If you went to any kind of standard American Elementary or Junior High in the 60’s, some teacher assigned Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman to you. The play encompasses the frustration of Willy Loman, who recounts his life as one of those working stiffs who “could have been a contender,” at least in his own mind. But over the course of a couple of days, the play shows the deterioration of the now-aging Loman, who is frustrated with the ordinariness of not just his own life but that of his progeny, and it all ends in tragedy.
Death of a Salesman does ask some rudimentary questions, not just about success, but life and what constitutes that same ephemeral success when many of us never even get to know how good we might have been a la Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. For Loman does lead a very average life, struggling in a workmanlike fashion at the same job for years only to be tossed out on his ear eventually.
Certainly, playing professional baseball is not quite so harsh as selling items door-to-door, but the minors are a long and never-ending grind of busses and hotels and fast food and less-than-stellar ball parks, even if it is baseball.
And, every year there is a story about the oldest rookie to make his debut in the majors. In fact, Will Leitch wrote about this last year, noting the cluster of players who appear in the Show the first time at an advanced age, noting them as members of The Jim Morris Club.
Morris, you might remember, tossed his first big league pitch as a 35-year-old, making for a feel good story. Morris, a southpaw, made it to 21 games and 15 innings (0-0, 4.80) between 1999-2000 for the Rays although, inexplicably, his pic at the Baseball Reference pictures Morris in a Dodgers cap.
But there have indeed been names like Morris. Last year those same Dodgers gave the ball to Edward Paredes who made his first pitch at the age of 30 and was handed a win that game when Cody Bellinger whacked a three-run dinger, giving Paredes a 1-0 mark, and as of now the lefty has appeared in 11 games, thrown nine innings, has a 3.24 ERA to go with 11 whiffs and an 0.889 WHIP, with one appearance coming in 2018.
Names like these — Morris, Paredes, and Austin Bibens-Dirkx, who three his first big-league pitch last year at age 32 — come at us every year, and this year the nominee for the Jim Morris Award has to be Brandon Mann.
Mann, a member of the Rangers, made his major league debut last Sunday. The 34-year-old hurler–who hit age 35 three days ago–has toiled in the minors for 12 years since 2002, when he was drafted in the 27th round by the Rays. Mann also turned in three years of Independent play as well as a pair of seasons in Japan where he toiled for the Yokohama Bay Stars (2011-12) and a few years (2007, 2013) where he did not pitch, at least officially in professional baseball.
Over the years Mann played for five franchises — Tampa, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland, and Texas — while donning the uniform of 21 separate teams. All of this resulted in chucking the pill in 344 games, with 115 starts, a 54-91 mark with a 4.34 ERA over 1,274 innings.
Mann whiffed 1,052 batters, posted 1.404 WHIP, and even in Japan (3-9, 4.27) as a reliever, he was mostly a situational hurler and hardly one to scare the likes of Bryce Harper.
Still, if the objective of any of us is to at least be recognized at the highest level, Mann got that. As of now, he is 0-0, 0.00 over a pair of games and 3.3 innings this year, and while Mann should not be “manned” in any kind of fantasy format, we all need to acknowledge the perseverance of a player like Mann.
In fact, it is the indomitable spirit of simple a human like Mann, who endures and struggles and works, ignominiously, to finally make it to a particular goal.
I doubt it lasts the whole season, but for now, well, Brandon, you’re certainly The “man.”
Hat’s off.
