Daniel Murphy, Paternity Leave, Boomer Esiason’s Lobotomy, and the White House

Mets second baseman and sports’-only-parental-role-model Daniel Murphy was in the news in April when he missed the first two games of the season to be with his wife for the birth of their son (who was unfortunately born a Mets fan, a condition that will make it difficult for him to function normally).

This week, Murphy was a guest at the White House for a discussion about working dads.

Readers might recall that, at the time Murphy took his leave, Boomer Esiason suggested Murphy’s wife should have had a C-section before the season. Interestingly enough, Esiason scheduled his own lobotomy to occur right before he made that remark.

I have one and only one problem with baseball players taking paternity leave to be there for the births of their children:

It makes it much more difficult to justify missing your own child’s birth because of a fantasy draft. I mean, a committed fantasy player used to be able to say, “hey, honey, the players have to play when their wives give birth– that means I have to play too.” (Or in the case of female fantasy players, “hey, honey, the players have to play– that means we’re doing the draft from my hospital room, while I’m pushing, I don’t care if our friends all pass out, that just means no one’s conscious enough to top my bid for Mike Trout.”)

But now, in today’s modern age of modern gender roles and modern equality, and expectations that mothers and fathers both have to know their child’s name and what he or she is allergic to, you can’t just blow off labor and delivery to go pick your team. Instead you have to spend the last two weeks of June being completely celibate so there’s less of a chance the birth will interfere with the draft. (Hey, celibate half-June 2014 is coming up soon! Get ready!)

Did I have a point? I don’t know. Of course baseball players should be able to be there when their kids are born. They’re fathers too– and their kids are going to be around a lot longer than their careers.

(And for a different piece about fatherhood, you’re invited to read this thing I wrote for Medium yesterday, “How one trip to the airport made me a feminist,” not at all about baseball, and mostly about breast pumps, but maybe interesting anyway!)