Growing up as a young Devil Ray-ling, I started collecting baseball cards around the year As I opened pack after pack, I excitedly scoured through my new cards in search of members of the Devil Rays. Most of the time, those hopes were dashed as I flipped through the seemingly endless horde of Yankees and Red Sox players.
Nevertheless, once upon a time I finally stumbled upon a card featuring the star of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, outfielder Carl Crawford Carl Crawford was an incredible athlete during his days in high school and very highly sought after by myriad universities and professional teams for his prowess in a variety of sports. At one point in time, he had an offer to be a point guard for the University of Southern California and he was committed to the University of Nebraska as an option quarter back.
Crawford surged through the Devil Rays system, gaining notoriety as one of the top prospects in the game. During this campaign, Crawford established himself as one of the top players on the roster and a potentially budding star in the game. In , Crawford cemented this status with a breakout season in which combined his explosive power with some surprising pop and he accrued 5.
Over the next several years, Crawford continued to add to his resume, capping off his Rays career in in which he accrued 7. During the following offseason, Crawford received a massive payday from the Boston Red Sox, but he would struggle mightily over the duration of that contract, splitting time between the Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. One thing is obvious, the player captured on the baseball card is NOT Carl Crawford, a career left-handed hitter.
It became my hypothesis that the player who was placed on the card was famed Rays utility player, Damian Rolls. The other strong evidence supporting that this is Rolls and not Crawford is the fact that the hitter in the picture is clearly hitting from the right-handed side of the plate. Crawford has never once been on the right-handed side of the plate, while Rolls spent his entire career on that side. Damian Rolls came to the Devil Rays during the Rule 5 draft and would be used sparingly by Tampa Bay over the next five seasons.
They obtained veteran first baseman James Loney , but he played only 30 games with Boston. Webster is now pitching in Korea. Crawford was definitely a creature of his comfort zone in Tampa. There were few media and a mostly empty stadium, so he never had to worry about an intense fan base. He could basically hide in the background.
When he got to Boston, he became a whiner and blamed his lack of success on everything and anything but himself. Even in LA, he often blamed the Boston media for making his Red Sox experience uncomfortable, when in fact the local media was extremely fair with him through his injuries and unproductive seasons.
Will someone take a chance on him? The answers have been mixed. There have been rumors about the Giants taking a chance. The Giants have been successful with reclamation projects Pat Burrell , for instance and sometimes will go that route before spending on a big-name guy.
Rangers using the whole roster. The Rangers have been one of the top teams in baseball this season, having overcome some serious obstacles while certain players have really stepped up. They lost Josh Hamilton to knee surgery, costing them arguably their second-biggest power bat for the season. They have also received poor production from Prince Fielder. He is a quality hitter.
There are times when the game is a challenge. Yet they have received great work from Ian Desmond , the former Washington shortstop who was signed to a one-year deal to play the outfield.
Desmond is hitting. In addition, the Rangers have a star in young outfielder Nomar Mazara , who has taken over the third spot in the lineup and was hitting. Desmond and Mazara have made up for the losses of Hamilton and outfielder Shin-Soo Choo limited to six games and the subpar performance of Fielder. The other player who has stepped up is former top prospect Jurickson Profar , who was called up while Rougned Odor served his seven-game suspension for punching Toronto slugger Jose Bautista.
Profar not only hit in all seven games, Banister had no choice but to keep him on the roster. The Rangers have also received good pitching from Cole Hamels , who has been a consistent ace. Mentally getting in our head, 'This is what we're going to do. It was cool. We just brought that culture of being positive and winning. I try to add that to my everyday life. Joe Maddon was the most positive person I've ever been around.
I saw how that can rub off on people. The highs of Tampa Bay quickly ceded to lows he never saw coming as soon as he signed the deal with Boston. A naturally shy, private person, Crawford was no match for the high-volume baseball experience of Fenway Park.
Former outfielder Torii Hunter was with the Los Angeles Angels at the time and attempted to recruit Crawford there, but the Boston money spoke louder. They say, 'Don't go chasing waterfalls,'" Crawford says ruefully, dropping part of the chorus of the TLC hit.
It became his worst nightmare. He was not equipped to deal with the press in Boston, he finished that first year with a lowly. It was as if he woke up one morning suddenly old. His best guess is, playing nine years on the hard artificial turf at Tropicana Field probably produced the wear and tear of He hated Boston.
The feeling was mutual. And after the Dodgers acquired him along with Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and infielder Nick Punto in exchange for five players in August, , he was more than happy to sling public arrows at Boston every chance he got. I feel much better, because I learned that you can't hate something or you never get over it.
It definitely was a learning experience, definitely that. I got that out of it, if nothing else. At home over this past year, watching the Cubs last October, thinking back over it all, he feels Maddon's influence every day. It's why today, as the last of the checks arrive, he will spend October cheering hard for the Dodgers.
That's why I'll always have love for L. The group worked out of a local boxing gym and for this, too, Crawford stayed under the radar. That Crawford would be moved to help quietly in his native area is not surprising. Touched by what he saw on television of a youth team from Chicago, he helped support its trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in He paid for the travel, hotel and meals for the parents of the 13 boys on the team, despite never having met any of them.
He also has funded multiple scholarships through the Jackie Robinson Foundation. So if I see someone in need of help who was in a similar situation to how I was, I try to help. That's what I would have wanted as a kid for me. Out back is the fitness equipment with which Crawford starts his wide-open days. He gets up in the morning and lifts weights though nothing heavy anymore , goes for a jog around the perimeter of his property and then starts his day.
Whatever errands he has to run, maybe some business with his restaurant. I don't want to just sit on the couch all day. I've got a big family.
They're all big people. Always, he says, he planned to come back home when his career was over and, hurricane or not, help out in his community. People still need help. This job ain't over. The family-run barbecue joint is a seven- or eight-minute drive from here.
Crawford says he is a hands-on owner, that it "ain't one of those things where I just gave somebody some money to keep it going. He's open to other business opportunities, too, as he tries to balance that line between enjoying his still-new free time and finding things to stay busy with.
Same as most retired people, only the vast majority of them have 30 or 40 years on him. Once, he would take himself out on Friday nights to watch high school football games. He thinks he'd like to start doing that again.
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