Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson did it for about 50 years and now David Price is playing the role of Branca to Derek Jeter’s Thomson.
Vince Lombardi said it best. “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.”
Baseball once was more than mere entertainment. Today, the players belong to the same union. Their primary objective is to make as much money as possible. Winning is nice, but it’s secondary.
During the 1950s and 1960s, whenever a hitter challenged Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, the newspapers carried stories quoting pitchers about how they felt about giving up the home run that tied Ruth’s mark.
Universally, no pitcher wanted the ignominious distinction of becoming “The One.”
Baseball writers related how anyone who approached the record would see fewer and fewer good pitches.
It was a credit to the Baltimore Orioles’ Jack Fisher and the Boston Red Sox’s Tracy Stallard that they each gave Roger Maris something he could hit.
Fisher yielded home run number 60 and Stallard gave up the home run that set the mark that still stands.
Neither was happy about it.
This morning, David Price, one of the American League’s better young pitchers, signed a deal with Steiner Sports, whose owner Brandon Steiner never saw a dollar he didn’t like.
Price signed some baseballs, some issues of a sports magazine and the pitching rubber from the New York Yankees ball park from which he delivered Jeter’s fateful hit.
Jeter is cashing in on his achievement. Why shouldn’t Price?
Price has every right to do as he pleases. Giving up Jeter’s 3,000 was not a disgrace. Someone was going to do it.
Price told New York Daily News writer Frank Isola, “So be it. It’s just a number. Obviously it’s Derek Jeter who has done all this as a Yankee, so obviously it’s very special. But, you know, I’m not bothered by it.”
But there is one thing that would bother any great competitor. Price, in his deal with Steiner Sports, is required to sign his name with a postscript that reads “I Gave Up DJ’s 3K.”
How disgraceful.
Does anyone think Bob Gibson would have done it?