What Ruiz is worth

Being a catcher isn’t glamorous, despite calling the pitch type and location, hitting in the lineup and making defensive plays. To add injury to insult, catchers must squat, catch a ball going 75–95 mph and deal with errant foul tips.

It could be said that Ruiz is a catcher’s catcher, the epitome of success without fame. Even among the ballplayers from Panama, he rarely earns a mention. Such are the wages of sharing a birthplace with Rod Carew — a member of the Hall of Fame with a lifetime .328 batting average — and Mariano Rivera, a future Hall of Fame member and perhaps the best closer in the history of baseball.

And on the Phillies, Ruiz has to contend with a gallery of offensive (as in hitting, not insulting) notables. Last year, the team had two MVPs (first baseman Ryan Howard and shortstop Jimmy Rollins), a third player who has inexplicably failed to win an MVP award (Chase Utley) and such almost superhuman hitters as Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth.

But surely, you say, a player who is involved in every single pitch on defense must occasionally get some attention. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for the team) the man throwing those pitches every five days was Roy Halladay, who won a well-deserved Cy Young Award after turning in a perfect game during the regular season and a no-hitter during the playoffs — both caught by Ruiz. Even his “off” days were better than most pitchers’ “on” days. He averaged 7.86 strikeouts in nine innings, 1.04 walks and hits combined per inning pitched and an earned run average of just 2.44. And Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels aren’t far behind.

The fans do appreciate Ruiz. Philadelphia is one of those cities where you can expect to hear boos for under-producing home-team players, bad umpires and plenty of visiting players.

But the praise for Ruiz is typically mixed with obscurity. Ruiz earned $1.9 million in 2010, a considerable sum, but literally only one-tenth of Ryan Howard’s salary. ESPN.com columnist and Philadelphia native Jayson Stark named Ruiz to his All-Underrated Team last year. On the whole, Ruiz gets nowhere near enough due for handling some of baseball’s best pitchers, having one of the Phillies’ highest batting averages and on-base percentages or even for earning his World Series ring.

Ruiz’s brand of performance isn’t unusual in just baseball. The last three years of American life have been dominated by oversized personalities. Our president, not yet 50 years old, wrote a memoir before he even finished his first term in the Senate. Some believe that only a few chief executives control the entire economy. In the wake of the Panic of 2008, a few prominent politicians controlled the fates of those CEOs and their employees, throwing some a lifeline and letting others sink.

At Princeton, it can be tempting to assume that leadership and excellence require fame and recognition, especially when so many alumni are founders of prominent businesses and nonprofits, notable politicians and groundbreaking academics. To have truly succeeded, it often appears, we must have the esteem of not just those around us, but also those who have never met us except through news stories and word-of-mouth. On this account, leading others requires being the star of every scene.

Of course, not every job well done can or will be done in obscurity. Not every prominent individual seeks fame, and many probably wish they could do their good work in the relative obscurity of someone such as Ruiz.

Baseball season or not, we shouldn’t expect celebration in return for outstanding work and talented leadership. If you look for Carlos Ruiz on the highlight reels, you probably won’t see him. But home runs and curtain calls aren’t everything.

Brian Lipshutz is a politics major from Lafayette Hill, Pa. He can be reached at lipshutz@princeton.edu.