The Best Baseball Player in the World is Modest, Unassuming and Humble. Somehow, That's a Problem.

I’m an unrepentant baseball geek, but this post isn’t about baseball. 

It’s about our culture’s tiresome fixation on popularity. It’s about the pressure people face to become something they’re not. It’s about people being pushed to build their “personal brand,” which is an unfortunate term that has spread like kudzu across the career development landscape.  It’s about our culture’s indifference to humility and modesty, and our twisted tendency to think less of amazing people when their celebrity doesn’t exceed their substance. 

It’s about the relentless pressure to market yourself when you’d rather just be yourself. Whether you're one of the best athletes in the world, or just someone in business trying to carve out a career.

Here’s what got me all jacked up. 

Mike Trout is the best baseball player in the world. There’s not much dispute about that among his peers, fans of the game or the baseball media. Despite Trout’s greatness, he isn’t as popular as many players in baseball or in other sports, for many reasons.

Three days ago, at Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star game, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested that Trout would be more popular if he took the time to market himself better. Commissioner Manfred said, “Mike’s a great player and a really nice person, but he’s made certain decisions about what he wants to do and what he doesn’t want to do…we could help him make his brand really, really big. But he has to make a decision that he’s prepared to engage in that area. It takes time and effort.”

I understand Commissioner Manfred’s position. He’s charged with growing the game and reaching new audiences and in that context, his remarks make sense. I spent my early career as a marketing guy, so I get the value of promoting your best player.

My quarrel isn’t with the Commissioner. It’s with the broader, prevailing sentiment that mere excellence isn’t enough anymore in our media and marketing obsessed world. I’m irked that Trout’s desire for some time out of the spotlight goes down as an asterisk on his otherwise sterling record, as a shortcoming that we’ll tolerate versus authenticity that we’ll celebrate. As if he has to justify his preference for a little down time in a fishbowl existence.

My beef isn't with the idea of self-promotion. We all do it to some degree. If you're wired to do it and you've actually got something to talk about, have at it. But it's not a deficiency to be a little more circumspect, to care about your contributions more than your Q Score. That behavior used to be lauded. What a breath of fresh air if it could be again.

Do we truly like the noisy ride we’re on?   

We live in a world where over-communicators fare better than under-communicators, where TMI is rewarded and subtlety ignored. But what’s the endgame with this approach? What does constant promotional one-upsmanship get us? A louder, more over-stimulated world, where posers and clowns are famous for being famous, where the average person has to crank up the volume just to keep up.

A world where remarkable but quiet people--in sports, business, the arts, wherever--are questioned or diminished for being true to their reserved nature.

What's the cost of making people be something they're not? What's the cost when we do it to ourselves?

Mike Trout will be just fine with or without my support, but for what it’s worth, Mike, I got you on this. 100%.

Tom Yorton is the Founder and CEO of Shyne Advisors. He created Shyne to champion the soft-spoken leaders and original ideas waiting to be heard in our loud, overstimulated world.  And for you baseball fans, he's a two-tool player who tries not to be a tool.