I don’t know why you need three days off. I’m gonna be honest. You see the birth and you get back. What are you doing the first couple of days? Maybe you take care of the other kids? You gotta have someone do that if you’re a Major League Baseball player. I’m sorry, you do. Because your wife doesn’t need your help the first couple of days. You know that. You’re not doing much those first couple of days with the baby that was just born.
There’s a very good reason why I detest sports talk radio…and Mike Francesa is it. Too often conversations, such as they are, devolve into frustrated ex-jocks (or, in Franscesa’s case, jock wannabes) expounding on sports as if their opinion is The Beginning and The End, Amen. Sometimes they go to truly absurd lengths, revealing the speaker to be someone who fancies himself an expert on something that ultimately doesn’t matter.
I understand and love sports. I love the drama and the excitement and interest they generate. In the final analysis, though, sports really don’t matter except as distractions. They don’t change anything, the sun still rises in the same place the next morning, and the world isn’t a better place because your team beat mine. Not that this stops the talking heads on sports talk radio from thinking they’re making the world a more just and equitable place via their radio shows.
Mike Francesa’s a thoroughly forgettable jock wannabe with a radio show on New York City’s WFAN radio and a never-ending supply of self-important opinions. Earlier this week, he decreed that a professional ballplayer taking leave from his team to be with his wife at the birth of their child was just this side of a crime against humanity. (And he wasn’t the only one- see Esiason, Boomer).
The reason for Francesca’s tirade? New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy took three days away from the team to be with his wife at the birth of their child. I know, huh? How DARE he be so self-centered and ignore the needs of his teammates and Mets’ fans?
Francesa, a sports radio host on WFAN, is very upset that Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy missed two games this week due to paternity leave. So upset, in fact, that he went on a twenty-minute tirade, calling a ten-day paternity leave a gimmick and “a scam and a half.”
It’s difficult to know where to begin, but how ‘bout we just start with the fact that there’s little thing I like to call the Family Medical Leave Act, which guarantees parents up to 12 weeks leave upon the birth of a child. Murphy missed two games…and Francesa has his panties in a wad as if Murphy was guilty of a crime? My first question would be how much time Francesa took off at the births of his children (He must be a peach of a father)? My second would be why he feels that Murphy is unworthy of a right guaranteed a new parent by federal law?
That Murphy is a professional baseball player doesn’t mean he isn’t covered by FMLA. Of course, his high-visibility job makes him (or in this case, his absence) far more noticeable than Frank in Accounting. Frank could take his 12 weeks of leave under FMLA and no one would utter a peep in protest. A professional baseball player takes three days to be with his wife and new child…and suddenly he’s selfish, he doesn’t care about the team, and he’s scamming his employer?
I can’t begin to get inside Francesa’s head to understand how and why he feels his rant is anything near appropriate. One thing I do know is that those outside of games (fans, reporters, sports radio talk show hosts) too often view athletes as public property. Because of this athletes are deemed less worthy of the same rights and benefits that accrue to lesser mortals. When athletes seek counseling for mental health issues or go to rehab for substance abuse problems, it’s evidence that they’re weak and worthy only of our scorn and derision. Taking leave for the birth of child? Please….
When athletes put on a uniform, it creates an unfortunate predilection for ignoring their humanity. Except for their surpassing talent in a specific game, they’re really no different from you or me. Throwing a 98 MPH fastball or averaging 25 pts a game doesn’t imbue them with super powers. Athletes face the same fears, challenges, problems, and demons those of us outside the lines do. In some cases, their public visibility magnifies the issues they deal with. Yet people like Francesa would deny them the very things they’d demand for themselves in similar circumstances.
I could go on, but I’ll leave Francesa to stew in his well-deserved opprobrium. Da Interwebs and many news outlets across the country have been blowing this story up; it’s not as if they need my help. Francesa’s comments were asinine at very least, and he’s reaping what he’s sown.
Don’tcha just LOVE karma?
