The Private Side

We've all got one.  It's the private side of our lives, the side only a scarce few may ever be privy to.  Think about your high school days.  There was that really popular girl or guy.  Why?  Probably good looking, athletic.  If lucky, the guy/girl had an interesting personality.  But what happened when you actually got to know this person who "had it all"?  You found out he didn't.  He was a depressive kind of person.  His parents were either more awesome than him or total wastes of breath.  He had dreams and hopes that didn't quite match up with the persona you had built up about him in your head.  Yeah, sounds like High School Musical IV in 3D.

But what about today's baseball players.

There is a private side to your favorite, and not so favorite players as well.  When you are growing up, they are all heroes.  These guys are all strong and on TV and playing baseball, so they all must be the most incredible people to ever walk the earth.  As you age, you find this isn't so.

Dee Stargell, ex-wife of the late-Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, spoke of her ex-husband's private side recently.  She mentioned how he was never around.  The problem with a baseball marriage is the months during the season where the ballplayer is on the road.  Dee understood this.  She didn't love that part, but she understood it.  When it came to her husband, what she didn't appreciate was his absence in the off season.  Even then, he was making appearances.  He was traveling and doing other things.  The public side of Willie Stargell was of a man who was not only a great ballplayer, but also a great humanitarian.  The private side was a man who neglected his family by not being there for them.

In Idiot, Johnny Damon's autobiography (actually written by Peter Golenbock with some verbal input by Mr. Damon), he writes about his then-private side, which destroyed his first marriage, to Angie Vannice.  He described Vannice as a "drag," somebody who was holding him back.  In the off season, she wanted to shop for furniture.  He wanted to go jet ski.  He turned to drinking and "late-night shenanigans" that gave the outward appearance of a fun, happy-go-lucky guy.  But at home, he became as absent as Willie Stargell.  It wasn't cute to Vannice, the mother of their twin boys.  That marriage ended too.  To his credit, Damon says he settled down in his second marriage.  "We said, 'If we want to grow old together, we need to chill and enjoy each other's company.  If we can't do that, we should be in different places.'"

You can't blame The Baseball Life for the end of every baseball marriage.  Some players have a private side that would be difficult to live with even if the guy worked a 9 to 5 at Prudential.  Some guys, no matter what, are conceited, selfish kids.  These guys have been superior athletes since they were young.  They're spoiled.  They've been treated differently since they can remember.  When they're home, away from the team and the media, they don't know how to share the television remote or put down their X-Box to play with their own kids.  They don't realize that when they go on that hunting trip to Vancouver for 7 days next week, they'll be missing their mother or father or wife's birthday.  It's just a trip they want to get in before the grind of a baseball season begins again. 

There's also the whiner.  You know the type.  This is the guy who complains about everything.  He's paranoid too.  Somebody's always criticizing him, either in the papers or at home.  He's never understood, by a manager or his wife.  When things go wrong, he blames the circumstances rather than blaming himself.  He couldn't get a Major League deal?  His agent's fault.  It has nothing to do with his declining skills.  His marriage busted up?  It's his wife's fault.  He wasn't going to be making millions anymore and she wanted her half.  One of his teammates said something about him?  That guy's always had a stick up his ass.  We don't see this guy's private side because the media can't stand him enough to write a feature on him and his ex-wife is happier now that she's married to a VP of Prudential.

You can't forget about how certain players' private sides accidentally spill out into the public.  There are guys like Alex Rodriguez, who was caught cheating on his wife with women from across the country.  Then he was courting Madonna.  Then Kate Hudson.  We found out about his personal life because of cellphone cameras and loose lips (and stupidity on his part).  Then Selena Roberts and David Epstein wrote further about the Rodriguez private side when they broke the story of A-Rod's use of performance enhancers. 

There are the Lenny Dykstras who are bad with their money.  There are the Billy Martin-type guys who don't know when to stop fighting.  There's the quiet, more introverted Kris Benson-type who marries an outgoing Anna Benson type.  There's the beloved Kirby Puckett-type who's a huge success on the field, wins community and humanitarian awards, but goes through a very public divorce and is eventually charged with sexual assault (note that Puckett was acquitted). 

And, of course, there are the thousands of players who, in public and in private, are just regular guys.  They aren't crazy.  You won't see them making headlines.  Their private side is, well, private.  And their actions keep it that way.

There are also guys like Brett Myers, a complex person who allegedly beat his wife, Kim, on the streets of Boston in 2006.  But in THIS ARTICLE, you read his side of the story.  You also get a sense of Kim's feelings.  Yes, they're still married and have two children. 

In the article, Myers said when he got up to the big leagues, "I was rude because I thought people were out to get me."  Kim Myers says that they are both "pig-headed," and that nobody wants to be around them while they're playing ping pong.  She also says, "What people don't know if how sensitive he is."

Right there, we can see the complexity of a person's private side.  Sensitive soul.  Competitive.  Misunderstood.  Fiesty.  Charitable.  We judge people because of what we see on the field or what we get from the media.  But we never really understand the person behind the player; the private side of the guy.  Heroes on the field.  Humans at home.  There's a private side to every player.  It's a side most of us will never know.