Red Sox: David Price is more than just a baseball player

Boston Red Sox fans are primarily concerned with what David Price does on the mound, but he’s accomplished a great deal off the field as well.

Boston Red Sox fans are a passionate group. We obsess over every aspect of the game, using endless amounts of data to evaluate players, essentially turning people into a series of numbers. The information available at our fingertips in this era of analytics allows us to learn everything we would want to know about a player’s performance, but how much do we really know about them off the field?

This is one of the gripes that David Price had during his first year in Boston. Fans care deeply about the success of the team, but less so about the people that contribute to that success.

In a candid interview with the Boston Globe’s Stan Grossfeld, Price opened up about his frustrations. First impressions go a long way and the impression Price has after one year pitching for the Red Sox – from the media, from listening to sports radio and from the wave of comments from social media – is that we don’t care about him.

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We care about what he does on the mound, how well he’s pitching, the numbers he puts up and above all else, if he wins. Price understands that meeting these expectations on the mound will earn him respect in this city, but what baffles him is that it seems that is the only way for a baseball player to be respected. The player matters, the person doesn’t.

At least that’s what he’s been led to believe based on his brief experience in Boston. Price has always been a firm believer in giving back to the community, yet it doesn’t seem that he feels connected to this city due to a backlash from a fan base that deemed last season a disappointment.

One of his passions away from the field that Price mentioned is Project One Four, a foundation he started in 2008 that support organizations in the middle Tennessee area that provide opportunities for youths to learn life skills in a safe and supportive environment.

"“My parents always told me that if I ever got in a position to give back to the community, I should which is why I started Project One Four,” Price states on the foundations website."

Perhaps it’s because his efforts are focused primarily in his home state instead of our own backyard, but Price’s off-field accomplishments have gone mostly overlooked in Boston. Few bother to mention his activities outside of baseball, we only want to talk about his increased ERA or his postseason track record.

Price wants to be known as a great player and an even better person, but the vitriol spewed at him by those that feel he hasn’t lived up to his record $217 million contract has convinced him that people in Boston could care less about the latter.