Don Mattingly, Yasiel Puig, and Debates That Aren't Worth Having
Let's talk for a minute about Bill Nye.
I know, I know. Probably not the typical way to start a sports column, but stay with me for the time being. Back in February of this year, the scientist, educator, and television personality was making plenty of headlines, after agreeing to debate evolution with "Creation Museum" founder Ken Ham. The highly anticipated event was seen as something of a modern day Scopes trial, with Nye, the noble man of knowledge and reason, pitted against Ham, the stubborn ideologue unwilling to let go of Genesis. And wouldn't you know, among thinking people, the debate did generate plenty of discussion, plenty of argument. Not about evolution of course. No, the discussion was actually about whether Nye should have been having the debate in the first place. There were plenty of smart people in both camps. Some made the argument that being willing to engage with someone, no matter how backwards and stubborn, was a fine example of academic discourse. Others wondered whether, by debating Ham, particularly in the confines of the truly preposterous museum, Nye was actually giving credibility to a dangerous crank, who deserved no place in real scientific circles. Basically, the questions raised by the debate were ones that we've been arguing about for years. How should you engage with someone who is intellectually out to lunch?
Which brings us to Yasiel Puig. (I know, I know, quite a left turn. But like I said, just hang with me.)
Barring a significant injury that we were not privy to, a disciplinary issue behind the scenes, or, I don't know, an argument about England's greatest Prime Minister that ended in a fist fight, there is no possible justification for Yasiel Puig not being in the Dodgers' lineup in Tuesday's NLDS Game 4. Was Puig slumping? Well, kind of... in three games he had performed to a .250/.357/.417 split. Not great, and certainly not up to his standards, but not disastrous either. Then there's the fact we're talking about three games! Maybe the phrase "small sample size" gets overused a touch in the modern baseball parlance, but it's probably justified when we're talking about a total of 14 plate appearances. The only way for a player to break out of a slump is to keep hitting, and one would think that a few rocky at-bats wouldn't negate an entire season's worth of strong, consistent work with the bat. Oh, and while we're at it, can we talk about defense? Even if Puig's struggles at the plate were certain to continue (they weren't), he rates as a significantly better defender than the man who replaced him, Andre Ethier. In the end, Ethier, who has scuffled all season, went 0-2 with 2 walks. Yes, it's easy to play the "what-if" game, but it's quite fair to ask if four at-bats from the always powerful bat of Puig might have been enough to turn the tide in a one-run loss. And if keeping Puig from the starting lineup was silly, using him as a pinch runner in the 9th was a downright farce, demonstrating he was healthy enough to run the bases, but somehow not wanted when it came to impacting the game offensively.
It's "wait 'til next year" once again for Puig and the Dodgers.
But here's the real problem. All that information up above? It shouldn't even be necessary. Yasiel Puig was the Dodgers best position player this season. No-one disputes this. So then why, in the most important game of the season, was he sitting on the bench for eight innings, before making a cameo appearance on the basepaths in the 9th? If LeBron James shot 20% from the field in a playoff game, you'd better believe he'd still be starting the next one. If Peyton Manning struggles this weekend, John Fox isn't going to yank him from under center over concerns about his "confidence." So why is baseball so unique in its frustrating tendency to overthink everything? And why, when the mistake is so obvious, do we even need to be having this debate?
During Tuesday's game, Fox's always candid Katie Nolan sent out the following tweet:
Now, I have no idea if Katie's tweet was in reference to Mattingly, the Dodgers game, or sports in any way shape or form. What I do know is that in that moment, watching a Puig-less team lose a one-run elimination game, it resonated. And no, for the record, I don't think Mattingly, or the people who defended his decision, are morons. Everyone's allowed to be wrong once in a while. But they were wrong, definitively and unequivocally, and there's nothing more exhausting than having to argue until you're blue in the face about something that should be obvious and self-evident.
Evolution is a fact. Global warming is a real phenomenon. The earth revolves around the sun. And Yasiel Puig belonged in the Dodger lineup on Tuesday. Look, everyone loves a great sports argument. That's why we've filled so many programs, so many columns, with hot takes, false narratives, and oversimplifications. The reality is that sometimes there aren't two sides. Some things just aren't worthy of debate.
So what's the answer? How do we defend a position without getting dragged into a fruitless sideshow? Where do we draw the line? Damned if I know, but it's got to be drawn somewhere, because otherwise, before you know it, you're on television, arguing with a charlatan, in a "museum" that features a dinosaur with a saddle on its back. A little dramatic? Sure. But in sports, as in life, maybe it's time to stop "embracing debate".
Let's embrace reality instead.
