Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
My last post, Baseball and Respect, aimed to provide keen insights about the nature of respect, insights that are relevant way beyond the world of baseball. To this end, we looked at the reasons some players and fans have given for singling out ballplayers they particularly respect.
As I was getting ready to finish that post, I felt frustrated because I had wanted to include three additional sections, one on Derek Jeter, one on how a new player is welcomed to a team, and one about a couple of notable baseball managers, John McGraw and Connie Mack. Nevertheless, I ended that post when I did because to include all of this would have made it way too long. So, today, let us resume our quest to deepen our understanding of the nature of respect via peering out at the wonderful world of baseball.
Derek Jeter
Besides having a Hall of Fame career, “The Captain” managed, on and off the field, to foster an exceptional degree of respect. 
Wonderfully capturing this sentiment is a YouTube video in which we see Jeter stepping into the batter’s box while the voice of the Yankees, Bob Sheppard, is announcing, “Now batting for the Yankees, number two, Derek Jeter, number two.” Then we see people from all walks of life, baseball players, a coach, various fans, a guy selling peanuts, police officers, fire fighters, a door man, etc., tipping their hat as a show of respect. What attributes did Jeter possess that makes these heartfelt displays credible? Grace under pressure, hard working, played hard, hustled every moment, and led by example, are regularly mentioned.
In New York City, where an army of reporters relentlessly seek to uncover some scandal to ignite their readership, Jeter managed to stay under their radar, and all that they were left with was regularly describing a hell of a class act. No fights, no steroids, no legal troubles, no distractions from what he was intent on doing–helping his team to be outstanding.
Off the field, Jeter founded the Turn 2 Foundation, a charity that motivates young people to “turn away from drugs and alcohol and ‘Turn 2’ healthy lifestyles.”
In interviews, even though he had plenty to brag about, and even when he had just won a big game with a clutch hit, Jeter remained humble while directing credit to his teammates.
Jeter often mentions that he hates to lose. Some people might take this to mean that he is a poor loser, but a poor loser is someone who becomes furious at teammates, blaming and insulting them for the loss. This was not at all Jeter’s style. Rather, his “hate to lose” attitude propelled him to strive to do his absolute best every minute of a game, and through his example, he led his fellow teammates to do the same. When discussing a disappointing loss, rather than putting down anyone, Jeter would express admiration for those on the other team who played hard to achieve their victory. That’s class!
One thing that I particularly admired about Jeter was that although he so passionately wanted to win, this desire was not expressed by hating his rivals. We saw this being expressed each time he would get a hit, for he had a delightful way of engaging in some friendly exchange with the player trying to hold him close to the base so he wouldn’t steal. Jeter’s ready smile during these interactions, even in the midst of a crucially important game, endeared him to players throughout the major leagues.
Of course, Jeter is not a perfect individual. Nobody is. 
As an example of what many thought a serious mistake in judgment, when Jeter assumed leadership of the Miami Marlins baseball team, he naturally wanted to bring in his own assistants. This meant he had to fire those who had been in those positions before he arrived. Rather than personally calling all of these individuals to explain why he was letting them go, he had one of his underlings do most of the dirty work. The press picked up the story, and hopefully Jeter, and the rest of us as well, learn something from this.
Not everyone is going to have the degree of talent in his or her chosen way to earn a living as Derek Jeter. Nevertheless, Jeter is an enduring inspiration to all seeking to earn respect by engaging in a variety of simple acts that pretty much all of us are well capable of doing on a day to day basis.
As a Yankee for twenty years, Jeter had ample opportunities to welcome new players joining the team. Not being a Yankee player myself, I can’t speak to how he handled this. But one thing that I do know, how it is handled can go a long way toward earning a significant degree of respect from the new guy, as we will now see.
How New Players are Treated
It’s no secret that ballplayers in the past often gave a hard time to a new player joining their team. 
In recent years, the major leagues developed a policy seeking to end this practice of hazing.
Some viewed the hazing as all in good fun, but at times there were really some underlying anger that was being disguised as playful teasing, and things got pretty rough. The anger typically came from the very real possibility that every time a new player shows up, another player on the team may be out of a job. If shortstop Bob has been having an extended slump, and a new shortstop comes on board, Bob does have something to worry about, and all of the other players who have come to like Bob may become concerned about losing a dear friend.
