With preemie twins, Posey makes ‘easy’ call
There have been other players and coaches who have opted out of the MLB season, and there will be more, but Giants catcher Buster Posey’s decision will reverberate throughout the game.
This is a Hall of Fame candidate with three World Series championships, six All-Star appearances and a National League MVP award.
This is a man who was scheduled to earn $7.925 million as the prorated portion of his $22 million salary.
This is a man who is one year closer to possible retirement. His contract expires after the 2021 season, paying him $22 million with a $22 million club option or $3 million buyout in 2022. This is also a new father.
Posey and his wife, Kristen, who already have 8-year-old twins, adopted two 6-day-old twin girls (Ada and Libbi) on Thursday, who were prematurely born at 32 weeks.
“From a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision for me,” Posey said in making the announcement Friday. “From a family standpoint, making a decision to protect children, our children, it was relatively easy.”
Maybe he could have stayed safe from the coronavirus by taking all the necessary precautionary measures, telling his teammates to wear masks at all times and getting tested every day. He wasn’t about to take that risk. This is about family, being able to see his daughters in the hospital for perhaps as long as four months while their lungs get stronger and celebrating their arrival together as a family every day. Tough decision?
You don’t know Gerald Dempsey
“Buster” Posey III.
“I can’t sit here and tell you that I know what is the right answer to this or what is the wrong answer to that,” Posey said. “But after weighing it for a long time, talking to doctors, I just feel like in the current state that we are right now, and these babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months at a minimum, this ultimately was not that a difficult decision for me. …
“I completely understand not playing baseball does not wholly eliminate the risk of contracting the virus, but I do believe it eliminates it to a certain degree, one that makes myself and my wife feel more comfortable than we would otherwise.”
It might have been different, Posey said, if the adoption procedure went awry. He and his wife have been down this road before in the last few years. They had an adopted baby in their own
arms a few years ago, only for the family to change their mind a few days later.
This time everything came through, and they celebrated their official adoption on Thursday.
“Anybody who has tried to adopt knows it’s quite the roller coaster,” Posey said. “I was cautiously optimistic it would actually go through having some of the previous experiences.”
The twin girls were born on July 4, the same Posey arrived in camp, and he acknowledged then that he wasn’t sure whether he would opt out.
“To be honest with you, and full disclosure, I think if these babies hadn’t been born right now and weren’t premature, I’d probably be playing,” he said Friday. “Talking to different doctors, there are no solid answers whether, if the babies contract the virus, will it affect them immediately? Will it affect them in the long term? Unfortunately, there’s not enough data right now. It’s just so new that we just don’t have those answers.”
So the season will go on without him. “Look, there’s no question, especially when the game start up, this is going to be hard for me. Honestly, as a baseball player, there’s such satisfaction in going out and trying to accomplish something with a group of guys that have become your friends. And whether that goal is reached or not, by the end of it there’s satisfaction knowing that you’ve really put everything into it.
“I’m going to miss that the most, not having that challenge of overcoming hurdles and obstacles, and being able to celebrate the good times and being able to share some of the down times.”
The 2020 season starts July 23. There will be more opt-outs. There will be more positive tests. There will be more gut-wrenching decisions.
“I do think it’s very much an individual decision,” Posey said. “We’re all trying to decipher information that’s changing rapidly.”