Saving Mr. Baseball
With Major League Baseball having been "saved" so many times in the past few years, you wonder why it seems headed downward instead of up.
By Bryce Martin
8/13/2002
The myth and romance of Major League Baseball is disappearing faster than Ben Grieve's playing time.
"Money Talks!" is what the construction worker turned souvenir chaser said while holding aloft the fence-clearing baseball Barry Bonds nailed for No.600. That utterance speaks volumes for much of what ails our once national pastime. I cannot blame the person, mind you. I am just using that to help illustrate the death of the rhythms and traditions of the game.
How many out there still want someone to just take them out to the old ballgame and let them root, root, root for the home team. Is such a simple notion as that now lame and hopelessly old fashioned?
There once was a day when we truly enjoyed the game just for itself, when the game was bigger than any of its parts was big. How much rooting can you expect in a traditional 81-game home schedule? Especially now with the MLB big boys using all the gimmicks they can muster to make each one an event, with targeted inter-league play and the melodrama of wild-card competition. That only helps to make the majority of the less-stellar contests - which takes in the majority of games -- in the long season even more meaningless and less worthy of our participation.
Some of baseball's most ardent fans keep looking for the hero that will save this most poetic of all sports. However, today's heroes do not seen to have the lasting power of those revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans. By contrast, our idols seem all too human.
In the process of chasing, catching and passing Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. saved baseball. We are told. Three years later, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball yet again in pursuing Roger Maris' single-season home run record. We are told.
From what fatal epoch was baseball saved from? If it needs saving so regularly, is anyone really applying the balm. Is it not more like a Band-Aid?
At last month's All-Star Game in Milwaukee, fans in attendance, and many who watched on television, expressed disgust at the outcome, or lack of one considering it ended tied at 7-7. It is true ties are more relevant to soccer than to baseball, and even more true when it happens in Major League Baseball's annual showcase game, if that term is still relevant.
Considering what is taking place in the seamy soap-opera of MLB for the past several years, I cannot imagine how settling for a tied ballgame after running out of pitchers would boil most people's blood.
Where has the outrage been for the real problems? If one is inclined to raise a nose in the air regarding an event that has lost its place and importance, where then have these same souls harbored themselves while the game has been systematically altered for the worse? Baseball needs all the help it can get. It certainly is not going to save itself.
...
With Major League Baseball having been "saved" so many times in the past few years, you wonder why it seems headed downward instead of up.
By Bryce Martin
8/13/2002
The myth and romance of Major League Baseball is disappearing faster than Ben Grieve's playing time.
"Money Talks!" is what the construction worker turned souvenir chaser said while holding aloft the fence-clearing baseball Barry Bonds nailed for No.600. That utterance speaks volumes for much of what ails our once national pastime. I cannot blame the person, mind you. I am just using that to help illustrate the death of the rhythms and traditions of the game.
How many out there still want someone to just take them out to the old ballgame and let them root, root, root for the home team. Is such a simple notion as that now lame and hopelessly old fashioned?
There once was a day when we truly enjoyed the game just for itself, when the game was bigger than any of its parts was big. How much rooting can you expect in a traditional 81-game home schedule? Especially now with the MLB big boys using all the gimmicks they can muster to make each one an event, with targeted inter-league play and the melodrama of wild-card competition. That only helps to make the majority of the less-stellar contests - which takes in the majority of games -- in the long season even more meaningless and less worthy of our participation.
Some of baseball's most ardent fans keep looking for the hero that will save this most poetic of all sports. However, today's heroes do not seen to have the lasting power of those revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans. By contrast, our idols seem all too human.
In the process of chasing, catching and passing Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. saved baseball. We are told. Three years later, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball yet again in pursuing Roger Maris' single-season home run record. We are told.
From what fatal epoch was baseball saved from? If it needs saving so regularly, is anyone really applying the balm. Is it not more like a Band-Aid?
At last month's All-Star Game in Milwaukee, fans in attendance, and many who watched on television, expressed disgust at the outcome, or lack of one considering it ended tied at 7-7. It is true ties are more relevant to soccer than to baseball, and even more true when it happens in Major League Baseball's annual showcase game, if that term is still relevant.
Considering what is taking place in the seamy soap-opera of MLB for the past several years, I cannot imagine how settling for a tied ballgame after running out of pitchers would boil most people's blood.
Where has the outrage been for the real problems? If one is inclined to raise a nose in the air regarding an event that has lost its place and importance, where then have these same souls harbored themselves while the game has been systematically altered for the worse? Baseball needs all the help it can get. It certainly is not going to save itself.
...
posted by Bryce Martin | 11:45 PM
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