Why Gil Meche matters

Unless you are a serious baseball fan, you've probably never heard of Gil Meche, who just surprisingly retired from the Kansas City Royals. Meche had a relatively long and statistically mediocre career as a starting pitcher.

Some early promise enabled him to cash in on what was considered by most an ill-advised big contract by the otherwise frugal Royals. Meche struggled with injuries for much of his career. Recently, he made the bold move of leaving $12 million in guaranteed salary on the table to retire.

Was he heroic? Not necessarily. But he sure was true to himself. He made riches that most of us cannot imagine, and he chose not to be greedy. He was honest with himself and with his team, and he left a whole boatload of money behind, when he easily could have cashed it in for one more year as a washed-up relief pitcher on Marist SID Mike Ferraro's favorite team.

Good for him. It's a cool story, written by excellent New York Times baseball writer Tyler Kepner, and I urge you to take a few minutes now, click on this link, and ponder how unusually noble this modern-day athlete truly is.

I know this has nothing to do with Marist Running. But as the winter trudges forward, thoughts of baseball spring training in a few weeks warm my heart. And I felt it was a good story under the subject of "object lessons." Or something like that.