baseball
America's National Past Its Time
Oct 31, 2009 21:20
As much as it pains me to say this, baseball kind of sucks.
Not the sport of baseball. I love the timeless nature of the game. From its three strikes, three outs, nine innings, and nearly 150 years of American history, it is the poetry of life played in a park. It’s non-generational. My great grandfather’s baseball is my baseball, is my future grandson’s baseball, and so on. It’s blind to society’s prescribed prejudices. Want to see a white man slap a back man on the ass and have the end result be the two sharing high-fives over beers later that night? Go watch a ballgame.
The stresses of life have you in need of therapeutic relaxation? Go sit, watch, and listen to the rhythm and precision of batting practice on a freshly mowed and newly chalked baseball diamond. There isn’t a pharmaceutical yet invented that can alter a mood so completely.
Baseball, as a game, is still the exquisitely beautiful thing that I remember from my childhood. But baseball the business - or more specifically, the collection of ultra-rich businessman who have current legal custody over our beloved national pastime (also known as Major League Baseball) – have hollowed out baseball’s soul and turned it into a shameful shell of itself.
I don’t care that this year’s World Series matchup excites me about as much as going to the dentist. Like dental visits, the World Series is part of my year, regardless of the teams or procedures involved. Sometimes you get the porcelain veneers of matchups, like the Cardinals and Red Sox in 2004. White other times you just get picked at incessantly with a dental scaler, ala the Phillies and Yankees this year.
Yes, the Phillies are the defending World Series champions. Whoopee. A win this year would make exactly three Series wins for them in 127 years of baseball. Do you know a Phillies fan that isn’t from Philadelphia? No, you don’t. And you know why. They capture the imagination of the young and budding baseball fan like... well... the dentist does at Junior High Career Day.
As for the Yankees, let’s set aside the smarminess of cheering for a player like Alex Rodriguez. If he wants to do steroids (2001-2003), try to upstage the World Series with his petty contract announcements (2007), and trade in his wife of six years for a human leather curtain (Madonna, 2008), that’s his business. I hate the Yankees for the right reason. Because I love baseball.
But the Yankees have 26 World Championships. So. Michael Bolton has 27 platinum records. It doesn’t make me want to walk around the house singing “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.” But the Yankees had Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle. So. Another New York institution, Saturday Night Live, had Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. It doesn’t make we want to watch the 2009 version that features Kenan Thompson, Abby Elliott, and Bobby Moynihan (no offense to you three). In fact probably the best thing the Yankees had going for them, Yankee Stadium, has now been replaced by a $1.5 billion monstrosity with ticket prices nearly three times higher than the league average. Which of course makes perfect sense for the team that yearly outspends the majority of the league by more than $100 million.
So I hate the Yankees for all of the right reasons. But their presence in the World Series alongside the Phillies is not what is spoiling baseball. It’s television. National television’s influence over baseball is strangling the league, disrespecting its followers, and alienating a generation of possible future fans.
First of all, there should never be a reason for baseball to extend into November. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February. Leave extending a professional sports season into a 10th calendar month to the NBA and NHL. But it’s not just the never ending quality that November baseball brings to the sport. November baseball severely diminishes the quality of the product on the field. Baseball was never meant to be played in the kind of weather the Northeast and Midwest experience at this time of year, every year. And just wait until the Twins make the postseason in their new outdoor ballpark.
Lose all of those stupid made-for-TV days off during the playoffs. Fine, you need travel days. I’ll grant that the October 18th day off for the Yankees and Angels in the ALCS was needed as the two teams made the trip from New York to Anaheim. But after the two games on the 19th and 20th, they took another day off even though the next game, scheduled for two days later, was in the same city. Since when do baseball players need every third day to rest? And it should be noted that these extra days off came after both teams had already taken four full days off to get ready for Game 1. Terrible scheduling that does nothing but hurt the game of baseball, all in the name of pleasing the television networks.
Baseball in the cold rain of early winter is no fun to play, no fun to watch, and in no way results in a full representation of which ballclub is the better team.
Another way to deal with falling thermometers as the World Series drags on is the return of day baseball. Really, greedy baseball owners? You can’t let us at least enjoy some baseball when the sun is still up on Saturday and Sunday? You’d rather have these four-hour marathons bleed past midnight on the East Coast, when you can be sure that none but the most avid of fans are still watching, then dare go head-to-head against college football and the NFL? (Just an FYI – the college football game showing in my region that would have siphoned off viewers from an afternoon Game 3 was Cal vs. Arizona State. Baseball is indeed in a sorry state when it shies away from that competition.)
And while we’re trimming the schedule and bringing the start of games back to an hour when the next generation of fans, looking for a sport to follow, can actually watch the biggest baseball games of the year, let’s do something about the length of games. How about a timeout system, much like in football? If the manager or catcher really feels it necessary to have a five-minute meeting of the minds on the pitcher’s mound, fine. But you only get three of those a game. A head football coach doesn’t get to call over his entire team for a momentum-numbing powwow because someone missed a sign unless he calls timeout. I want the same standard to apply to baseball games.
