The New York Yankees recently announced that they have agreed to terms with SS Didi Gregorius, OF Aaron Hicks, LHP Tommy Layne, RHP Michael Pineda, C Austin Romine and RHP Adam Warren on one-year, non-guaranteed contracts, thus avoiding arbitration.
Given today’s world of extremely excessive communication technology and ridiculous over-communication, it’s nearly impossible to actually go off the grid. Like the B-52’s “roam if you want to, roam around the world,” and you’ll find more and more roaming available.
The rise of texting and tweeting means that every single person can not only reach with minimal effort, they expect a response almost instantly.
I’ve had numerous people send me a follow-up email in under four hours, even though no one was dying and nothing was on fire. They had absolutely no shame in doing that either because this seems to be the new normal.
Remember the iconic early ’90s movie Swingers? It taught us you better wait 4-5 days before you give your beautiful baby that first phone call.
Good luck with that in 2017. That’s ancient history now.
This backdrop and zeitgeist is what makes the story of Chicago Cubs Pitcher Adam Warren so interesting. He was traded from the New York Yankees to the Cubs as part of the Starlin Castro deal. When he was made aware of the life altering development, he was actually in St. Lucia on vacation with his wife and inaccessible.
“That’s the one time where I turn my phones off and put it in the safe, and get way from everything,” Warren told a cadre of reporters.
“Sure enough, something found me. I was actually watching tv in a restaurant and on the bottom line (of the screen) saw that the Yankees made a trade with the Cubs, so I had my wife’s old phone that we were taking pictures with. I pulled up wifi, saw that I was traded, so it was kind of an emotional night,” he continued.
“And the next morning I got on my phone and started texting everybody, I couldn’t turn off my phone to make phone calls until I got back into the states. Definitely an emotional time because I couldn’t talk to anybody other than through text, but once I got back I was able to talk to some people with the organization.”
“It eased my mind and kind of helped the transition.”
What coincidental timing for Adam Warren.
The young right handed Tar Heel is now in his fifth major league season. He came from the biggest brand in all of baseball to another worldwide club (and then later, back to the Yankees, during the season that followed this interview). With the Yankees, a championship is expected every season, but in Chicago, not so much. 2016 was very rare in that the Cubs were picked to win it all by the sports books.
Interesting to look at these quotes from Adam Warren right now, exactly one year later.
“I hate to get ahead of myself, but it always seems like the team that’s picked to win it at the beginning of the year always has a bad year,” said Warren.
“We’re trying not to fall into that trap, but yeah I’ve definitely pictured it, So it’s a fun thing to imagine but I definitely don’t want to get ahead of myself at this point.”
Warren is used to this type of high expectations having pitched for the Bronx Bombers.
“You go into a season in New York and it was basically World Series or die,” he said describing life as a Yankee.
“It‘s an exciting time to be a Cub and you can always just picture yourself winning that elusive championship for the Cubs and hoisting that trophy.”
Ah that last quote there- very prescient, even though Warren was shipped back to New York before the big moment transpired.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, Bold and the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication, appears regularly as a guest on CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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