Say It Ain't So

I was browsing through Facebook today, and I noticed that a couple of my friends had taken the “what baseball player are you quiz?” By rule, I typically never take these kinds of quizzes because, let’s face it, they’re really stupid. But this one was, for obvious reasons, right up my alley. Plus, one of my friends got Gary Pettis as the result, and the other got Chet Lemon, and that just made it seem more fun.

As an aside, I’m pretty sure every baseball fan thinks Chet Lemon is pretty cool because of his name. And one of the more amusing moments of my journalism career was interviewing Chet, who now runs an elite baseball travel team. They’re called Chet Lemon’s Juice. No joke.

So yeah, I went ahead and took the freaking quiz, which were mostly questions not about baseball. They were more about movie preferences, style of dress, and political leanings. After answering the questions (I think there were 12), I anxiously awaited the results. Wait for it . . .

Jimmy Rollins.

Yes, that Jimmy Rollins. Me, Mr. Mets Fans. The guy who has Baseball America covers with Kevin Mitchell, Jose Reyes and Tim Teufel adorning his walls. The guy who was watched “1986 Mets: A Year To Remember” roughly 900 times. But according to this fucking Facebook quiz, I’m Jimmy Rollins, the Mets No. 1 nemesis. My world is coming apart.

I mean, I guess there are worse players to be. If I could be a ballplayer, I would want to be a multi-dimensional up-the-middle player. But why couldn’t I be Carlos Beltran? In fact, I said I wanted to be an outfielder on the freaking quiz! If I say outfield, how do I end up as a shortstop? This shit is rigged. Furthermore, how come all three results I am aware of ended up with a black guy as their answer? This wasn’t the “what black baseball player are you quiz?” Or maybe it was. Nope, just checked, it wasn’t. And while I checked, I noticed another Facebook friend had taken the quiz, and he got Steve Jeltz, another black player, as his result. So maybe it really is the “what black ballplayer are you” quiz. This whole thing makes it even more unlikely I will ever do one of these Facebook quizzes again. Even so, I’m still Jimmy Rollins. I would have even preferred Marlon Anderson.