On occasion, some players handled these dynamics in a manner to be admired. In Lawrence Ritter’s fine book, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Early Baseball Told by the Men who Played it, we see repeated examples of what I am referring to.
Jimmy Austin played third base, arriving in 1909 with the Yankees, who were then called the New York Highlanders. Here’s his description of how he was treated:
You know, you hear all that stuff about the old-timers being so rough on rookies in those days. Well, you can’t prove it with me. Those guys were swell to me.
Wee Willie Keeler was still a pretty decent ballplayer, even then…. Wonderful fellow. I was too shy to say anything to him, but he came over to me one day and said, “Jim, you’ve got a great career ahead of you. If I can help you in any way, you just say the word.” How about that?
And Kid Elberfeld. Golly, I was out after the Kid’s third base job, but he always treated me fine.
Jimmy went on from there to tell how the Kid would stick up for him when the club secretary tried to treat him unfairly.
In Ritter’s book, we discover time after time ballplayers recalling incidences of kindness that a veteran bestowed on them when they first joined a team, incidences recalled more than forty years afterwards. When we try to identify attributes that foster respect, I think these stories reveal a lasting truth.
What About Respect and Baseball Managers?
We have been looking at the attributes of baseball players that other players and their fans have come to respect. 
Baseball field managers are a special subgroup of these ballplayers. Typically, they played professionally for many years, demonstrating keen knowledge of the game, and upon reaching an age at which they are too old to continue playing at a professional level, they are singled out by club owners and their upper management team as having leadership abilities. Here, we will take a quick look at two of these guys, John McGraw and Connie Mack, not because they were perfect human beings that never made a mistake, but because a few of their attributes are particularly informative when we want to get insights about the nature of respect.
John McGraw
Rube Marquard loved playing for the New York Giants. When asked why, he responded;
Take Mr. McGraw. What a great man he was! The finest and grandest man I ever met. He loved his players and his players loved him. Of course, he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to live up to the rules and regulations of the New York Giants, and when he laid down the law you’d better abide by it.
Fred Snodgrass also played for McGraw, and he pointed out some aspect of his leadership that he respected:
He’d never got on you for a mechanical mistake, a fielding error or failure to get a hit. He was a very fair man, and it was only when you really had it coming to you that you got it. And once he’d bawl you out good and proper, then he’d forget it. He wouldn’t ever mention it again, and in public he would always stand up for his players.
An example of something McGraw wouldn’t tolerate is not showing up for practice. Thus, there was a talented player named Bugs Raymond who wouldn’t show up at times because he had too much to drink. McGraw tried a few things to see if he could get Bugs to straighten himself out, like paying to bring his wife and children along with the team, both at home and on the road, but finally McGraw had enough and fired him.
Another attribute that Snodgrass appreciated about McGraw was his willingness to let players make decisions on their own initiative.
[A lot of people] think that John McGraw directed every move we made on the field, that he was an absolute dictator who told us when to do this and when to do that, down to the last detail. Well that’s not so…. McGraw allowed initiative to his men….
Of course, McGraw took charge sometimes. At certain points in a game he’d give instructions. But most of the time, as I say, the initiative was ours.
Chief Myers was a catcher for the Giants. What did he appreciate about McGraw? Before playing for McGraw, he and the other players were always booked at the cheapest hotels.
McGraw was the one who changed all that. He was the one who paid the price, and even more than the price, to get his ball team into the best hotels.
Here’s another attribute Myers respected about McGraw;
The reason Mcgraw was a great manager–and he was the greatest–was because he knew how to handle men. Some players he rode, and others he didn’t. He got the most out of each man…. One manager knows about as much about the fundamentals of baseball as another. What makes the difference is knowing each player and how to handle him. And at that sort of thing nobody came close to McGraw.
Connie Mack
In addition to McGraw, we find in Ritter’s book players repeatedly voicing high respect for Connie Mack.
