Just a little queasy is how I feel.
Did the Royals just sign a 16-year-old to a $1.3 million
contract?
If Mr. Escobar were my regular, best-hope, shortstop, I’d be
looking for help, too. But, a 16-year-old?
Question: Will the Royals make it possible for Marten
Gasparini to finish high school?
Reading about ‘gap-to-gap’ power in a 16-year-old just feels
strange. Above average bat speed, they say. Above average for 16-year-olds or
above average for minor league or major league players. Marten is already six
foot – are they sure he is finished growing? What happens when he discovers
girls?
I remember what happened to my baseball work ethic when I
discovered girls at about the same age. Well… when I really discovered girls, since I had discovered them long before in
a more, let’s say, passive way. Only god knows what would have happened if I'd had $1.3 million to spend on girls at 16. As it was, I embezzled $32 as treasurer of the MYF to keep my first girlfriend in french fries and malted milk.
$1.3 million in the pocket of a 16-year-old? Mickey Mantle
was 19 and had graduated high school when he signed with the Yankees for
$1,500. And he still had a lot of growing up to do. Think about it. Mickey was
raised on hard scrabble ground by his tough lead miner father in a dusty
Oklahoma town. If anyone should have been seasoned for the mental rigors of
professional baseball, it was The Mick.
Yet, he nearly folded during his first year in the minor
leagues. It took some harsh words from his father, Mutt, to keep him from
boarding a bus back to Commerce, Okla., mid-season.
I have no idea what sort of life Marten Gasparini has lived
in Italy. But the idea of a 16-year-old with a $1.3 million bonus makes me
queasy. And, not just for the money spent because the Royals certainly waste
plenty of money on much older folks. I’m just thinking about the kid, about
what this means in the shape of his life. Somehow, ironically, it doesn’t seem
quite fair.
--Lofflin
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