The joy of child birth – it’s the culmination of the genetic pairing of two people in love (or two who got deep into the whiskey and got funky) and the components of two people become fused into one product, a baby. It’s a special moment as old as time itself and it’s an experience that most people only get to experience a couple times in life, if at all. But what happens when this magic moment conflicts with one’s work schedule? Well if you’re a Rangers pitcher then you had better have your ass on the mound, unless of course you want bad pub.
Rangers starting pitcher Colby Lewis welcomed his second child into the world last week and went to California to experience the birth of this child with his wife Jenny. To do so he had to miss a start and that drew the ire of ear-ringed sportswriter Richie Whitt. I always kind of wondered what Jerry Maguire star Jonathan Lipnicki would do when he grew up and apparently its giving pro athletes shit for caring about their families.
Here are a couple of Whitt’s finer moments in the column:
“In Game 2, Colby Lewis is scheduled to start after missing his last regular turn in the rotation because -- I'm not making this up -- his wife, Jenny, was giving birth in California. To the couple's second child.
Don't have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are.
But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it's all kosher because of Major League Baseball's new paternity leave rule?”
As a second child I couldn’t be happier to hear that the importance of birth goes down with each child. I thought the idea of the birthright went out when the Bolsheviks massacred Tsar Nicolas’ family but I guess I had that wrong. Under Whitt logic my dad probably did give a frog’s fat ass I was popping out. For all I know he might have been fishing during my birth.
The truth is that things have changed since the 50’s. Dads don’t just smoke cigars in the lobby, give the sex talk at 12 and teach the kid to drive at 16. There’s slightly more involvement now and missing a start to be with your wife while she’s pushing your creation out isn’t out of line. Whitt rationalized his backward ass point of view with this gem of analogy:
“Follow me this way to some confusion.
Imagine if Jason Witten missed a game to attend the birth of a child. It's just, I dunno, weird. Wrong even.”
You see Richie. The difference between the two situations is that the NFL plays 16 games a year. If Jason Witten were to miss a game and the Cowboys lost because of it there could be dire circumstances for the team. The MLB on the other hand plays 162 games. If Colby Lewis missed a game because he had a hangnail it probably wouldn’t matter in the long run. That said, I still wouldn’t blame Witten for missing a game to see his kid be born – unless of course it was a playoff game but this is the Cowboys we’re talking about so it probably wouldn't be.
More than anything I like how Antonio Cromartie can be blasted for not knowing his kids names but then a sports dad is criticized for being there for his family. Damed if you do, damned if you don't.
Anywho, Richie Whitt is a douche who just slid about 20,000 slots down the eligible bachelor list in DFW. Of course the haircut, earring and fully buttoned polo shirt probably aren’t helping either.
No comments:
Post a Comment