Some disconcerting news drifted out of Dallas last week, though most Pirate fans didn't take note. This is understandable, given that it was buried in an article about a late-round draft pick by Detroit in a completely different sport, but I still think that the implications are worth hashing out a bit in this space. You should read the whole link yourself (it's short), but the gist is that athletes from the service academies who choose to pursue a career in professional athletics remain on the hook for their military commitment for some time thereafter. The Army has long granted waivers for their athletes, placing them in stateside roles (as recruiters and such) where they are able to honor that commitment without disrupting their pursuit of their career goals. The Navy and Air Force, in contrast, have generally been significantly less willing to do so (Mitch Harris and Jonathan Johnston being two recent examples), and now the Department of Defense is asking that the Army review its policy to ensure that it is in compliance with the overall standards for these waivers.
This wrangling should be a concern to Pirate fans because we drafted two players from West Point in this year's draft: catcher Chris Simmons in the 41st round, and outfielder Cole White in the 42nd. The better prospect of the two, White is currently working on a 13-game hitting streak at State College, during which time his overall batting line has increased to .379/.431/.534 . White doesn't have enough plate appearances to qualify for the NY-P league's leaderboards, but if he did, he'd rank fourth in raw OPS. He is, admittedly, a 23-year-old playing against much younger competion, but thus far he's done about as well as anyone could expect, given his circumstances. He's dominating against weak competition, just like he did in college, when he was 2007 player of the year for a weak conference. At a minimum, he's an interesting lottery ticket who merits further scrutiny as he advances, along with an opportunity to keep proving himself. Unfortunately, he (and his roommate Simmons) may not get the chance. If the Army changes its position and recalls both players, then their careers in baseball will essentially be at an end. Above and beyond my sympathy for the affected players, whose dreams are hanging by a thread, I'm not convinced that the military's approach here is the right one. It seems terribly penny-wise and pound-foolish.
It's no secret that the war in Iraq has impeded recruiting efforts. For the 2009 fiscal year, the Department of Defense requested an increase to $20.5 billion for their recruiting budget. That's more than five times the budget from the 2003 fiscal year. You may not have known the actual numbers, but I'm sure you've had at least an intuitive understanding of the forces at work here - it's basically impossible to watch any type of televised mens' sporting event nowadays without seeing at least one recruitment ad during each commercial break. Sports fans skew disproportionately toward the young male demographic that's most desirable to the armed forces, and the military's promotional carpet-bombing reflects their desperation to make inroads with the educated, clean-living recruits who have become more difficult to attract in recent years. Thus, if they are willing to buy good impressions at nearly any price, then why are they willing to take any kind of PR hit in order to retain the handful of recruits who have a legitimate chance at a career in professional athletics? An understanding of the importance of terrain has been one of the bedrocks of military strategy since time immemorial. Why, then, are the armed forces electing to fight a battle here on ground where they can't win? A massive, faceless bureaucracy is never going to succesfully take the sympathetic high ground away from a well-scrubbed and well-spoken aspiring athlete under that bureaucracy's control, and for every pro prospect who's impressed back into the service against his will, how many high school heroes with even faint dreams of stardom will decide that maybe State U doesn't look so bad after all?
This seems like a situation where the actions that would serve the Army's best interest are fairly clear. I just hope they see it the same way that I do.
4 comments:
Your ideological roots are showing here, methinks. But rather than turn this into another political love/hatefest on what is presumably a sports blog, I'll keep this as short and direct as I can.
Quote: "A massive, faceless bureaucracy is never going to succesfully take the sympathetic high ground away from a well-scrubbed and well-spoken aspiring athlete under that bureaucracy's control, and for every pro prospect who's impressed back into the service against his will, how many high school heroes with even faint dreams of stardom will decide that maybe State U doesn't look so bad after all?"
Seems to me that these athletes signed on the dotted line to voluntarily become part of the armed forces of the United States of America. Said armed forces are emphatically NOT democracies, by nature (though they are ironically protecting the rights of the people to participate in a democratic-republican political process.) Since the end of the Vietnam War, all of the armed forces of the United States are all-volunteer. I think you're barking up the wrong tree here, Vlad. These boys knew---or should ahve known---what they were getting into when they VOLUNTEERED to give their first adult professional commitment to the armed forces and not "State U" or the minor leagues. If, four years later, they wake up and discover, hey, I'm a lot better at this baseball thing than I thought I was....well, what about all the guys in previous wars who put their careers on hold? Ted Williams and Bob Feller are notable examples from World War II (and Korea, in Williams' case). Tom Ferebee, one of the Enola Gay crewmen, was a hot prospect who wanted to play for the St. Louis Cardinals and who had been scouted extensively by them. The list goes on.
I'm not entirely sure where you are going with this post---though I have my suspicions---but trying to elicit sympathy for these volunteer soldiers who might be having second thoughts now that they can play professionally....I'm not buying it. Sure there's a kind of pathos, "woulda coulda shoulda mighta" but that never stopped Pat Tillman and many others.
Oh, the respective armed forces absolutely have the right to compel these guys to serve on the front line. They aren't allowed to enlist until they're old enough to know the consequences (and pay the price, if necessary).
I just think it's dumb strategic move from the DOD's point of view. The military needs to maximize the potential value of their recruit pool, by tailoring assignments to guys' skills. Eggheads become officers, guys with steady hands end up in demolitions, and guys that are good with tools get a berth in the motor pool. You don't just shuffle assignments and deal 'em out at random. How many ballplayers from the '40s ended up in combat during WWII, and how many did PR or recruiting work? There were some who saw combat duty (Cecil Travis, for one, refused a soft assignment and suffered injuries that derailed a potential HOF career), but the Army saw that those guys had more net value at home recruiting and selling War Bonds than they did in the French countryside, and they acted accordingly.
This isn't about politics, honest. It's about PR. I'm an ad guy in real life, and when I look at what the DOD's doing here, it makes zero sense in terms of achieving their primary goal (i.e. getting enough high-quality enlistees to field the best possible group of soldiers). Let's say that for every pro prospect who gets shipped overseas against his will, you have ten strong high-school athletes who decide to put off the Army for now and revisit it when they're out of college. To replace that net loss of nine high-quality recruits down the road, you have to pay for thousands of dollars in TV ads, and issue criminal waivers for a couple of guys who used to be hard drug users or gang members, who's going to benefit from that?
Quote: "I'm not entirely sure where you are going with this post---though I have my suspicions---but trying to elicit sympathy for these volunteer soldiers who might be having second thoughts now that they can play professionally....I'm not buying it."
Where do you have evidence that these young men are having second thoughts about serving in the armed forces? I cannot find that information anywhere in any of the articles linked. While White says in the one article he would seemingly prefer off season recruiting, he does not anywhere say he'd be against any other capacity in the services. I don't see where he is questioning his commitment to serving in the all volunteer army that you go on about.
If anything you should be complaining about the policies of the Army and the DOD, who essentially can do with them what they will. They will have to provide service, it is the Army that has not decided yet, these two young men have already made the decision to serve, it is now up the military.
- Anthony Michaels
Quote: "Seems to me that these athletes signed on the dotted line to voluntarily become part of the armed forces of the United States of America."
When they did that, they were aware of the Army's current policy on draftees (i.e., they would be allowed to serve in a recruiting role while pursuing a career in the mlb).
What they "knew at the time" was that the Army would allow them to serve their country without throwing away the dream of becoming a major league baseball player.
These guys committed themselves to the Army, merely hoping for this opportunity if it came forth. And now that they will be denied, they are taking it on the chin and serving with a smile. I think you should show them a little more sympathy (even though they aren't even asking for it).
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