The season is young, but it has already produced a number of significant stories. It started with significant free agent signings involving Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Paul Goldschmidt, among others. We've seen early season showdowns, with none more significant than the first at-bat between Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer. More recently, in fact just yesterday, we saw Yaisel Puig face off against his old club (with Clayton Kershaw on the mound). The Yankees have half of its lineup on the injured list. The Cubs and Red Sox are struggling to regain form and both are sitting at the bottom of their respective divisions. The Mets and Rays are playing some of the best baseball in the league. These are all great story lines but none of them have captivated the entire league as much as Chris Davis's hitless streak.
By way of background, Chris Davis is the Baltimore Orioles' first baseman. To date, Davis has slugged 283 home runs and 749 runs batted in, but with a .237 batting average. His most prolific season came in 2013 when he hit 53 home runs. He's never really regained that form, but was fortunate enough to parlay that success into a fairly significant contract.
His recent campaigns haven't been particularly noteworthy, either. The Orioles have struggled as a franchise, as well.
But Davis's recent struggles touched on something larger: the brotherhood of baseball.
At first, the jokes were flooding in and the criticism was rampant. Many fans on Twitter remarked that Chris Davis wasn't worthy of his contract. But after a while, and particularly when Davis broke the hitless streak, the situation turned.
Fans from all walks -- rivals included -- began rooting for Chris Davis. Davis, after all, had one of the most significant cases of the yips in recent years. And as we've discussed on this blog before, the yips are some strange combination of nerves and emotion (i.e., mental framing) and luck. In Davis's case, he was surrounded by bad luck (with several of his hits going straight to a defender's glove). It's not clear what it was about Chris Davis that rallied so many people together. It's arguably not him or the team -- both are neutral, at best, and neither evoke a wide array of emotions. It's possible that the reaction was purely about baseball. As baseball fans, we appreciate the game because of its sense of order, respect, and elegance. When anyone is in a funk like this, the equilibrium is so off that it throws off the balance of the entire game.
It's also possible that the reaction was more human. We've all had bad days and stretches of bad days. We wake up funny and don't quite bring our best to work. We're all paid to do a certain job and do it well -- just like Chris Davis. But for whatever reason, we don't quite execute like we used to. Luckily for us, our performance isn't broadcast to millions, but for all of us -- the struggle feels awfully real and awfully painful. And that's quite possibly why this story got so much traction -- we could relate. We can't relate, for example, to the exceptional players and the exceptional plays. We can only dream of having the talent. But we have had the rough, no-good days that just don't seem to end.
And so somehow, Chris Davis be came a story for all of us. And thankfully, Chris Davis let us all breathe out a sigh of relief when he laced a line drive to right field.
By way of background, Chris Davis is the Baltimore Orioles' first baseman. To date, Davis has slugged 283 home runs and 749 runs batted in, but with a .237 batting average. His most prolific season came in 2013 when he hit 53 home runs. He's never really regained that form, but was fortunate enough to parlay that success into a fairly significant contract.
His recent campaigns haven't been particularly noteworthy, either. The Orioles have struggled as a franchise, as well.
But Davis's recent struggles touched on something larger: the brotherhood of baseball.
At first, the jokes were flooding in and the criticism was rampant. Many fans on Twitter remarked that Chris Davis wasn't worthy of his contract. But after a while, and particularly when Davis broke the hitless streak, the situation turned.
Fans from all walks -- rivals included -- began rooting for Chris Davis. Davis, after all, had one of the most significant cases of the yips in recent years. And as we've discussed on this blog before, the yips are some strange combination of nerves and emotion (i.e., mental framing) and luck. In Davis's case, he was surrounded by bad luck (with several of his hits going straight to a defender's glove). It's not clear what it was about Chris Davis that rallied so many people together. It's arguably not him or the team -- both are neutral, at best, and neither evoke a wide array of emotions. It's possible that the reaction was purely about baseball. As baseball fans, we appreciate the game because of its sense of order, respect, and elegance. When anyone is in a funk like this, the equilibrium is so off that it throws off the balance of the entire game.
It's also possible that the reaction was more human. We've all had bad days and stretches of bad days. We wake up funny and don't quite bring our best to work. We're all paid to do a certain job and do it well -- just like Chris Davis. But for whatever reason, we don't quite execute like we used to. Luckily for us, our performance isn't broadcast to millions, but for all of us -- the struggle feels awfully real and awfully painful. And that's quite possibly why this story got so much traction -- we could relate. We can't relate, for example, to the exceptional players and the exceptional plays. We can only dream of having the talent. But we have had the rough, no-good days that just don't seem to end.
And so somehow, Chris Davis be came a story for all of us. And thankfully, Chris Davis let us all breathe out a sigh of relief when he laced a line drive to right field.