Alles Le Toux

MLS held the expansion draft for the expansion team Philadelphia Union on Wednesday. I was prepared to lose a player, after all Seattle was a playoff team and had left some decent players unprotected. I was quite shocked when I found out that the player was Sebastian Le Toux. I’m still a little perplexed by their choice.

I love Le Toux, he’s a hard worker and a fan pleaser. But the reality is, his salary to play quality ratio was a bit skewed. Sure, he’s a great sub and a nice fill-in guy. However, for 100,000 dollars against the cap I think Seattle could do better. Really, so could Philadelphia. Personally, I was hoping that Philly would have taken Pete Vagenas off of our hands especially since he had little play time and is a huge hit for the salary cap, but monetarily speaking, Le Toux was a good choice for the Sounders coffers.

Despite being an advantageous choice for Seattle’s coinage, there was a great outcry from the fan base. Le Toux was one of those players that when he came on the field, the stands would erupt in a cheer of Le TOOOOOOOUX. You could feel the pace of the squad pick up and the energy of the stadium would become more electric. It is very nice to have a player like that.

However, as a fan, we must remember that we are fans of the entire team. That means the team is bigger than one player. While Le Toux will be missed, we should not get hasty and claim that he should have been protected. We should not deride the organization for making tough decisions. Sometimes players go. Sometimes, even good players get cut. Sometimes our favorites are out of favor with the Front Office.

While I will miss Le Toux, I liken his departure to other favorite players of my favorite teams. I felt a bit of loss at first, but also a hopeful optimism that the organization (in this case) is doing what they can to increase the depth of the team. At least in this case I can hope that Le Toux will have an impact with Philadelphia.

In honor of Le Toux’s departure from Seattle I am picking 5 sports departures that have happened in my life that were more devastating than Le Toux to Philly.

1Sonics to OKC (It doesn’t get a whole lot worse than this).
2Jerome Bettis to Pitsburgh (was my favorite player on the Rams at the time)
3Kurt Warner to New York (Led the Rams to their first and only Super Bowl)
4Ken Griffey Jr. to Cincinatti(Was everyone’s idol at school when I moved Washington)
5A-Rod to Texas(This was about the time I stopped following the Mariners religiously)

Hopefully we can all keep things in perspective.


Cheers,
Nate