Posted on 04/04/2014 7:36:50 AM PDT by Morgana
Being a sports radio host sometimes means being full of hot air when white noise would be preferable, as in the case Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason. The big names showed their small attitudes when New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy chose to be with his wife rather that at opening day of baseball season.
Esiason said:
“I would have said, ‘C-Section before it starts. I need to be at opening day. This is how we make our money; this is how we live our life. This is what is going to give our child every opportunity to be a success in life. I’ll be able to afford any college I want to send my kid to because I’m a baseball player.’”
Carton followed, “I got four of these little rugrats; there’s nothing to do,” as he talks about how Murphy can’t possibly have a need to be home past 24 or 48 hours post-birth. The hosts point out that federal law gives Murphy a right to two weeks of paternity leave, but he shouldn’t take that right because baseball is more important than birth.
To his credit, Murphy dismissed the criticism, telling ESPN New York:
“I got a couple of text messages about it, so I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I didn’t hear about it. But that’s the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day — that being Wednesday — due to the fact that she can’t travel for two weeks.
“It’s going to be tough for her to get up to New York for a month. I can only speak from my experience — a father seeing his wife – she was completely finished. I mean, she was done. She had surgery and she was wiped. Having me there helped a lot, and vice versa, to take some of the load off. … It felt, for us, like the right decision to make.”
This controversy is one that would not be a controversy in a culture that valued life and birth. These “rugrats” are precious children. Opening day is, as Sporting News noted, one of 162 games played each day. It’s a day of work. The day of a life of a baby can’t be compensated with cash. The support to his wife can’t be replaced with a paycheck.
Baseball is a game. Birth is the miracle of life. To even compare one as being more important than another reveals the attitudes that have permeated a culture that regards sports figures as demi-gods while reducing the true value of life. Once upon a time, criticizing a man for caring for his wife and baby, telling him he should have told her to get a C-section–major surgery–and then calling kids rugrats with an entirely derogatory tone would have been considered offensive to the masses. Now it’s fodder for radio hosts to use airtime at the expense of a man who valued his baby and his wife over a game. If there is a baseball hall of shame, Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason should be the pillars of this museum.
That sounds much too logical and responsible for the present “nanny” climate.
Its baseball.
My family comes before ANY job..
It’s a business. It’s a job. Do your job.
And like any other employee of any other job this man is entitled to Family Medical Leave.
As a husband and father he did do his job.....
I was in the military in the early 70’s. My wife had our son in the base Hospital. The Hospital called my duty station and requested I report to the Hospital..
It’s a 162 game season. Much less of a big deal to miss a small amount of playing time. Plus, they had a day off the day after, which I thought was pretty weird. In a certain glitzy sport with fruity celebration dances that only plays 16 games it might be much more of a consideration.
Freegards
Working hard at your job is not anti-family.
I wouldn’t do it. I took the afternoon off the last time I had a kid, watched the birth, cut the cord, and was back at work the next day. Wife and baby were in the hospital for two days after the c-section, I visited after work but didn’t need to be there.
I’m not however going to jump on a guy for taking three days.
A week or two hell yes that’s wrong, but three days for a guy who played in every game last year except one?
These radio guys are way off base here
There used to be a radio sports guy in Cincy who would respond to black callers claiming Cincy sports fans were racists by pointing out how much they loathed Boomer Esiason.
“And, let me tell you.....very few people in America are as WHITE as Boomer Esiason!”
So this baseball player is unable to afford the cost of his time off? What “collective” are you talking about?
And like any other employee of any other job this man is entitled to Family Medical Leave.
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He did not need to go to that level. By contract he gets 3 days for paternity leave.
Working hard at your job is not anti-family.
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That was more of a general observation that specifically directed at you.
Likewise, it is not anti-job, or reflective of one who is not doing his job, to take the paternity leave that is built into his contract.
Norman (Boomer) must be bitter about his own son having some terrible disease. Is he still alive?
No, it's part of an activity that's rooted in 150 years or so of American culture. And the issue goes far beyond this one particular incident concerning one Daniel Murphy.
When a professional athlete signs a contract with a team, he is agreeing to give 100% effort toward winning as many games as possible for that organization and to show up to the scheduled games unless incapacitated physically or perhaps emotionally. Thus he has professional responsibilities to his teammates, to the team's management, and to the fans of that team without whose support his princely salary would not be possible.
A player does not have to be an Einstein to figure out how to act responsibly in the bedroom so that the birth of a new child will occur in the off-season, so as not to conflict with his professional responsibilities, at least with a very high degree of probability. But by putting a "paternity leave" clause in their player contracts, the ultraleft PC crew which runs today's major league baseball under Selig's administration has encouraged players to cop out of that rudimentary calculation and thereby disrespect their obligations to teammates, management, and fans that their contract embodies.
Yes, there might be occasions when there are unexpected medical problems for a mother and/or fetus and/or baby during the pregnancy and/or delivery process that may come up during the player's season. But fortunately, in modern day America, thanks to tremendous advances in obstetrics over the last century or so, such situations will be rare. When they do arise, the team's management and the player will usually agree to a paid leave of absence from the team so that the player can attend to his personal affairs, just like with any other serious illness or death in the player's family. But the large majority of these "paternity leave" in-season situations are caused by callousness on the part of the player to others to whom he is responsible via his contract. And if he does wind up with a healthy new baby, what the heck is the matter with keeping up on events from afar, like millions of other fathers in many professions and occupations have done through generations?
Yes, this kind of irresponsibility with paid "paternity leave" is emblematic of the decadence of American society and the woosification of American men and men's sports. Not only is the player irresponsible, but the "Major League Baseball" administration is just as much as fault for enabling the situation. Neither is beyond criticism. And this Murphy thing is just one such situation among many with more to come.
He was entitled to take time off, per his contract.
I believe his son has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease. And to the best of my knowledge, he is very much alive, attending college.
But I don't think his son has anything to do with his opinion on this situation. He's a bit out of line for suggesting that Murphy's wife deliver by Caesarian so that the birth would occur before the start of the baseball season. But the prudent thing for Murphy to have done, and which he obviously didn't do, would have been to conceive at such a time so that the birth would have in all probability occurred in the off-season, and he would have avoided this controversy altogether.
Please see my post # 53.
I agree, but not by his personal contract, by the union collective contract which the leftist Selig and his administration signed with the leftist players association.
It's the PC leftists who run major league baseball who are the problem and who stupidly allowed that into the collective bargaining agreement.
I'm sure that if most time baseball owners or managers or even players were in control of the game only a generation ago could have there way, there would be no paid "paternity leave."
Why are these players so dumb or uncaring that they can't even engage in planning births for the off season?
So would you rather he forced his wife to get an abortion once they found out the baby would be born during the season?
Sometimes you can’t plan things.
Abortion isn't the issue here, and I wouldn't have advocated it in this situation or in most any situation.
Sometimes you can’t plan things.
True, but you can plan things with at least a 90+% probability if you understand the relevant physiology and contraception methods, which all too many young Americans don't in this dumbed down society we live in. I don't think it's too much to ask for responsible behavior in the bedroom, especially someone in the public eye.
We’re not talking about a baby born out of wedlock here, this is a husband and a wife.
I thought we were all pro-family here.
While he supported his wife, he let down the other team members. Many of those team mates are fathers with families, too.
I think the wife should have encouraged her husband to honor his duty to the other men on the team and sought support from a trusted female member of her family or a good friend.
By the way,....I am a mother of four.
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