The top two White Sox stories over the last two days concern their top two prospects. After that, the similarities run dry.
The White Sox issued Michael Kopech's decision to drop out of the 2020 season late Friday afternoon, and the story reverberated into Saturday as reporters asked various White Sox personnel for their reactions.
James Fegan's sources suggested that Kopech wasn't comfortable with returning from Tommy John surgery under such uncertain conditions. I'm not sure I buy that, because Don Cooper says that's news to him ...
“I have not heard anything about that,” Cooper said. “I got nothing to say about that because ‘it’s been reported.’ I want to hear it from Michael’s mouth, I don’t want to hear it from Michael’s camp.”
... and Cooper expressed the general concerns that I mentioned on Friday.
“Last time I saw him in spring training he was in a great place,” Cooper said. “But let me put it this way: I sure hope the kid is OK.
“I’m concerned that he’s not OK.”
The decision Kopech made is the same one that many, many other MLB players are wrestling with. The positive COVID-19 cases of players already in camp -- Aroldis Chapman with the Yankees, Cam Gallagher of the Royals -- foreshadows at a spread that can't be controlled. Kopech's decision might be a mystery this week and moot the next.
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Amid all the uncertainty, Luis Robert fell down while homering off Carlos Rodón during Saturday's White Sox intrasquad game, and folks? It was glorious.
Ten years ago, a homer like this would have been part of a legend that teammates and select onlookers would have to insist happened, except their versions probably just wouldn't coalesce into a clear and convincing image for people who weren't there. The majority of MLB history isn't captured on video or Statcast, so we're left to imagine the outsized descriptions of Walter Johnson's fastball, Cool Papa Bell's speed, Mickey Mantle's homers, etc. As we get acclimated to an age where everything's expected to be recorded and measured, I think it's OK to occasionally long for a time where the truth could be stretched into a better story with no harm done.
That said, while the higher bar for validation is tough to clear, it's possible. And when it happens, it's all the more impressive and satisfying when the talent retains the "mythical" tag afterward.
Robert's explanation is its own remarkable feat. It manages to match the visual account of the event while failing to make the success more explicable or relatable.
"I was sitting on a soft pitch on the outside, and then this pitch was in and I had to react and swing the bat, and I think that was why I fell when I hit the ball."
We might have to circle back in three weeks if the rest of the league starts turning around Rodón's stuff in less comical fashion. For the time being, Robert's swing took White Sox fans on a ride back to March, when he turned the Cactus League into his playground and everything seemed possible. That seems like forever ago, but it reminds us what's on the other side of the pandemic, even if that seems forever from now. The game on Saturday wasn't real, but the feat was still spectacular.
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Here's a question that's not as silly as it may sound: If Major League Baseball's attempt to play through the pandemic proves unfeasible and fast, did Robert's homer make trying worth it?
The reflexive answer is "no," especially if there's a real toll. If COVID-19 cases that originated in clubhouses result in multiple deaths and jeopardize the careers of so many others, nobody's going to say, "That's sad, but what's important is that Luis Robert fell down and went boom."
But I think Robert's homer and the joyous reaction it generated illustrate why attempting to conduct a season is more than just greed up top and impatience down below. In between, so many players want to play, not because they're ignorant or irresponsible, but because they want and/or need every chance to excel, and they see a reasonable path for doing so. You could argue that economic self-interest also drives that desire, but you don't need rare ability or a chance at a major payday to understand the motivation for making the most of your abilities, especially when time is a factor.
It'd be one thing if players were callous about the virus or regurgitating misinformation, because that endangers everybody around them. But responsible humans who weigh the potential damage of COVID-19 against the damage of a lost year and decide they'd have bigger regrets about the latter, regardless of the outcome? I totally get that.
I also get why players like Buster Posey see the virus being the far more likely source of future remorse. The greatest good for the greatest number is unknown right now, and as long as baseball continues to conduct a season, our best hope is that it continues to remain a guessing game. The faster the answer, the worse the news, and that looming threat of a nosedive means Kopech and others shouldn't be slagged for their personal decisions, even if they remain reluctant to reveal their rationales.
If the league somehow lucks out and adequately contains the coronavirus, Robert shows that even dystopian conditions can't ruin some forms of baseball brilliance, and I'm glad he had the opportunity to show it even in an intrasquad game, because would it have ever happened otherwise?
Of course, "crazy athletic feats" shouldn't be a public health exception. Sean Doolittle is correct in saying that sports are a reward for a functioning society, which the United States is not at the moment. We don't deserve nice things, but implementing that attitude results in collateral damage by depriving players of opportunities they've earned and want to pursue. Most good decisions can't avoid all bad outcomes, but if the league is forging ahead against the odds, we're left to hope for the inverse, where enough people benefit from a decision that's probably unwise. Apparently it's indeed possible to luck into a homer while falling on your ass, but I'm guessing the league would settle for just keeping the at-bat alive.
