Why Elijah Dukes Matters

I am a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. (They're changing their name from Devil Rays to just Rays.) In case you haven't heard, we have a guy on the team named Elijah Dukes who has been in a lot of trouble off the field over the last couple of years. (He also had some team-related problems last year in AAA Durham, but nothing so far this year with the Rays.) The main thing lately is that he threatened to kill his estranged wife and their/her children. It's also just come out that he got a 17-year old girl pregnant a few months back. And he's dealing with some legal issues involving marijuana found in his car during a traffic stop.

As is always the case when things like this happen, some fans are calling for him to be cut or traded, while other fans are taking the position that what he does in his personal life is his business, and as long as he helps the team win (and he is VERY talented), keep him. I fall into the former category, and here's why.

The whole point of a sports team is to represent its community. The community rallies behind the team, the team plays for the community, it's a big community spirit/bonding thing. That's why we celebrate when the team wins and we feel bad or mad when the team loses - when they win, we win, and when they lose, we lose. We don't sit back and casually observe, and say, "Oh look, that team that happens to be based out of our area won a game, well good for them." No, WE won because that team is a proxy for us.

That's why a player's ability to help win games does matter. As our representatives, we want the team to do well. But the team's representation of the community goes so much deeper than just the win/loss record.

What community takes pride in being known as a bunch of thugs? What community takes pride in having no morals or ethics? What community wants to be represented as being less-than-decent people? Because when a team represents a community, everything about the team represents everything about the community. And that includes character as evidenced by off-the-field behavior. It's not just about wins and losses, it's also about being decent people.

So while Elijah Dukes' off-the-field behavior may not win or lose games, it still represents our community, and the vast majority of our community doesn't want to be represented that way. And the team owners need to take that into account.

One thing that they need to consider is that for a player to contribute to wins, the player must be available. When the player has to make court appearances or go to jail, the player is no longer available. Wouldn't it be better to have someone who can be counted on to be there?

Also, a team is a business. They want to make money. How do they make money? By filling seats at the stadium, selling gear, and getting viewers to watch the game on TV so that they can get television money. Right now the Rays have a pretty small fan base. They need to build it up to generate revenue. One way to build it up is to field a winning team, which attracts fans who go to games, buy jerseys, and watch games on TV. But if you upset those fans, especially when you don't have many of them, you can lose a lot of revenue. Lose the revenue and you can't pay quality players that attract fans. It's a spiral, and the spiral can go up or down.

So the ownership needs to pay attention. Yes, the community wants wins, but we want wins with players of whom we can be proud to have representing us. Ditch Dukes. Keep and grow your fan base. Generate revenue. Get even better players. Grow your fan base some more. Generate more revenue.

Upward spirals are a good thing. Players like Dukes don't contribute to upward spirals.