Why The Mat Latos Hullabaloo Is A Good Thing

Mat Latos autographed three baseball with the inscription, I hate SF! These balls were to be sold with 50% of the proceeds earmarked for charity. San Francisco Giants fans were uproarious at the young ace's behavior and a firestorm between fans ensued via Twitter at the prompting of RJ's Fro and Splashing Pumpkins. Earlier this afternoon the story went national.

This is a good thing. Allow me to explain...

Fans are always critical of the players who play the game. It's what fans do best and we pay our hard earned money so by-god you better believe we're going to let 'em have it when we feel it's warranted.

What do we complain about the most? We accuse players of not caring when we see them smile during a losing effort. We condemn them when we get even an inkling that they don't care as much as we do about the outcome of a game. We volley claims of disloyalty when a player holds out for that last penny during negotiations and demonstrates a willingness to defect to an arch-rival to get it.

We get mad at these athletes because that's not how we would play the game. Their passion doesn't quite match-up to what we fans bring to the table.

So along comes Mat Latos with his 96 mph fastball and a rapid ascension to the top of the Padres pitching staff. He nearly throws a no hitter against the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants in 2010 and dominates their line-up on a few other occasions. When the Giants revamped their line-up through the course of the season, young Latos felt compelled to judge the Giants as a collection of players rather than a team like the Padres. That revamped team would go on to defeat Latos 3-0 in game 162 bringing an exciting but overachieving Padres season to an abrupt end.

Nearly five months later Latos signs a few balls for a charitable endeavor and goes on the record as hating the San Francisco Giants. Does he really hate the Giants? Hate is generally reserved for corrupt political ideologies, strong-man dictatorships and late 90s boy bands... not sports teams. Oh, we say we hate our rivals but all that really means is we just really, really dislike the opponent. We call it hate but it's not. Hate burns too much energy.

Could we say that Latos is not a fan of the team who ended his season in October? I think that's fair. So what's the problem? Latos is showing a passion for the game and a general disdain for losing which seems some what rare in sport today. With the transient nature of sports, due to free agency, we rarely see players stick around long enough to develop a dislike for the rivals they compete against.

The players of yesterday, who we all tend to glorify, did not have the luxury of free-agency and the promise of riches at contract's end. They scratched and they clawed to stomp their rivals into the ground and win games because if they didn't it could mean the loss of their job. For the ball players of yesterday, the consequences of not caring passionately about each and every game were to return to their winter jobs... for the rest of their lives. Today's player would scoff at the notion of needing to secure a second source of employment.

With the whole balls affair, Mat Latos has shown that the Giants are very much on his mind in 2011... and I don't know if there are too many better ways of showing that you give a crap than that.

We are beginning to see a rivalry manifest itself in the form of the Padres and Giants... something I never could have imagined up until last year. The Giants, with the exception of Barry Bonds, were in my view a fairly innocuous bunch; fans and players alike. But that began to change last year.

I began to hate the Giants because of their own pitching version of Mat Latos; the young and polarizing Jonathan Sanchez, who actually did throw a no-hitter against the Padres a couple years back. Like Latos, Sanchez is a fine young pitcher who is neither afraid of hitters or opening his mouth to give a sound bite. I hate him.

But let me tip my hat to Jonathan Sanchez... he put himself out there with some of his comments last season and showed a supreme confidence in his team to overtake the Padres... and that folks, shows Jonathan Sanchez also gives a crap.

While it pains me to compliment Jonathan Sanchez, as it would pain Giants fans to compliment Latos, I take solace in knowing the following heading into the 2011 season:

• Despite a late season collapse the Padres defeated the Giants 12 times in 18 games last year. It's no World Series Championship but it's our only good leg... and I'm gonna stand on it.

• Fully aware of the Giants true rivalry, I like the back and forth that has developed between both players and fans during the last year.

• Mat Latos gives a crap.

Let us also not forget the auxiliary benefits that are sure to come from the #balls episode: recognition. On the other side of the Rocky Mountains where discussion is usually reserved for Philadlephia, Boston and New York, national media outlets are discussing the upstart team that was forced to deal its star first baseman... and wait for it... the World Champion San Francisco Giants. Sorry Giants, but all I keep hearing is how the Phillies and Red Sox are the chosen ones... and that's not really fair. It's true what they say about bad publicity (that there's no such thing) so let's go ahead and soak this up and call it a win for shaking up the talking points for Baseball Tonight and the MLB Network.

Gaining recognition for teams out west is a nice aside but it all comes back to players like Mat Latos and Jonathan Sanchez showing genuine care for the game, their team and their city. 

If there were only more players who convinced fans on a daily basis of their burning desire to compete... that little something that says they give a crap...it would go a long way towards restoring our faith in the modern game.