Howdy Roger, thanks for the post!
Jose Lopez peaked in his age 24-25 seasons, and then never got better as a baseball player. He is kind of the Mariners' poster child for failure to thrive hitters who initially appeared promising. But, still he manned a decent second base, and stayed somewhat fit. He made his first four million during his age 24-25 seasons and then regressed after that. It is hard to say that Jose had an entitled victims mentality, or that Jose was lazy. He probably had a high level of ambition compared to the average person. I often wonder about what drives a player to keep playing baseball, including traveling, getting traded, missing family events, eating fast food, even when they have millions of dollars in the bank. You'd think after they had a grip of money, players would forego the inconveniences of playing and retire to their beach houses. "The appetite of the laboring man laboreth for him; For his mouth urgeth him [thereto]." Proverbs 16:26 ASV. Also, Lopez has a spotless criminal history as evidenced by the fact that he is an alien who is admitted to work in the United States and Japan.
For ball players that just seem to be criminals, Lenny Dykstra is the first name that comes to mind. He always seems to be in trouble, he bankrupted his way through $24.5 million dollars within approximately 15 years, and he got a felony for hiding assets from a bankruptcy court. He also is currently charged and jailed for allegedly stealing a bunch of cars and for drugs. According to Wikipedia, in another scandal, Dykstra was defaulting on his mansion payments and was selling house fixtures from the home for money before the bank could foreclose on him. Dykstra was an awesome ball player. He played CF and had a career .793 OPS. His career was also 11 years long. I don't think a lack of ambition, or a loser world view was his downfall. He just seems to be a thief who spends too much money.
How about Ryan Leaf? The WSU golden child quarterback had a guaranteed $30 million dollars 4 year contract with the Chargers, and promptly bounced out of football after a few years, began a coaching career, and then is caught in not one but two burglaries in two states where he was breaking into places looking for pills. Still, Leaf graduated college, won the Rose bowl, and had good excuse for becoming a narcotics addict: He has some serious chronic football injuries that caused him a great deal of pain. Dope does strange things to people's morals.
Add new comment
1