By Martie Hevia | Blue Beach Song™

“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.”

~Roberto Clemente

Suggestion #2: Role Models

DEFINITION: Role Model – noun – (1) A person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. [Dictionary.com]; (2) A person regarded by others, esp younger people, as a good example to follow. [Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition, 2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.]; (3) A person who serves as an example of the values, attitudes, and behaviors associated with a role. Role models can also be persons who distinguish themselves in such a way that others admire and want to emulate them. [The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company]

However you define it, like it or not, baseball players are role-models. Young people – and not so young people – admire and want to emulate them.

Who wouldn’t want to be like them?

These men get paid a lot of money to play a game most of us played growing-up. They are usually at the peak of their careers and talents and physical abilities. They have adoring fans and fame and celebrity. Everywhere they go people want to touch them, to talk to them, to get their autograph or any other little piece of them. Vicariously, little kids and big kids get to live their big league dreams through them.

Is it too much to ask of these major league baseball players to be good role-models, to comport themselves respectfully and in a decent manner? There was a time when such behavior was commonplace amongst most people. These talented athletes are given so much and it seems so little to ask.

So, my second suggestion to major league baseball is to provide training and encouragement to their players to behave like good role models. Most corporations have expectations as to how their employees should behave in public as representatives and reflections of their company. Why not MLB?

As for the ballplayers… they can begin with a few simple suggestions:

NOTE: This was the second of a 30-part series of posts offering suggestions (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) on how I would improve the game of baseball. This series is based on my original (very long) post: Baseball: How I (A Girl) Would Improve America’s Pastime, it provides the context for this series of posts. I hope you enjoy the series and offer your own suggestions! All the best, -Martie

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