ON THE TUNNEYSIDE of SPORTS October 26, 2015 #564 Up next…”Differences are good!”
After further review…” I believe the game [of major league baseball] is globalizing. It’s getting influenced by cultures from different parts of the world, and we need to open our minds. We need to accept differences. Differences are good,” said Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista.
Bautista, 35, born in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, has played for six different major league teams, starting out as a utility player. He was traded from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Blue Jays in 2008, and for the next several seasons became one of the most dominant hitters in baseball. He played in the MLB All-Star game six times and won the Hank Aaron award twice. But his comparison with Aaron stops at that gate.
Being from educated parents — his mother is an accountant and financial planner and his father holds a master’s degree in agricultural engineering — Bautista attended a private high school in Santo Domingo and believes so passionately in education that he initiated a program to give athletes the opportunity to attend American universities in the Dominican Republic and Canada. His interest in education, although fostered by his parents, was put to good use when he turned down offers from the Yankees and the Diamondbacks to attend Chipola College in Marianna, Florida for two years before being drafted by the Pirates 2000.
Bautista’s comparison to Aaron fizzled with Bautista’s “bat-flip” in game five of the ALDS against the Texas Rangers – a sorta “Take that!” — something you would never see from Aaron. #44, who ranks second in MLB home runs with 755, never flipped a bat, not even when he broke Babe Ruth’s record at 715! Hank simply laid his bat down as he trotted to first base. You see, Hank knew he’d have to come to the plate again and knew better than to antagonize that pitcher.
Bautista has always played with a chip-on-his-shoulder attitude. Perhaps it’s because it took him several years to achieve Major League status. Aaron surely could, but didn’t, have the same chip-on-the-shoulder approach to life. Born into a poor family at a time when “differences weren’t accepted,” Aaron entered MLB just two years after Jackie Robinson established those differences. Aaron’s MLB legacy is huge by virtue of the numbers he put up, yet it is grounded in humility. As an example, when “Hammerin’ Hank” got his 3,000th hit, he said, “It took me 19 years to get that many hits and then, I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.” That attitude would serve Bautista well.
Will you assume Aaron’s attitude of gratefulness and humility in your approach to life?
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