Thursday
6
OPINION: Editorial, Letters to the Editor
March 31, 2022
Just happy to be here: One ballplayer’s not-so-storied career in the Big Leagues By Roslyn Ryan Editor
A
lvaro Espinoza probably never made anyone’s short list of baseball heroes. In all honesty, he probably never made anyone’s long list. If someone who knows much about baseball mentions him at all, it is probably because he happened to be inadvertently involved in someone else’s moment of glory. No, Alvaro Espinoza, who played professional baseball from
1984 to 1997, was not ever a serious contender for the Baseball Hall Hal of Fame. And yet, every year, as another baseball season begins to unfold, I inevitably think of him. As a kid in New York during the early d 1990s, my friends and I co collected baseball cards and happily joined in the local custom of disparaging the cit city’s beleaguered American League team. My father called Espinoza Espinoz “Alvaro Espino-good,” a moniker that was as easy to love as it was—probably—somewhat unfair, was—probably—so given that just earning a starting spot on a sta big league American baseb baseball team almost certainly qualifies a person as a better at baseball than most of the other humans on the planet. Sadly, however, what highlights Espinoza high had during this course of his career have been largely lost to history. He remains in many minds a monument to mediocmonum rity, a player more notable for his terrible haircut (I once heard someone say he h looked like he cut his hair w with a Flowbee) than his batting average. ba Just imagine this sceim nario: You Y devote the majority of your waking hours ho to the game, showing up at sh practice early and leaving
after the sun has gone down. You take endless rounds of batting practice, field millions of ground balls, and grind your way through inning after inning under the scorching Venezuelan sun. By dint of hard work, grit and determination you manage to make it to the Big Leagues and play 12 seasons with a total of five teams. And then, at the end of all that, you are remembered primarily for three things: Your goofy, wire-rimmed glasses; your love of the chewing-gum-on-the-hat prank, and the fact that you are one of only a handful of players in Major League history to hit a ball that got stuck in a stadium obstruction (in Espinoza’s case it was a speaker at the Minneapolis Metrodome). Imagine if this was the way Wikipedia summed up your career: “His game was to simply put the ball in play and not try to hit for power. As a baserunner, he had average speed. Probably, he was not among the most gifted athletes ever to play shortstop, but he positioned himself extremely well and got to many balls that might have eluded some flashier shortstops.” If you’re in a hurry, I’ll translate that into one word: “Meh.” Given all this, you might wonder why, then, do I feel a kind of fondness when I think of Alvaro Espinoza? Because despite all of this—in spite of the fans’ derision, the daily ups and downs of his career and the
see Ballplayer > 11 MetroCreative illustration
Editorial & Business Office and Mailing Address: 8460 Times-Dispatch Blvd. Mechanicsville, VA 23116 Phone – (804) 746-1235 Toll free – (877) 888-0449 Fax – (804) 344-8746 Online: www.goochlandgazette.com
Publisher Managing Editor Editor Sports Editor Sales Representative Classifieds Production Manager
Joy Monopoli
jmonopoli@RSNVA.com
Laura McFarland lmcfarland@powhatantoday.com Roslyn Ryan
rryan@gooochlandgazette.com
Robby Fletcher
rfletcher@powhatantoday.com
Tom Haynie
thaynie@mechlocal.com
Cindy Adams
cadams@mechlocal.com
Denine D’Angelo ddangelo@mechlocal.com
WE WANT TO PUBLISH YOUR ISSUE-DRIVEN LETTERS The Local welcomes your signed letters to the editor on topics of interest to Goochland residents. Letters must include your address and a daytime telephone number. We reserve the right to edit letters. We do not guarantee that every letter received will be published. Letters reflect the opinions and positions of the writers and not The Goochland Gazette. Send letters to: The Goochland Gazette 8460 Times-Dispatch Blvd. Mechanicsville, Va. 23116 Fax: 344-8746 E-mail: editor@goochlandgazette.com © 2022 by Richmond Suburban Newspapers. All advertising and editorial matter is fully protected and may not be reproduced in any manner without the permission of the publisher. CAC Audited Circulation: 8,014.
Serving Goochland County Since 1955
Making school policy should be collaborative By Jim Ridolphi Contributing Columnist
Anyone exposed to school board meetings in the last year is acutely aware of a wave of parental involvement that challenges decisions made by elected or appointed officials regarding the education of their children. On the surface, it appears the efforts are noble, and who could argue that better informed parents with legitimate interests in the child’s education should have a voice on how those children are instructed; or what subjects should be emphasized. Parental involvement has always been an integral part of education, a procedure welcomed by teachers and involved parents both realizing that interaction often enlightens and benefits the ultimate outcomes. And there’s no doubt that parents who are involved in their child’s education often produce students who perform better academically. Some would argue that parental involvement has morphed in to parental control, where some parents want control regarding what is taught in the classroom and direct input in policy decisions. One woman recently told local school board members that “parents need to be back in the classrooms.” That, also may sound like a good idea on the surface, but it begs the question, which parents in what classes? It’s likely our educational community, parents, teachers and administrators are as diverse politically as the remainder of the nation, which seems split right down the middle on almost every issue. I observed with interest as issues like mask wearing or other COVID19 mandates were argued and debated or the rights of transgender students or Critical Race Theory discussed. It seemed on these or other contro-
see Policy > page 11
