During the winter, when Fernando Tatis Jr. didn’t work to achieve his goal of becoming the best baseball player in history, he used his spare time on his farms in the Dominican Republic. He rode horses and fed chickens, cared for lemons and hunted ducks. Tatis Jr. could be the blossoming face of baseball – his 14-year $ 340 million contract with the San Diego Padres was formalized on Feb. 22 – but he’s very happy to get dirty every now and then doing those kinds of tasks. More than once in the off season, Tatis Jr. that he milked cows in the dirt.
If Tatis Jr.’s idea playing field pawn gives you a riddle, then prepare for more. It’s not all swag and dreadlocks. If 2019 was the introduction and 2020 the hiatus, 2021 is poised to be the year of Tatis Jr – the full bloom of an amazing talent whose appeal extends well beyond baseball. Without respecting Mike Trout, who still holds the title of best player on the planet, or Juan Soto, who quickly conquers the best hitter on the planet, or Mookie Betts, who has shown himself to be a whole month when he stole October.
It’s one of those times when everything is perfectly aligned: the player, the team, the weather. There will be triumphs and there will be hindrances, and it’s all part of the hero’s journey, which when imposed on a 22-year-old can seem a little premature. Could be. Probably. But then Tatis Jr. is here, with all these things, because when faced with different challenges and other burdens, he has overcome them. And with every conquest comes a little more, this time, winning the first Padres Championship or their first MVP award or doing the kind of thing that historically only great players can do.
Before that, it took him some time to get back to where he grew up, San Pedro de Macoris, to the beach where he trains and to the very modest gym where he lifts weights, to the rivers all over the country where he swims on Search. of waterfalls. Down to the basics, like that inimitable feeling of digging your hands into the ground and knowing that even in the middle of something dirty you can find something beautiful.
It’s a really fun time to be a baseball fan. It’s not just Tatis, Trout, Soto and Betts. Ronald Acuña Jr. shares qualities with all four. Luis Robert and Tim Anderson have their own dynamics. Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole fight for the domination of the hills as the Mets and Yankees rise. Wander Franco is coming. The Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers could be the top two teams in baseball, playing 19 times this season and hopefully more in October. Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Francisco Lindor and Christian Yelich are suddenly the old bosses. Yelich is the most wrinkled of the group at the age of 29.
It’s also a really scary time to be a baseball fan. For the first time in a quarter of a century, unrest at work seems imminent. This is not pessimism. The signs are everywhere. In discussions with players’ association and league officials, with players and owners. In the words of former Seattle Mariners president Kevin Mather, who, amid the shock of a conversation with a group of local Rotarians, said on the subject of industrial relations, “I am very concerned about what’s to come in the future. ” And in the changing free market, the parties’ distrust of each other and the divergent views on the future of sport.
Of course, watching baseball in 2021, loving baseball in 2021, you don’t have to think about what will happen after 2021. There is something powerful about enjoying the moment, something about the idea that if the sky were to fall, those who weren’t panicked might be most enlightened because they enjoy what they have before them.
It’s not that easy for others either. There is anger, legitimate anger, justified anger that this great game, these great players, might be sidelined for precious time in their careers, time when they could and will not be able to do wonderful things because of fights for money. That a new generation of homeowners who don’t understand the damage of a labor war are now leading teams, and that this generation of players is so tired of losing in collective bargaining that a fight is the inevitable conclusion.
And if that is indeed the case, if the drums of work inequality sound after the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on December 1, the accompanying music should be a wake-up call to enjoy the Year of Tatis. Jr., the improvements in his at-bats and nurture his daring play on the field and appreciate how he runs the bases and fully adores him.
Tatis Jr. resonates with a wide range of people, and especially with a generation of kids who are desperately in need of baseball, because that is all equal to the sum of its parts, and each of those parts is exciting. How heavy Tatis Jr.’s appeal may be, with every epic bat flip and swing at 3-0 in a beating game, another little piece of baseball’s archaic past dies, game-content, even trump style.
The best parts of Tatis Jr. come not from a made-up emotional reserve, but from a genuine passion for the game she plays, for the gifts she has received. He doesn’t throw his bat for GIFs; He does it because he plays with emotion and passion, and the last thing sport should do is regulate. He’s not swinging at 3-0 because he wants to set the other team on fire; He does it because a monolith sometimes deserves to fall, and if it’s him helping to remove the limitations of the past in the game, he’s not here to argue.
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Fernando Tatís Jr. laughs compared to LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes.
Knowing what Tatis Jr. knowing what can be prevented could be the best reason for the union and the competition to do whatever it takes to avoid stoppage. Baseball certainly has its flaws, and those flaws deserve a reckoning too. But if the collateral damage of that is stealing time from Tatis Jr., Trout, Soto, Betts, Acuña, Robert, Anderson, deGrom, Cole, Franco, Harper, Judge, Lindor, Yelich, and many others, it deserves to be last moment. the deluge of anger and rage that will accompany it.
Fourteen years in the sport is an eternity. In the 2007 season, 611 players recorded at least one record appearance. Today, 11 are still under contract with a Major League-organization. So to understand what the Padres did by committing to a player for nearly a decade and a half, and also understand why Tatis Jr. marry a team, you need to understand the player and how he thinks.
That, more than anything he does on the field, more than his looks, would be the best thing about Tatis Jr. can be. He could have hoped and chased all the money and become so much richer. It wasn’t. That’s not the commendable part, though. If someone like Tatis Jr. gives priority to money, he has the right.
No, it is that Tatis Jr. San Diego’s faith in him, his support, has returned with his. It is that all Padres and their star have illustrated that the relationship between player and team can be one of mutual respect, admiration and benefit. It is that the Padres is the service time of Tatis Jr. didn’t manipulate, like Mather did with Jarred Kelenic, the Mariners’ top prospect. It’s that San Diego has never tried Tatis Jr. to end the most inflammatory parts of his game. The Padres don’t scoff when he says he wants to be the best player of all time; They surround him with championship-level players because they understand that part of the calculation is the success of the team.
This is how baseball can work. This is how baseball should work. Young players, the lifeblood of the sport, are paid proportionally and fairly. Teams that try to win are rewarded by players who appreciate the effort. Tatis Jr. really cares about baseball, about cultivating it. This off-season, after an MVP-caliber season, he played for the Estrellas Orientales, his hometown team in the Dominican Winter League. Today’s stars don’t play winter ball. Tatis Jr. thought it was his duty. As much as he wants to be the best, his main goal is for everyone to say that Fernando Tatis Jr. loves baseball.
And look where that got him. At the age of 22, he’s in the middle of the best current team rivalry in the sport with the Padres and Dodgers. He’s in the middle of a fascinating conversation about who you would choose to start a franchise with: Tatis Jr., Soto or Acuña. He’s revived the discourse of baseball, although the truth is, as much as he likes to embrace it, he doesn’t necessarily want it for himself. Baseball, he says, doesn’t need a single face.
Although, if he does get one, he can do a lot worse than Tatis Jr. He does not run from responsibility. Sometimes it’s cumbersome and sometimes it’s hard work, but he already knows, getting a little dirty is only part of the journey.