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Kids today. They’re just not like they used to be.
This is what old people say. And parents. And teachers. And coaches. This is the lament of folks sitting in rocking chairs, reading newspapers, calling grandchildren on the land-line rotary telephone and actually expecting the young folks to pick up the call.
It’s the same when it comes to Major League Baseball players.
I know. I was there. Maybe not for Smoky Joe Wood, but I was there when Nutty Joe Kerrigan was a major league pitcher. When Bernie Carbo thought Tom Yawkey was a clubbie and asked Yawkey to get him a coffee. And when Brooks Robinson was the greatest third baseman who ever lived — before there was Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Chipper Jones, and . . . Rafael Devers.
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Haha. Just kidding about Devers. The baby-faced Red Sox star is only 21 years old, and he made a ton of errors in a short amount of time last season, but it’s all in front of him. He could wind up being the next Will Middlebrooks for all we know. Or the lefty swinging Dominican Frank Malzone.
Devers represents a new generation of the Red Sox, and that is what we are discussing today. The 2018 Red Sox hired a 42-year-old ex-player with zero managerial experience to lead their top-payroll, talent-laden roster. Alex Cora is the Red Sox manager because the folks in power believe he can relate to today’s players, which has become more important than lineups, game strategy, bullpen deployment, and pinch hitters.
In 2018, it’s all about communicating with the millennials — those talented kids who have little awareness of anything that came before them and rarely take time to say hello or look up from cellphones.
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You know. Those guys.
The Red Sox provide Devers with a translator. Devers and his teammates also can make use of the services of no fewer than four club mental skills coordinators and Dr. Richard Ginsburg, who is the PhD director of the club’s behavioral health program.
I asked Hall of Famer Jim Palmer if the Orioles provided him with a mental skills coach back in the 1970s.
“If we had one of those, the guy would have spent more time with Earl Weaver than he would have spent with us,’’ said Palmer.
“Motivational speeches? Here’s one. Earl would run out to the mound in the middle of an inning and say, ‘Hey, are you [expletive] trying?’ ’’
No more of that. Today’s players are led by “communicators.’’ They are almost never publicly criticized by their bosses. That’s why hearing “yuck” on the clubhouse television feed can be so shocking to their sensitive systems.
There’s a lot of benefit to this new sensitivity. MLB teams are far better when it comes to creating a family-first environment for their players. When former Sox manager Terry Francona was born in 1959, his father was playing for the Cleveland Indians and did not see his newborn son for three weeks. A generation later, when Terry Francona’s wife was due to have a baby, Francona told his Reds manager, Pete Rose, that he planned to get home for the birth. Rose said, “That’s fine. Just don’t come back.’’
Compare that with the great sensitivity and understanding the Red Sox showed Craig Kimbrel in the spring of 2018, when the closer left the team for three weeks to be with his newborn daughter, who was undergoing surgeries at Boston Children’s Hospital.
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The Red Sox of 2018 wear backpacks and headphones. The backpack thing kills me. I think Clay Buchholz was the first, but it always has reminded me of watching my kids go off to first grade with their Ninja Turtle backpacks loaded with cheese sticks and juice boxes.
There were no big leaguers wearing backpacks in the 1970s. No custom earbuds, either. There were “boom boxes” (like the one John Cusack holds over his head in Cameron Crowe’s 1989 classic, “Say Anything’’). I remember reliever Don Stanhouse (dubbed “Stan the Man Unusual”) carrying one onto a team charter with Fleetwood Mac blaring at full volume.
Score one for the millennials here. We all vote for earbuds.
Many of today’s players wear beards, short hair, and anything but leather-bottom shoes. They don’t carry much cash. Up until two years ago, players got $110 per day in meal money, in cash. That led to a lot of card playing. Today, meal money is $30 per day, but players no longer have to pay clubhouse dues. It’s taken care of by the team as part of the new basic agreement.
I won’t pretend to know anything about the personal recreational habits of today’s Red Sox players, but I suspect they drink less, smoke less, and take better care of their bodies. They’ve been raised on a culture of awareness and most are mindful that careers are too short and the risks too great if you abuse your body.
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Forty years ago, some players came to spring training overweight and a tad out of condition and “played themselves into shape.’’ Hardly anybody does that now. If you show up out of shape, somebody will take your job.
Players smoked in the clubhouse 40 years ago. Not everybody, but more than you’d think. And I’m not just talking about Luis Tiant and his ubiquitous cigars. Cigarettes. Yaz smoked. Mark Belanger. Mike Flanagan. MVPs. Gold Glovers. Cy Youngs.
“I think about former teammates who’ve died,’’ noted Palmer. “It feels like they all smoked cigarettes.’’
Today’s players spend endless hours at the ballpark. On road trips there are two, sometimes three team buses, leaving the team hotel at staggered hours. There used to be just one bus and it left in time to get the players to the clubhouse for batting practice.
Now when the Red Sox are in New York for a 7 p.m. game, there’s a bus leaving at noon, another one at 2, plus a late bus that usually has only that night’s starting pitcher and maybe one or two other players. Many players go to the park well before the bus leaves the hotel. There’s video to watch, analytics to explore, weight work, and time in the training room.
“They get three meals a day at the ballpark,’’ said former big leaguer and present-day scout Jim Beattie. “Guys can arrive at the park in the morning and there’ll be somebody there to prepare a late breakfast. Then they can do weight training and video work and go over reports. Some of them are there all day.’’
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“When I trained with the Orioles in Miami, we had ham sandwiches, carrots, and a tureen of soup,’’ recalled Palmer. “Just something to take the edge off. I walked into our spring facility at Sarasota the other day and they had poached salmon and chicken breasts, cereal health bars, protein drinks. You name it.
“If you want an omelet, they’ll make you an omelet. Players don’t have to learn how to cook. Everything they need is at the ballpark. Video rooms. Multiple trainers. Team psychologists. No wonder they’re there all day. Why wouldn’t you go?’’
“Maybe it’s just because we like each other’s company,’’ said Dustin Pedroia, the senior member of the Sox in terms of continuous service.
Pedroia came to the big leagues in 2006. He has never had a roommate while traveling on the road. That’s a major change from the old days when even the stars had roommates.
The Red Sox had a Ping-Pong table in the middle of the clubhouse throughout spring training in 2018. It was a popular pastime for most players. Late in camp, Jerry Remy sat in a chair on the far side of the room and observed raucous Ping-Pong action at the other end, where some of the Sox pitching stars were dressing.
It was a doubles match featuring Carson Smith, Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, and Eduardo Rodriguez. After one wildly contested point that ended with Bogaerts rolling on the carpet laughing, Remy looked up from his chair and said, “Can you imagine Yaz sitting in front of his locker while this was going on? That would have been great.’’
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy.