Category: Opinion Page 63 of 295

I had the opportunity to see what may have been Albert Pujols’ last at bat at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Albert is old for a baseball player. He’s 41 and spent his glory days in a Cardinals uniform.

His potential last time at the plate at Busch is in the top half of the seventh inning. He is called on to pinch-hit.

Pujols ends up walking and is stranded, walking off the field at Busch for perhaps the last time.

He receives a standing ovation.

He’s been a lucky guy being able to play a kids’ game for the last 21 years.

We should all be so lucky except we’re not.

While most professional athletes do not script how they leave the game, many see the writing on the wall before their careers are complete.

If they are lucky, they get to keep from embarrassing themselves.

I remember Willie Mays stumbling in center field at Shea Stadium in 1973.

He was a shadow of his former self, a little older than Pujols by a couple of years at 43.

No longer capable of playing up to the levels they once did, athletes eventually understand their time is up. They must give up all that was once theirs–glory, adoring fans, and the ability to say they received the applause and cheering of tens of thousands of fans.

The average American worker does not get a fraction of the perks and accolades of being a proficient and productive professional athlete.

I’d like for you to applaud after you finish reading this.

I think some of my work is good.

Others not as much, but you can’t have a masterpiece every day you work–whether you’re a professional athlete or a worker bee with a production quota.

Pujols acknowledged the fans with an outreached wave of his hand.

The crowd went wild.

Thirty-one thousand screaming fans are cheering their beloved Pujols.

Many athletes never find something to replace the thrill of being on the field and succeeding in clutch moments.

Some of my sentences feel like a crowd is reading every word I type; after reaching the end of one powerful sentence or another, they stand up in front of their chair and begin applauding in appreciation for a sentence unlike any other.

Workers and athletes end up being like dust.

I let dust accumulate until someone reminds me I would benefit from a dusting of my work area.

They make these things with handles and fabric that attract dust when you wave it over the pesky accumulations they seem to deliver.

Dust gets the hook. Eventually.

So do athletes and so do average workers.

A writer who doesn’t get a click is someone who has stayed too long, kind of like an over-the-hill Willie Mays during the 1973 World Series.

Average workers are lucky to go out on their own terms.

Sometimes they are subject to mandatory retirement from their employers.

Writers who go out often do so when their popularity has waned to the point where they are largely irrelevant.

Pujols had the look of a lucky man today as he acknowledged the crowd’s roaring approval.

He will be hardpressed to replace his beloved game of baseball in retirement.

Average Joes, if they can be brave enough, actually at this point may end up being at least as lucky as Pujols was today.

Because now that they are retired, they have for perhaps the first time an opportunity to do something they don’t have to do that could positively change the remainder of their lives.

Average Joes can find their passion.

However, they might have to wait until what they did previously is all said and done to realize it.