After playing for eleven years in the major leagues as a catcher, Mack became a manager, first in the minor leagues, and then, for 50 years with the Philadelphia Athletics. To have that kind of longevity as a manager, he must have done at least some things right. Here’s one of them, according to pitcher Stanley Coveleski:
Connie was a good manager. He was a very considerate man. If you did something wrong, he’d never bawl you out on the bench, or in the clubhouse. In the evening he’d ask you to take a walk with him, and on the way he’d tell you what you done wrong.
Another pitcher for the Athletics, Rube Bressler, describe Mr. Mack, this way:
In my opinion, Connie Mack did more for baseball than any other human being–by the example he set, his attitude, the way he handled himself and his players. You know, like you’re playing a great game and you’re heroes to the children of this country. Live up to it, conduct yourself accordingly. Over a period of years others followed, and baseball became respectable. He was a true gentleman, in every sense of the word. Not many men are.
Mr. Mack strove to have his players become better people as well as better baseball players, and to that end he created a Code of Conduct following the 1916 season:
- I will always play the game to the best of my ability.
- I will always play to win, but if I lose, I will not look for an excuse to detract from my opponent’s victory.
- I will never take an unfair advantage in order to win.
- I will always abide by the rules of the game—on the diamond as well as in my daily life.
- I will always conduct myself as a true sportsman—on and off the playing field.
- I will always strive for the good of the entire team rather than for my own glory.
- I will never gloat in victory or pity myself in defeat.
- I will do my utmost to keep myself clean—physically, mentally, and morally.
- I will always judge a teammate or an opponent as an individual and never on the basis of race or religion.
Pretty decent aspirations for all.
Conclusion
There is an old humorous quip that goes, “If you want a guy to respect you, all you have to do is agree with everything he tells you.” Well, there is just enough truth in this quip to make us smile. However, to more deeply understand the nature of respect, we can do better by looking at examples of individuals who have displayed attributes that led to the admiration of those who got to know them. Above, we looked at several such examples. I hope you found it insightful.
My Best
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
The game of baseball offers us a unique look at the nature of respect for two reasons. First, the game provides several unusually objective statistics that give us a pretty good idea of the talent of a player. In many other fields, such as art or teaching, the criteria for talent is far less objective. Second, we find that despite this unusually objective talent criteria of baseball, when we take a look at two players that played the same position in the same era and have excellent statistics, sometimes we discover they have very different levels of respect given to them by the players’ peers and baseball fans. When we see such differences, by looking at the reasons players and fans give for this, we get particularly keen insights about the nature of respect, insights that can be applied not only to the green fields of baseball, but to other fields as well.
Students of the game of baseball know that outfielders Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth were among the all time most talented players and yet the respect afforded to each can not be more different. In Lawrence S. Ritter’s wonderful book, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It, we get a sense of why this is. So, for instance, Davy Jones played on the same team as Cobb. Here’s what he had to say:
Cobb was a very complex person–never did have many friends. Trouble was he had such a rotten disposition that it was damn hard to be his friend. I was probably the best friend he had on the club. I used to stick up for him, sit and talk with him on long trips, try to understand the man. He antagonized so many people that hardly anyone would speak to him, even among his own teammates.
In many ways he was resented by a lot of players because he was so doggone good, and that plus being ignored because he had such a nasty disposition meant that the man was very lonely. Of course, he brought a lot of it on himself, no doubt about that. A lot of time it seemed as though he was just asking for trouble.
Cobb was a great ballplayer, no doubt about it. But he sure wasn’t easy to get along with. He wasn’t a friendly, good natured guy, like Wagner was, or Walter Johnson, or Babe Ruth…. He came up with an antagonistic attitude, which in his mind, turned any little razzing into a life-or-death struggle. 
The Babe was always friendly, a real nice guy who’d go out of his way any time to do you a favor. When Cobb was out there on that ball field, look out. He wasn’t anybody’s friend then. He was out to win, regardless….
Mike is from duh Bronx, so naturally he is a huge Yankees fan. When I asked him about this topic he wrote me an email that said in part:
Respect for the person, I think, is very difficult to assess since few fans know the player as a person. There are countless examples of superb players who are rotten human beings. Several are in the Hall of Fame, ex. Ty Cobb. There are also examples of superb players who were also superb human beings. Several are in the Hall of Fame, ex. Lou Gehrig. Most players of all levels of ability are unknowable as human beings to fans.
