Escaping from Our Escapism-Why We Care So Much About Baseball Prospects

There is a small minority of fans who seem to fetishize prospects, and would like their teams to essentially never play for the present, but to accumulate as many prospects or draft picks as possible. These fans are the baseball equivalent ofShel Silverstein’s Lester who used all his wished for more wishes and ended up dead surrounded by his wishes. Fans that always want to trade away players for prospects because the prospect or the draft pick might hold something better are like the guy at the party who is constantly looking over the shoulder of whoever he is talking to looking for somebody more attractive. The team that is run that way will never win anything, just as the guy at the party will always go home alone.