. Garcia’s presence in the clubhouse was a big brotherly kind of leadership. Watching the relationships he had built in the clubhouse on every game was beautiful to watch. From my perspective Garcia was the heart and soul of the locker room. Despite our losing record or .500 record at times I enjoyed watching these young men play with the heart of little leaguers. They were having fun through all of the successes and failures. When Luis was traded that all crashed…

The ownership groups never think about the labor. They look at production and pieces to see how the team can win and create revenue. The Nationals ownership destroyed their labor force mentally. Since the Garcia trade and Wood’s injury you can see the weight of the pressure in the team’s eyes. Abrams has struggled to make things happen by himself. He doesn’t have Garcia’s or Wood’s offensive production to shield his own. The weight of that failure has resulted in a young man losing some confidence and swagger. The fans are being hypercritical on him. Garcia has had similar struggles in New York as Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, and Giancarlo Stanton are all injured, so they are pitching around Garcia. You can see the frustration from time to time on Luis’ face. Yes, I’ve watched the Yankees more, because I miss seeing his smile and joy…

Management for both the Yankees and Nationals has not considered the chemistry of the labor force in the equation for team development. The Yankees are in search of bats to score runs to maintain their winning ways. The Nationals are seeking to rebuild a pitching staff that has blown 35 or so save opportunities this season. Neither team are considering the mental health of the players or that brotherly connection within the team for success. The Yankees have always been a team where star players or at least excellent players do their business and win. They haven’t succeeded much in the Aaron Judge era as the players don’t seem to have a bond like the Nationals clubhouse did prior to the trade deadline. There is a professional distance at work there. The cynicism of building a winning culture beyond the humanity of that culture….

The Nationals meanwhile took that labor connection within their dugout and nuked it by sending two leaders to the Guardians (Foster Griffen) and Yankees (Garcia.) The laborers on the team that are left have had their confidence shattered for the excuse of a continuing rebuild or due to the economic situation ownership doesn’t want to spend the money. Fans on one side of the equation have been critical of the players. Fans like me are being critical of ownership and management as they destroyed our team’s chemistry. At this time the team has lost eight of their last nine games. Fans on my side of the argument see the mental damage of baseball’s commodity driven analytics on our players we support. We empathize with the players. We emotionally connect with their work, smiles, and successes. The story of a baseball season or a single game is all built around the narrative of their labor. We fans take great pride in their work… It is why we love baseball…

As I continue to watch my team struggle, I can’t help but feel bad for all of them. Just a couple of weeks ago they were on top of the world offensively with a weak pitching staff. Despite the failures, the team was incredibly fun to watch. Since then the offense has shut down, while the pitching staff has improved. There isn’t any balance in the production of the labor as we wait to see who steps up to take Garcia’s leadership role. We fans can feel the listlessness in the dug out from afar, whilst other fans criticize and dehumanize the players… unjustly…. …guilty as charged sometimes….

Yes, I can blame an ownership group that doesn’t want to spend money. Yes, I could wander away from the Nationals and support a different team. …but I have invested in the Nationals players. I love watching these young men work. I love watching them play. Their joy is my joy from afar. I wish the game of baseball would consider their humanity more than their statistical commodity, but that is the capitalistic nature of major league baseball…

It may seem hypocritical to whine about the billions of dollars two weeks ago, and then defend the humanity of the players today, but that is the nature of life. We can’t have it both ways… but we can recognize that hypocrisy and own it like I am doing here. Do I want a World Series Championship in DC? Yes. Do I really care when? No. The process, the seasons, the failures, and successes are why I love watching baseball. There is more to cherish when you win after years of failures. Imagine how the Mariners or Guardians fans feel. They are just as passionate about their teams. Keep it real friends… remember the work and labor our players put in daily for our entertainment. The long hours and travel of a 162 game season. We also must remember that a great majority of the players are younger than 30 years of age. I couldn’t imagine being 25 and playing in the show with all of that media scrutiny… but that is another story…

Remember… baseball is all about the labor… the players… the young humans… they have feelings too…

…baseball is my favorite season…

…so it goes…