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Usually I take the position that any company that chooses to employ me neither has, nor should have, any jurisdiction of my activities when I’m not working, as long as they don’t affect my on-job performance.

So you might think that I would be supportive of Red Sox pitchers Arroyo and Wakefield’s decisions to perform musically on nights before they pitched games. But you’d be wrong, because the phrase “affecting on-job performance” is critical.

I’m sure no one would have been making a fuss about it if the games in question had been won, but the choices would have been dumb no matter what the outcome. I think it’s pretty simple: I’ve never pitched a baseball game, but it’s clear to me that pitching requires an enormous expenditure of effort. It’s equally clear that not all of the expended effort is physical — it takes a lot of psychological effort, too.

I’ve played a few rock shows. Most of mine haven’t required a major expenditure of physical effort, although it’s certainly possible to get aerobic exercise while on stage. But they can require a big investment of mental energy beyond the effort of just playing and singing. The net energy of a performance comes both from the performers and from the audience. Even a terrific show can be draining. I never understood why rock stars would want to trash hotel rooms until the first time I left a stage (probably having played to a couple dozen folks, mind you) with adrenaline still screaming through my blood, not at all ready to shut down and stop. And an adrenaline high, like all highs, precedes an eventual, inevitable crash. Not every show is like that, and even after an intense show I can usually build websites OK because the kind of mental energy involved is so very different. But I think it’s really just as well that I’ve never had to pitch a baseball game after a gig.

In the case of professional sports players, I think the level of compensation involved also gives the employer more of a say in what happens outside the official workplace. I think there’s a reasonable expectation that more money buys more commitment (in addition to more responsibility and more raw talent).

While I’m going on about sports, I’d like to clear a little sumpin’ up.

I wrote a journal entry in which I described screwing up “Pipeline” and titled it i felt like mark bellhorn, and now I get more visitors looking (apparently) for Bellhorn-bashing content than almost anything else.

I thought it was a funny title at the time. A day or two before that gig, Bellhorn had collided with another player in a costly, but comical error. Still, it woulda been more fair to compare his goof with mine if I were as good a bass player as he is an infielder. That’s certainly not a claim I’m prepared to make.

In watching recent games I’ve been increasingly aware of the look in Bellhorn’s eyes. I don’t think it’s a stretch to call it haunted. He knows perfectly well he’s had a crappy season, he knows he’s the brunt of jokes all over town, and I feel lousy for adding, in my small way, to the dogpile.

I still remember that glorious homer ringing off the pole in 2004. I wish I hadda audio file of that bonnnnng. Of course it’s all about what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. But really, now, this is Boston: aren’t we all supposed to be pulling for the underdog?

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