Ed Crosby
August 14, 2007
Adrift
Chapter 2 (continued from Clyde Wright)
Utility infielder Ed Crosby seems here to be displaying the slumping body language and sardonic facial expression of a man on the brink of declaring the official pledge of allegiance of the adrift: “Ah, who gives a shit.”
Then again, I’m probably projecting. When I was in my mid-twenties, as Crosby is here, the general tension of many a dumb useless week often collapsed as if through a rotted trapdoor into boozy ease at 3 A.M. Sunday morning in the International Bar, my elbow propped along the bar much like Crosby’s elbow on his knee, my expression finally melting from its customary angsty, apprehensive glare into Crosby’s somewhat wobbly, bleary-eyed smile, an internal monologue rising through the loosening in my chest to the accompaniment of Ain’t Got No Home by Clarence Frogman Henry on the jukebox:
Who gives a shit? Who gives a shit I work a go-nowhere job battling shoplifting teenagers and selling half-pints to ruined men? Who gives a shit I haven’t gotten laid in years? Who gives a shit I still live with my brother, my bedroom a converted closet with a toddler’s glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling? Who gives a shit my dream of being a writer is nowhere, a con game I run on myself? Here’s a toast, my friends: Who gives a shit about any of it?
Yes, I’m probably projecting. After all, a man such as Crosby who clung to the major leagues with few discernable skills (no career home runs, a lifetime .219 batting average, one career stolen base in nine attempts) must have been a passionate, focused, and tenacious practitioner of his chosen vocation, the polar opposite of a man adrift. But who knows? By 1976 Crosby had been clinging for six years to a transient, marginal major league existence, and perhaps in this moment he is seeing the encroaching inevitability of the game of baseball going on without him, completely indifferent to his absence. Maybe he can sense the truth, that he’s got just two more at-bats left before the end. Maybe he can feel it and instead of railing against it he’s taking one long last look at a world with clear lines and definite rules.
Crosby’s son is in the major leagues now, the promising but injury-prone Bobby Crosby. Not knowing anything about their family situation, I’d guess it’s a safe bet that Ed Crosby taught a love of the game to his son. Likewise, I suppose Clyde Wright must have passed some of the game down to his own son, Jaret, who has won 68 major league games. Both Bobby Crosby and Jaret Wright made auspicious debuts in the majors, the former winning the 2004 Rookie of the Year award, the latter starring as a 21-year-old rookie for the pennant-winning Cleveland Indians. These debuts suggested that both would easily eclipse the efforts of their fathers, but both have been slowed by injuries since their shining breakthroughs, the setbacks piling up enough by now to surely give them a view of the moment Ed Crosby seems to be in the midst of here, the end of the line, the end of the game, the beginning of the rest of life with all its possibilities for drifting.
(Continued in Father & Son–Big Leaguer)
Cardboard Gods 
1. Looks like he’s smiling to me.
2. i’ll drink to this
3. 1 : Me too.
2 : Me too.
4. Baseball-Reference has Ed down for only 1 steal in 8 attempts. But then, does it really matter? You would think someone who hit like Ed Crosby would cherish the opportunity to stand out there on first base. You would think getting gunned down at second would be the last thing on is mind. With that smile, I’d say Ed was part daredevil, part prankster.
5. I love that mid-70’s Tribe uni.
6. Just out of curiosity, before you spent your post-college years drinking yourself to a stupor to forget your dead-end job (which I possess) and failed dreams (which I feel coming on the horizons), did you also shut down at the most inopportune times? Say, when you have a 20 page paper due and a 15 page paper to revise, did you instead drink a handle of Captain with your friends and actually put together a puzzle? that you didn’t actually finish? Who gives a shit indeed.
Just curious about what may lie ahead…
7. 6 : Oddly enough, I was an OK student in college. Troublingly bad in junior high and expellable in high school but OK in college. I went to a small state school on top of a mountain in northern Vermont, where the bar was set attainably low by a student body mainly interested in being inebriated and hurtling down nearby slopes on skis for a couple semesters before dropping out.
8. He really did have a who gives a shit attitude. From Baseballlibrary.com:
Light-hitting Crosby played 101 games as a Cardinal utility infielder in 1972, the only season in which he played in more than half of his team’s games. His .217 batting average kept him on the bench. After a trade to the Angels in December 1976, he refused to report and was granted free agency. He signed with the A’s but was released before the ’77 season began.
Career slugging %: .264
Wow. Does that blow.
9. Something about this guy (the ‘stache? the attitude?) reminds me of Joe Walsh.
Perhaps Crosby is thinking, “Life’s been good to me so far …”
10. How did he manage to get released from an A’s team that had been completely decimated by free agency losses? They went on to a 63-98 season.
11. 10 : Crosby was good, but he was no Rob Picciolo.
12. Also, Crosby was no Marty Perez.
13. 9: He’s more like an ordinary, average guy.
Crosby is LOVING life in the on deck circle……..LOOK AT ME…a still get frank duffy’s cast off girl groupies with none of the work!! LIFE IS GREAT!!! God i love this game…..partied so hard the night before all he could muster is a lean on the bat to hold himself up…..not even attempting that potent single swing.
Yes stratomatic rated his 1975 card E stealer with W power : )
Ed laughs knowing you still have to play him when SS frank duffy goes down…..you have no other option….lifes been good to me so far!
I looked for anything positive on fun loving ed crosby…..his career Run Scoring percentage is 30%. 1 point higher then the MLB average!!!! He gets on and can’t wait to get back to the dugout to check out the chicks in the stands!
Topps did not do their due diligence. He played 30 games at SS, 13 at 3b and 19 at 2b in 1975. He should not have a the 3b designation on his card. Surely that error should increase the value of his card