Last season, around the start of August, I said on Baseball Central and Blue Jays Central that the best thing for Ricky Romero would be a demotion.
I didn’t say it because I disliked Ricky. Quite the opposite.
I said it because I felt the minor leagues were the only place a guy going through whatever the hell Ricky was going through (at that time, none of us were completely sure) could get better.
It was plain to see Ricky was putting a lot of pressure on himself, had obviously lost something, and was unable to disengage from the fact that he was a big leaguer—and big leaguers can’t show weakness even if it makes them stronger in the long run.
It was my belief that in the minors he’d be free of distraction, expectation, and even meaningful consequence. I even said, “If Roy Halladay can do it, Ricky Romero can do it.”
I was instantaneously blasted for my remarks. Told I was bitter, angry, stupid, even jealous of all Ricky’s success against my lack thereof. I was told that if I continued the quality of analysis that yielded my comments about Romero, my career as a broadcaster would be a shorter than my very short career as a player.
And now, here we are.
I don’t feel vindicated. I feel sick. That’s because I, like many of you, I hate seeing Ricky struggle. He’s a great guy. A warrior. A true competitor who will never back down and never give up.
… And that’s exactly why I felt he should have gone to the minors long before today.
There are certain players in this game who can waste entire outings working on specific skills without the slightest concern for the result. Players who can, through sheer ego, ignorance, or even force of will, simply not care about what happens or what it looks like as they focus on their personal agendas.
I don’t believe Ricky is such a player. I believe he has not yet learned how to not care.
Every time Ricky takes the hill, being excellent matters to him. He has to work on telling himself it doesn’t, painstakingly cutting himself some slack when he fails. While I respect and admire the noble spirit by which he competes, in this scenario it’s counter-productive. Which is why I have felt him going to a place where the results really don’t matter would be so useful. If you can’t change the player, you can change his environment.
It’s difficult for players to separate their identities as players from their identities as people. All through our careers we’re trained to see ourselves as valuable when we perform and failures when we don’t. We learned it when we were fans of the game, and it concretized when we became players. It’s an instinctual part of us, reinforced by fans and media. It is, for better or for worse, our reality—one, of what have you done lately.
And, since much of our identity, player or not, is shaped by others’ perception of us, it’s easy for a player to think of himself as nothing more than the last set of positive or negative results achieved. Ricky’s results have been negative for a long time now, and I can only imagine what that’s done to him mentally.
When I see Ricky struggling I can’t help but think of the dream of being known by everyone as a great pitcher backfiring and turning into a nightmare.
I think of what it does to you mentally. How it challenges the very framework by which you extract self worth and satisfaction from your craft.
How, on a major scale, you start to doubt your identity. How, on a minor scale, you doubt the physical skills that got you where you are.
I respect Ricky for enduring as long as he has, but he’s been fighting a battle he couldn’t win. No one can pitch with their every move being analyzed. Meaning extrapolated and broadcast to the masses before you’ve even finished your outing. Fans so full of others’ analysis about you it’s pointless to even speak for yourself. It’s like pitching in an alternate reality—one that you’ve helped create, but also one you long to escape from.
Now Ricky will get that chance. I wish it had happened sooner, under different circumstances, if only so his story wouldn’t be one constantly interpreted through the lens of falling from great heights.
But, I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have to overcome this at some point. Now, more than ever, he must learn the enviable art of not caring, letting go, and moving on from what he was and into what he will be.
I still believe this is for the best. I still believe that Ricky is a warrior. And I still believe that if Roy Halladay can do it Ricky Romero can do it, though only only as a matter of ideology. They are two entirely different pitchers with two very different skills sets. Ricky never had the ceiling that Halladay did, nor the tools. But Ricky does have the same insatiable desire to be excellent. Though that trait may make it hard for him to let go, it will also be the one that gets him through this.
I believe Ricky will recover and go on to do great things. How great, I can’t predict. All I know is that we have not seen the last of a talented, confident, and big league Ricardo Romero.