-Slap-
06-17-2007, 09:08 PM
Prince and Cecil Fielder Now Linked Only in Name (http://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/1637801/detail.html)
By Tony Massarotti
Special to NBCSports.com
Jun.14, 2007
This week, especially, the saddest story in baseball concerns a father and a son. In so many ways, the boy is like his dad. In so many others, he is not.
Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder do not speak, of course, though it would be foolish to suggest they do not have a relationship. They will always be father and son. Yet as Prince Fielder joined his Milwaukee Brewers teammates on a trip to Detroit this week, the Brewers set certain guidelines for their budding star. Prince Fielder would speak only after games, not before. And he would not answer any questions about his father.
Yet every time Prince Fielder steps into a batter's box, he is quite literally a mirror image of his father, an exact likeness in so many ways, a perfect opposite in so many others.
How is it possible to think of one without thinking of the other?
http://www.nbcsports.com/2007/0614/1637880.jpg
Prince Fielder leads the National League with
23 home runs. He's on pace for 57 this season.
Of course, Cecil Fielder played 13 career season in the major leagues, though we should think of him of having played only nine. Fielder came up with the Toronto Blue Jays and spent four seasons in the majors before going to Japan, and it wasn't until he came back, with the Tigers in 1990, that he became the baseball star America began to love.
That was the year Fielder hit 51 home runs at a time when a 50-home run season meant something. That was the first of two consecutive years he finished second in the American League Most Valuable Player Award balloting. That was the year he became one of baseball's truly gentle giants, a 6'2", 240-pounder (wink, wink) with a ferocious swing and a soft nature.
Prince? He was Cecil's son, an adolescent boy with his father's build and smile. He might have actually been blessed with more power. Back then, it was impossible to make a trip to Tiger Stadium without seeing the Fielders taking batting practice together, a pair of baseball Weebles that looked like a before-and-after photo.
Which is exactly what they were.
As it turned out, as we all now know, the image and the reality were two entirely different things. In 2004, the Detroit News wrote a story that Cecil Fielder's life was crumbling, that he accumulated absurd gambling debts, which his family had all but dissolved. Cecil Fielder and his wife divorced. The son no longer speaks to his father. And now, it seems, he no longer speaks of him, either.
So far this season, a 23-year-old Prince Fielder is the runaway National League leader in home runs; in all of baseball, only New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has hit more. Already, Fielder has hit nearly as many home runs as he did all of last year (28), putting him on pace to finish with 57 in 162 games.
Off the field, one member of the Milwaukee organization said Prince Fielder is "going to be a leader on our club at a very young age." In many ways, Fielder is leading already. Through 65 games, Fielder was batting .295 and ranked first on the club in an array of categories, including RBI (51), slugging percentage (.639) and OPS (1.018). At this early stage of the season, on a Milwaukee team that leads the National League Central, he looks like one of the leading candidates for the NL Most Valuable Player Award.
Naturally, this is a unique week on the American sports calendar. The U.S. Open is currently taking place, which means Father's Day is fast-approaching. The baseball season is approaching its midway point. And as much distance as exists between Cecil and his son, one can only imagine that, on some level, Big Daddy is feeling what any father would feel.
Pride.
Sad story on Father's Day. Problem gambling ruins a lot of families. Cecil lost all the money he made playing baseball betting on sports. The final straw for Prince was when he found out part of his signing bonus was included in those losses. Its possible the anger Prince still feels is part of what drives him every day. I think, on some level, he's extremely motivated to blow away the numbers his father attained, to achieve greater team success than him as well.
I hope Cecil is getting quality care for his addiction and I hope Prince can find it in his heart to forgive him some day. Few things are sadder to me than seeing a person who's estranged from one or both parents. The time that's lost can never be regained. Even worse, the capricious nature of fate can take the people we love away from us in the blink of an eye. Stubborn pride won't provide you any comfort when those people are gone.
By Tony Massarotti
Special to NBCSports.com
Jun.14, 2007
This week, especially, the saddest story in baseball concerns a father and a son. In so many ways, the boy is like his dad. In so many others, he is not.
Prince Fielder and Cecil Fielder do not speak, of course, though it would be foolish to suggest they do not have a relationship. They will always be father and son. Yet as Prince Fielder joined his Milwaukee Brewers teammates on a trip to Detroit this week, the Brewers set certain guidelines for their budding star. Prince Fielder would speak only after games, not before. And he would not answer any questions about his father.
Yet every time Prince Fielder steps into a batter's box, he is quite literally a mirror image of his father, an exact likeness in so many ways, a perfect opposite in so many others.
How is it possible to think of one without thinking of the other?
http://www.nbcsports.com/2007/0614/1637880.jpg
Prince Fielder leads the National League with
23 home runs. He's on pace for 57 this season.
Of course, Cecil Fielder played 13 career season in the major leagues, though we should think of him of having played only nine. Fielder came up with the Toronto Blue Jays and spent four seasons in the majors before going to Japan, and it wasn't until he came back, with the Tigers in 1990, that he became the baseball star America began to love.
That was the year Fielder hit 51 home runs at a time when a 50-home run season meant something. That was the first of two consecutive years he finished second in the American League Most Valuable Player Award balloting. That was the year he became one of baseball's truly gentle giants, a 6'2", 240-pounder (wink, wink) with a ferocious swing and a soft nature.
Prince? He was Cecil's son, an adolescent boy with his father's build and smile. He might have actually been blessed with more power. Back then, it was impossible to make a trip to Tiger Stadium without seeing the Fielders taking batting practice together, a pair of baseball Weebles that looked like a before-and-after photo.
Which is exactly what they were.
As it turned out, as we all now know, the image and the reality were two entirely different things. In 2004, the Detroit News wrote a story that Cecil Fielder's life was crumbling, that he accumulated absurd gambling debts, which his family had all but dissolved. Cecil Fielder and his wife divorced. The son no longer speaks to his father. And now, it seems, he no longer speaks of him, either.
So far this season, a 23-year-old Prince Fielder is the runaway National League leader in home runs; in all of baseball, only New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has hit more. Already, Fielder has hit nearly as many home runs as he did all of last year (28), putting him on pace to finish with 57 in 162 games.
Off the field, one member of the Milwaukee organization said Prince Fielder is "going to be a leader on our club at a very young age." In many ways, Fielder is leading already. Through 65 games, Fielder was batting .295 and ranked first on the club in an array of categories, including RBI (51), slugging percentage (.639) and OPS (1.018). At this early stage of the season, on a Milwaukee team that leads the National League Central, he looks like one of the leading candidates for the NL Most Valuable Player Award.
Naturally, this is a unique week on the American sports calendar. The U.S. Open is currently taking place, which means Father's Day is fast-approaching. The baseball season is approaching its midway point. And as much distance as exists between Cecil and his son, one can only imagine that, on some level, Big Daddy is feeling what any father would feel.
Pride.
Sad story on Father's Day. Problem gambling ruins a lot of families. Cecil lost all the money he made playing baseball betting on sports. The final straw for Prince was when he found out part of his signing bonus was included in those losses. Its possible the anger Prince still feels is part of what drives him every day. I think, on some level, he's extremely motivated to blow away the numbers his father attained, to achieve greater team success than him as well.
I hope Cecil is getting quality care for his addiction and I hope Prince can find it in his heart to forgive him some day. Few things are sadder to me than seeing a person who's estranged from one or both parents. The time that's lost can never be regained. Even worse, the capricious nature of fate can take the people we love away from us in the blink of an eye. Stubborn pride won't provide you any comfort when those people are gone.