Johnny Manziel: Brown, Padre, Globetrotter?

     Johnny Football has made news again.  This time, it doesn’t even involve anything he did on the field or off the field.  In fact, he might not have even known before the fact that he would be making news.  But he did.  This time, Johnny Manziel was “drafted” to join the Harlem Globetrotters traveling entertainment basketball team.  This just a few weeks after he was “drafted” in the 28th round of baseball’s draft by the Padres, and that was not even two months after he was actually drafted.  In football.  Is Johnny Manziel really a three-sport athlete?  Of course not.
     Technically, Manziel has played baseball.  Through his junior year of high school, Manziel was an infielder on his school’s baseball team.  This is nothing compared to Jameis Winston, who was drafted by the MLB, but will play in the NFL someday.  The primary difference is that Winston is still playing baseball, and he’s pretty good.  Manziel can also dunk a basketball as seen by videos that only went viral because it was Johnny Football.  However, this “skill” nowhere near constitutes being drafted professionally, and while the Globetrotters draft seems to be more of a joke, something that for the most part doesn’t bother me, the Padres are an actual professional franchise that drafted an NFL player to play baseball.  
     My main issue is that they are wasting their time.  Johnny is a football player, and a pretty good one.  He will play for the Browns, potentially start some games this season, and probably have a decent career in the NFL.  There is practically no chance he doesn’t play in the league, and somewhere near a .000001% chance he plays another sport.
     The baseball draft is 40 rounds, and Johnny was drafted in the 28th round.  Wait, really?  He was deemed more capable than 12 players the Padres also drafted?  And over 300 other baseball players?  Essentially, the Padres pulled a cheap publicity stunt that I’m not buying.  They want to make a name for themselves and get in the papers, and in the end it feels like a sorry attempt to do so.  Then again, I’m probably playing into their plan by writing about them.
     What bugs me the most about the Padres is that they just ruined someone’s lifelong dream.  No one ever thinks about that one kid that just missed the cut for being drafted, the guy chosen after “Mr.  Irrelevant.”  The last pick still gets a chance to play, a chance to tell people that he made it.  He was drafted to play the sport he had been playing his whole life.  He was a pro.  And who knows, maybe he’d actually make it as a starter someday.  But that next kid doesn’t get any of that.  He’s a failure, someone that didn’t accomplish his dream.  He goes on to live an average life, having a desk job and thinking of what could’ve been.  Maybe I’m writing this a little late, but the Globetrotter incident reminded me of the Padres.  It is by no means Johnny Manziel’s fault that he was drafted, and he isn’t to blame.  The Padres decided it would be better to sell some Johnny Baseball T-shirts and throw away a pick that could change someone’s life.
     I thought that baseball’s farm system meant something, and that the draft was made to get tons of fresh young talent to compete and see who could develop into pros, not which team could get a celebrity.  Should Justin Bieber go back to Canada to play for the Toronto Blue Jays?  The Padres showed a lack of professionalism, and I can’t bring myself to respect a team that would throw away a potential prospect for a laugh.  I now have a hope that Nick Sabo, the left-handed pitcher out of Long Beach State becomes a legend.  Why?  Because he was drafted 838th, one pick after Johnny Manziel.  I hope the Padres can one day see what they missed, and when the inevitable stats come out about who was picked before hall-of-famer Sabo, the Padres hang their heads in shame.
     Maybe I should register for the MLB draft.  I’m beginning to believe that I could get chosen.  Because there’s at least one team that would throw away someone’s dream to get written about in the papers.