Clubhouse Noise

Clubhouse Noise

Clare called one day last week to ask if I’d heard about what new Twins’ manager Paul Molitor was thinking of doing.  “He wants to make rules for cell phones and music in the clubhouse.”  This is a sore subject of some standing with my daughter.

During her sophomore year at Elmhurst, Coach decided the girls were spending too much time on their phones.  There were no phones allowed at games in Florida, and no being on the phone after 10 PM.  It’s hard to judge the fallout.  While the Bluejays made the CCIW postseason tournament for the first time in fifteen years, several players threatened to quit the team.  Instead, Coach resigned at the end of the season.

Clubhouses and dugouts really can turn into a war zone.  Ban music and phones—Molitor doesn’t want an outright ban, just rules—and you’re asking for a player revolt.  Let players do what they want, and you risk ending up with Sammy Sosa.  From what I gather, Sosa pretty much ran the Cubs’ clubhouse, when he showed up, that is.  By the end of the 2004 season, he didn’t seem much interested in getting to games on time or staying around if he wasn’t playing.  Apparently, he left the clubhouse on the last game of the season after the first pitch was thrown.

That may have been the one straw too many.  Someone, probably pitcher Kerry Wood, took a bat to Sosa’s boom box.  So ended the reign of Sosa at Clark and Addison; he was traded to the Orioles in the offseason.  I mentioned all this to Clare.  If she wants to coach, there’s going to be a Sammy Sosa in her life at some point.