How Giancarlo Stanton became that girl in your high school play

Remember her?  The one with the green eyes and the way she had of flipping her hair that, well, just made your heart flip, too?

She was the lead in all of the Drama Club's musical productions.  And after graduation, she announced that she was going to New York to become a real Broadway actress.

You tried to break it to her easy.  You told her, "Gee, I know you can sing and dance, Alyssa, but, wow, that New York is a pretty unforgiving town."

And she flipped her hair again, and gave you that enigmatic smile that she developed from being the prettiest person in the room all her life, and told you, "Oh, I think it will be all right."

And she said it with such confidence that you even began to doubt yourself, and thought, well, maybe you just didn't want her to leave town.

And then she went to New York, and found out that while she could sing and dance a little, there were plenty of people there who could sing and dance even better, and who knew how to act, and yeah, it was a really tough town.  Until after about ten years of waiting tables she went back to school in business communications, and at your 20th high school reunion she tried to sell you life insurance.

That's our Giancarlo.

The Marlins thought they had a deal done to trade him to St. Louis, if I recall correctly.

That's a nice town for a ballplayer, St. Loo.  Great front office, always a contender.  A nice, warm, welcoming Midwestern college atmosphere, where they all wear the team colors in the ballpark.  The kind of place somebody who had never played games that much counted could feel right at home.

But no.

Like the pretty, green-eyed girl in all our hometowns, Giancarlo knew he wanted the big time.  He knew he could play on the big stage, and walk in the footsteps of the gods, and be a matinee idol.

He knew all these things until he got here, and couldn't go when it counted.

His leg hurt, and maybe his side ached, and he just didn't feel right, not right enough to actually play, even though the houselights were down and the footlights were on, and the tickets were all sold and everybody was waiting for him to appear.

And he couldn't do it.

Of course it's not really the same with Giancarlo as with that green-eyed girl.  Mostly because Giancarlo has already made nearly $89 million playing baseball, and has another $234 million guaranteed, which will be enough to take care of him and all the little Giancarlos and their descendants unto the generations.

But now he's finding out that it's not so easy and not so much fun to play on the biggest stage of all—not unless Reggie or Derek Jeter, or the Babe, at least.  And sometimes not even for them.

It's hard, it's unforgiving, and unless he somehow redeems himself very fast—something Giancarlo Stanton does not seem in the least equipped to do, physically or mentally—his every footstep is going to be dogged by the Furies here in NYC.

Now we're hearing word that he would like very much to leave.  That he would rather go to L.A., or...St. Louis.

That's nice—but it's too late.  To trade Giancarlo Stanton now would be for Brian Cashman to admit he made a mistake, and that's not something that Brian Cashman does.  And even if he wanted to, nobody is going to lay out that sort of cash to pay Giancarlo Stanton's contract, least of all Mr. Halliburton Q. Steinbrenner.

So there we are.  The moral of our story is that it's not a small thing to know what you want, before you go after it.  Because he did not, Mr. Stanton is going to spend a lot of time making us and himself very, very miserable here in New York.