A Damn Near Perfect Game by Joe Kelly

Author:Joe Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2022-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Commissioner Speaks

When I walked into that conference room with some of my White Sox teammates back in early March 2022, I was fired up. I was ready to throw down, at least verbally.

A group of us had been selected to meet with Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, who was not one of my favorite people. And in the world of big-league ballplayers, I wasn’t alone.

Not only had we just gone through all the vitriol that came with a lockout by the owners—with Manfred serving as their spokesman—but I had my own history. Two times I had been suspended in what I viewed as less-than-ideal fashion, and while the commish wasn’t in the room for either pre-suspension confrontation, he represented what I perceived as a big part of the problem.

There were other sticking points when it came to the perception of Manfred, with the last straw for many of the guys coming when he matter-of-factly called the World Series championship trophy a piece of metal back before the 2020 season. The fact that the commissioner was actually devaluing the Commissioner’s Trophy—which was the one thing we as players work our whole career to hold at the end of a baseball season—was incomprehensible. And sticking the dagger in a little further was that he uttered such a thing in defense of his decision not to strip the Astros of their title—the championship they stole from the Dodgers—which only infuriated my then-Dodgers teammates more.

Let’s just say that Justin Turner is not a fan. And neither am I.

So, now Manfred was trying to extend an olive branch to all the teams after what had become another two steps back for baseball—the lockout. He was traveling to meet with all thirty teams, with a select group of players from each club allowed to have it out with the commissioner. My blood was pumping. I was ready to air some serious grievances.

I came into that room saying, “Screw this guy.”

An hour later, I was walking out in a completely different frame of mind than I had entered with. It was not what I expected.

The first smart step by Manfred was bringing Raúl Ibañez along as his plus-one. Raúl was a respected former player, whom I not only knew from working with the Dodgers but also because we shared the same agents—Sam and Seth Levinson. He knew how hot I was running and that it was important to defuse the animosity from the get-go.

Then Manfred started talking.

This sixty-three-year-old, whom I had viewed as just another suit, more concerned with bottom lines than the actual game of baseball, immediately put me on my heels. He was apologetic. He was sympathetic. And he was informative.

What started as Manfred’s mea culpa—explaining that the “piece of metal” comment and the subsequent us-against-them environment were problems he owned and wanted to learn from—turned to questions posed to us about how to actually fix this game.

It became a conversation, the likes of which our game desperately needs.

“Hey, man. The game has to change.

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