For those of you who have never read "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, you may not know what I mean when I make reference to Bartleby. "Bartleby the Scrivener" is a mid nineteenth century essay in which Melville describes a lawyer who hires a scrivener or document copier, Bartleby. At first Bartleby does great work, but as time goes on he starts to refuse to do even the smallest jobs. This goes on until the lawyer is forced to fire Bartleby.
This reminds me of public figures in today's world, most notably professional athletes. The first figure that comes to mind is Manny Ramirez, an all-star outfielder who recently was traded from the Boston Redsox to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ramirez is one of the premiere players in today's game, but is allowed to get away with acts that the games historic stars would have found ludicrous. Ramirez has left the outfield in the middle of an inning to use the restroom, failed to run after fly balls, and does not hustle on ground balls in the infield. The Redsox put up with all of these actions, but finally were forced to trade Ramirez after he trashed the Redsox fans in the media. In a recent radio interview, Manny's former teammate Curt Schilling talked about how on certain nights Manny would refuse to play. This reminded me of "Bartleby the Scrivener". Tell me why anyone should be able to refuse to work, especially when they are being payed millions of dollars to play a game. I can not go into my job and tell my boss that I would prefer not to work that night. I would have to do my job or risk losing my employment. Shouldn't it be the same for the million dollar "stick swingers"?
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