Real situation

There’s something to be said for embracing potential. But not at the cost of triumph.

The future may be an uncertain place for billions around the world. Ask any discerning Boston sports fan though, and they’ll tell you about what’s to come. They, unlike everybody else, know what’s in store.

Jacoby Ellsbury is the next Johnny Damon. Clay Buchholz is the next Roger Clemens. Some even still think that Wily Mo Pena possesses untapped potential, if that tells you something about the Hallmark relationship many fans have with their local athletes. Just don’t bring up Michael Bishop. That will only make them angry.

But nothing comes close to the latest reaction over Al Jefferson, a player with potential whom Celtics fans seem to have latched onto with an inane furor. Oh, sure, there are moans today for Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair’s glock collection, and any of the other pieces in the 52-for-one trade for Kevin Garnett, but none reaches the heights of Jefferson.
Al. Jefferson.
I can only suppose that the central artery would have imploded into itself had Ellsbury been dealt for Mark Teixeira on the same day. When the young outfielder was recalled earlier this month for a short stint with Boston, he instantly became a fan favorite, showing off his greatest asset, speed, and had Red Sox fans dizzy with the prospects of shipping Coco Crisp out of town. Now, based on six games, everyone is convinced that Ellsbury is destined for greatness. Not just a solid, long career. Greatness.
Perhaps in no other town do we boast to know so much about any particular sport, then rush to judgment — positive or negative — over just a handful of games. But it is a mixed road, this potential and achieving it. For every Jeff Bagwell, there is a Casey Fossum or Francisco Rodriguez. Fossum, remember, was once the next best thing in Boston until he was included in a deal that brought Curt Schilling to here. He has gone on to win a whole 23 games since that deal.
A lot of folks weren’t too keen on a 1995 deal that sent sure-to-be frontline starter Frankie Rodriguez to the Twins for rental Rick Aguilera. But the man who the Red Sox convinced their fans was ready to be a star went on to have an awful career, costing virtually nothing to attain a closer for the last Boston team to win the division.
We are in the midst of one of the greatest athletic star periods in the region’s storied history. I mean, take a look at the names New England calls its own right now: Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Daisuke Matsuzaka. Does any other city — New York included — boast as many internationally known superstars across a variety of platforms as Boston? Not likely.
And yet, names don’t fulfill the Boston sports fan, who is either more inclined to analyze the big picture and how long success is to last, or when it is due to drop off the map. Often, it is possibility that fuels the soul, more so even than attaining and filling that promise. Case in point: Jefferson, a player who fits the bill ideally. Even if we have no idea what to expect from the 6-foot-10 forward, it is the idea that fans won’t be able to witness him reach those heights in Green that has them frustrated. Even for a perennial All-Star like Garnett, whose addition only changes the face of your franchise.
Jefferson may be a perennial All-Star himself someday. But frankly, that day isn’t anytime soon. Jackie MacMullan pretty much sums it up perfectly: “If he continues to hone his low-post moves and develops some nastiness around the glass, he could wind up as another Elton Brand. That’s nothing to sniff at, but it’s not enough to hang on to, not when Garnett is there for the taking.”
Let’s be honest. Jefferson has “potential,” but so far, he’s shown little of it on a basketball court. Yes, you’ll point out the dramatic improvements he made last season. Point for you. Except that he made those improvements without the team’s best player for most of the year, for a team that was playing for nothing. What was the game plan he had to follow on a nightly basis? “OK men, we’re looking to lose this one. Al, you get the ball.”
Maybe it’s a product of desiring a homegrown product in an age of free agency and high payrolls. Perhaps it’s a matter of wanting to see a product from start to finish, an old-school, birth-to-death life span that hardly ever happens on today’s landscape. Or maybe the connection is just that much stronger with guys like Manny Delcarmen and Jonathan Papelbon because they know nothing else but what it’s like to play in Boston.
Brian Rose’s name came to mind today. With the Red Sox mulling over the idea of including Delcarmen in a deal that would also send Wily Mo Pena to the White Sox in exchange for Jermaine Dye, I have to wonder if fans’ hesitancy over such an inclusion would be as dramatic if his birthplace weren’t Hyde Park. For that matter, would Rose have even have been sold as an athlete of full potential while riding the ladder to the big leagues in the late-1990s?
Fans tend to fall in love with these players faster, their own homegrown athletes, with less consequential criticism. For better or worse.
But now, the potential of Jefferson — and perhaps Pena and Delcarmen — headed west, where they might become stars in their own right. They also might become Joe Forte, Phil Plantier, and Rose too, but in the mind of the Boston sports fan, who has to end his or her love affair with each too quickly, that’s never possible in the moments and days right after they’ve had their hearts broken.
Sometimes the idea of something is better than what that something actually becomes. And if that’s the case, maybe Jefferson’s exit is a good thing for everyone involved. Because based on the eulogies of the past few days, it seems that more than just the weight of a franchise was being placed on his shoulders. Reality isn’t often a trait in this town, where idealism reigns.