Another Good Joe

Its not often that a middle reliever gets written about in Pinch Sulzberger's old grey lady, the New York Times. No. The NY Times has been dying a slow circulatory death the last few years, mainly by either boring or infuriating most of middle America with its smugness and condescending tone towards anyone who didn't graduate from Harvard or Princeton and who is not on a first name basis with the Obamas, Bushs, Sharpton or Clintons.  This also tends to be the same demographic that makes up baseball's fan base. So most baseball followers tend not to spend a lot of time perusing the bird-cage liner known as the NY Times. 

Somewhere along the line somebody at the NYT decided that it might be a nice idea to host a sports blog on their site. I don't know  if that is a good idea or not. Its certainly not innovative as most any person who can run a keyboard can run a blog, including this one.  But like most old institutions with a condescending eye towards suggesting how the rest of us should live, they tend to focus more on personal interest stories with a social message.  I guess thats alright. I suppose. But I don't spend a lot of time writing about the baseball opinions of Al Sharpton or Anthony Weiner either. For good reason. I don't know anything about it. What's more, I don't care to know.

But thats a general rule. And for rules there are exceptions. Hey, its why they play the game on the field and not on paper. So when the link to Jeremy Afeldt popped up, I suspected, it was going to be one of those touchy-feely stories that some folks with a lot of inner guilt like to write about in order to impress their friends with their compassionate insight. And thats about what I got with the first few lines. Yet another story about the Giants fan in the parking lot who got his brains beat in by a couple of gangbangers and all the kumbyas about diverse communities coming together to condemn violence and the conditions that breed violence and all the same slogans that we've all been listening to since 1964.  I don't know, I just get kinda bugged after about the 38th celebrity jumping on a risk-free cause just to generate some free publicity; but this was not the case.

As most folks who follow the Giants know, Jeremy Afeldt is not only a supporter of charities, and friend to the friendless, he is a very very intellectually curious and intense man who happens to be a major league baseball player.  He has some interesting insights that do not necessarily meet the entertainment-political standards of correctness:

"Love has become ‘feminized,’ ” he wrote recently on his blog, jeremyaffeldt.wordpress.com. “When you talk about love, a lot of people will say you’re soft. But love is what saves people. Loving them. If you ask me, that’s pretty strong stuff.”

Affeldt, 32, works with several organizations, focusing on producing clean water, feeding the hungry, housing orphans and ending human trafficking and slavery. He is ambitious in his goals, and tries to address them with urgency. He is a Christian, he said, but his motivation goes beyond faith."..................

"He asked the team if he could meet Stow, who is in a medically induced coma. Affeldt met with family members, then held Stow’s hand and prayed. He was hoping that Bryan would, on some level, at some point, know it,” Baer said. “And when Jeremy started speaking to him, his eyes opened — halfway, or three-quarters — and that was just amazing. It was almost like a power beyond us.”

Not politically correct. Just correct. Yet another good man.