The quiet part of this whole conversation is that Tyler Glasnow and Randy Arozarena didn't have anywhere else to be. People spent Monday night squinting at the ALCS Game 6 broadcast, asking why two former Rays were sitting in the Tropicana Field crowd instead of tending to their own clubs, as if either man had a locker to report to. Neither did.
Glasnow's Dodgers got swept out of the NLCS by Milwaukee, a series that ended four days before this game. His season was over. He wasn't skipping a film session or ducking out of a bullpen session to buy a ticket. Arozarena's case is even simpler. His Mariners were eliminated from the playoff race back in September, and their regular season wrapped before the month was out. By the time Game 6 rolled around, Arozarena had been on vacation for weeks. The "should've been focusing on their own teams" take only works if both teams are still playing. They weren't.
The actual complaint is the jewelry. And the hair. Arozarena showed up decked out and threw his crossed-arms pose when the cameras found him, which is the same Randy Arozarena you signed up for the first time you saw him. Glasnow looked like Glasnow: tall, the shampoo-ad hair, a face that reads mildly concerned even when nothing's wrong. If the objection to a man attending a baseball game is that he accessorized too hard or didn't smile enough for the jumbotron, that just means you've run out of material.
Here's what actually happened. Two guys who've won nothing lately showed up to watch the club that made them, and they couldn't help themselves. When Junior Caminero launched a two-run homer to push the Rays to a 5-1 lead in the seventh, Arozarena went up to the Rays Radio booth and started hugging people. Caminero, after that homer, pointed to the fans and hit the Arozarena pose himself. The crossed arms have outlived the player. The two men who built that identity in 2020 were there to watch it get handed down.
Nobody drags themselves to a playoff game out of obligation. They came because the 2020 run that put both of them on the map still means something, and because the Rays closing out Cleveland 7-3 to reach their third World Series, and their first since 2020, made for a good night to be in that building. Arozarena got an ovation. B.J. Upton, from the 2008 pennant team, threw out the first pitch. Dick Vitale was there. It was a reunion, and reunions are allowed to be fun.
The people turning this into a referendum on professionalism need to check a schedule. You can't neglect a team that's already gone home. Let Randy wear the chains and let Glasnow look worried about nothing. They earned the seats.
