What do you do for a living? Hopefully you like it, find it fulfilling, get paid well for it, all the good stuff. But I’ll bet you also wish it wasn’t such a dominant force in your life that you thought about all the time. If that’s true, I’ll also bet you didn’t know that you have something in common with many of the best athletes on the planet, who are becoming very open about the fact that their work—despite the riches and respect that come with it—is still work.
That’s right. Athletes across America’s major sports have made one thing hyper clear recently, and we are both bemused and inspired by it: They do not care! This is not meant to be a blanket statement covering all athletes. But recency bias is a hell of a drug, and this past weekend gave us several examples of high-profile sports figures going full shrug emoji.
First up, we have controversial Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon. For the last four years, Rendon has been paid beyond handsomely to do very little. After the 2019 season, the hapless Los Angeles Angels gave him a back-loaded, seven-year, $245 million contract, hoping he could partner with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani to finally bring a winner to Orange County. Instead, COVID significantly shortened his first year with the team, he got hurt in 2021, then he got hurt in 2022, and he followed that up by getting hurt again in 2023. Undergoing hip and wrist surgeries in back-to-back years and then fracturing a shin with a foul ball is nobody’s idea of fun. Rendon surely did not mangle his body on purpose. But a certain kind of fan is quick to assert that he is “stealing money” from his employer.
But Rendon further inflamed those purse-watching fans when he reported to spring training this year with a semi-hot take about being a baseball player.
“It’s never been a top priority for me,” Rendon calmly stated, the same way he might respond to a question about maintaining a skincare routine. “This is a job. I do this to make a living. My faith and my family come first before this job. So, if those things come before it, I’m leaving.” Let me just say: hell yeah. If this was somebody you know working an office job, you’d wholeheartedly agree. The fact that it’s a public-facing multimillionaire whose job is televised complicates things.