Respect for the game, I think, depends largely on one’s definition of “how the game should be played.” For some, that is linked to sportsmanship. For others, that is linked to the bottom line of winning (I’m talking about pros here.) The recent Houston Astros scandal [involving using electronic devices to steal a catcher’s signals to his pitcher and relaying it to the batter] for example, was not valuing sportsmanship, but was valuing winning. Respect for the game is about behavior and that’s what is so tricky. 
Throwing a spitter, stealing signs, pitching high and tight, scuffing a baseball, juicing a bat, showing up an opponent, taking out a middle infielder or catcher, running up the score, bunting when far ahead, sliding with spikes up, hustling, showboating: some are time-honored acts, others are against the rules (written and unwritten) of the game. Some were, to complicate things, within the rules at one time and are not within the rules now.
It has been said that hitting a round ball square with a rounded bat is the hardest thing to do in sports. It has also been said that pro baseball is a hard game played by hard men. Most fans idealize the game and its players and collectively have created a mythology about it. Most players are doing every thing they can to earn a living and have no illusions about being part of a mythology. That is a real disconnect, wouldn’t you say?
Interestingly, Mike once had one of his poems published in ELYSIAN FIELDS: THE BASEBALL REVIEW, 1994. It poetically asks how fans feel about the incredibly talented player, Pete Rose, after he was banned from baseball for betting on games and lying about it. Mike used E. E. Cummings’s “Buffalo Bill” poem as the template for his poem, with its unusual combining of words:
I’ve always respected Mariano Rivera. He was the best ever at a position but always seemed so humble and down to earth. And even though he made millions of dollars, he moved back to Panama to be a preacher after he retired. It’s not at all the life path I would have chosen, but as far as I can tell, he avoided all the pitfalls of fame and fortune, and I respect anybody who can handle that situation with class and not be pulled in by all the peer pressure and expectations attached to that. 
When I was growing up, the Phillies were arguably the worst team in the major leagues. After so many years rooting for a team that would lose so, so many games, suddenly Roberts appeared on the scene, along with the other young “Whiz Kids” and it was such a thrill to suddenly have a competitive team.
Dave is a friend of mine who grew up in Queens and naturally became a Mets fan. However, now that he has been living in Georgetown, he has been rooting for the Nationals.
Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente is Dave’s choice for all time most respected baseball player. Dave mentioned Roberto’s incredible athleticism and his devotion to helping people living in dire circumstances. For those not familiar with Roberto’s charitable efforts, here’s some of the story according to Wikipedia:
The airplane he chartered for a New Year’s Eve flight, a 
All who saw Roberto Clemente in action, whether on the diamond or on the front lines of charitable endeavor, are richer for the experience. He stands with the handful of men whose brilliance has transformed the game of baseball into a showcase of skill and spirit, giving universal delight and inspiration. More than that, his selfless dedication to helping those with two strikes against them in life has blessed thousands and set an example for millions. As long as athletes and humanitarians are honored, Roberto Clemente’s memory will live; as long as Citizens Medals are presented, each will mean a little more because the first one went to him.
“Take me out to the ball game,
Nelly Kelly was sure some fan,
Do you, baby, know what it’s all about,
Grand slam,
Baseball, to me, represents life. It’s about heroes and goats, it’s about success and failure. It’s about individual effort, it’s about team effort. Baseball is about the game within the game. It’s really the only game that is not governed by time. And the thing that makes me insane is the people who say baseball is boring. It’s just playing catch. They don’t understand the game within the game. They don’t understand that how much changes from pitch to pitch. It’s actually fractions of a second that a hitter has to make a decision that he is actually going to swing, and then put it either between guys or hit it over the fence.
From there, Bob plays us a little audio clip of an announcer calling the thrilling, yet poignant, moment when Ted Williams, at his last at bat of his career, hits a long home run. The reaction of the crowd is just heartwarming.
And Juan Marichal comes up,
Say hey, say who?
Jamie, you should do what I used to do. When I was supposed to be asleep, I would take my radio and slip it under my pillow. Then put your ear next to the pillow, which you’re supposed to do with pillows anyway. This way you can hear the second game of a double header without bothering anyone else in the house. Thanks for your email, your private pillow pal.
Listen, guys, this game is only half skill,