Shorten the time between innings. Make the batter stay in the batter’s box unless something is happening on the field that doesn’t involve a pitch home. Put a clock on pitcher’s between pitchers. Give relief pitchers fewer warm-up tosses when they enter the game. (Weren’t they just warming up in the bullpen? Did they get cold while running in from said bullpen? Well, yes, if they’re playing November baseball in New York at 12:25am.)
Baseball, as a sport, is a beautiful American classic that I will always love. But Major League Baseball is sadly losing its way.
Not the sport of baseball. I love the timeless nature of the game. From its three strikes, three outs, nine innings, and nearly 150 years of American history, it is the poetry of life played in a park. It’s non-generational. My great grandfather’s baseball is my baseball, is my future grandson’s baseball, and so on. It’s blind to society’s prescribed prejudices. Want to see a white man slap a back man on the ass and have the end result be the two sharing high-fives over beers later that night? Go watch a ballgame.
The stresses of life have you in need of therapeutic relaxation? Go sit, watch, and listen to the rhythm and precision of batting practice on a freshly mowed and newly chalked baseball diamond. There isn’t a pharmaceutical yet invented that can alter a mood so completely.
Baseball, as a game, is still the exquisitely beautiful thing that I remember from my childhood. But baseball the business - or more specifically, the collection of ultra-rich businessman who have current legal custody over our beloved national pastime (also known as Major League Baseball) – have hollowed out baseball’s soul and turned it into a shameful shell of itself.
I don’t care that this year’s World Series matchup excites me about as much as going to the dentist. Like dental visits, the World Series is part of my year, regardless of the teams or procedures involved. Sometimes you get the porcelain veneers of matchups, like the Cardinals and Red Sox in 2004. White other times you just get picked at incessantly with a dental scaler, ala the Phillies and Yankees this year.
Yes, the Phillies are the defending World Series champions. Whoopee. A win this year would make exactly three Series wins for them in 127 years of baseball. Do you know a Phillies fan that isn’t from Philadelphia? No, you don’t. And you know why. They capture the imagination of the young and budding baseball fan like... well... the dentist does at Junior High Career Day.
As for the Yankees, let’s set aside the smarminess of cheering for a player like Alex Rodriguez. If he wants to do steroids (2001-2003), try to upstage the World Series with his petty contract announcements (2007), and trade in his wife of six years for a human leather curtain (Madonna, 2008), that’s his business. I hate the Yankees for the right reason. Because I love baseball.
But the Yankees have 26 World Championships. So. Michael Bolton has 27 platinum records. It doesn’t make me want to walk around the house singing “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.” But the Yankees had Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle. So. Another New York institution, Saturday Night Live, had Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. It doesn’t make we want to watch the 2009 version that features Kenan Thompson, Abby Elliott, and Bobby Moynihan (no offense to you three). In fact probably the best thing the Yankees had going for them, Yankee Stadium, has now been replaced by a $1.5 billion monstrosity with ticket prices nearly three times higher than the league average. Which of course makes perfect sense for the team that yearly outspends the majority of the league by more than $100 million.
So I hate the Yankees for all of the right reasons. But their presence in the World Series alongside the Phillies is not what is spoiling baseball. It’s television. National television’s influence over baseball is strangling the league, disrespecting its followers, and alienating a generation of possible future fans.
First of all, there should never be a reason for baseball to extend into November. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February. Leave extending a professional sports season into a 10th calendar month to the NBA and NHL. But it’s not just the never ending quality that November baseball brings to the sport. November baseball severely diminishes the quality of the product on the field. Baseball was never meant to be played in the kind of weather the Northeast and Midwest experience at this time of year, every year. And just wait until the Twins make the postseason in their new outdoor ballpark.
Lose all of those stupid made-for-TV days off during the playoffs. Fine, you need travel days. I’ll grant that the October 18th day off for the Yankees and Angels in the ALCS was needed as the two teams made the trip from New York to Anaheim. But after the two games on the 19th and 20th, they took another day off even though the next game, scheduled for two days later, was in the same city. Since when do baseball players need every third day to rest? And it should be noted that these extra days off came after both teams had already taken four full days off to get ready for Game 1. Terrible scheduling that does nothing but hurt the game of baseball, all in the name of pleasing the television networks.
Baseball in the cold rain of early winter is no fun to play, no fun to watch, and in no way results in a full representation of which ballclub is the better team.
Another way to deal with falling thermometers as the World Series drags on is the return of day baseball. Really, greedy baseball owners? You can’t let us at least enjoy some baseball when the sun is still up on Saturday and Sunday? You’d rather have these four-hour marathons bleed past midnight on the East Coast, when you can be sure that none but the most avid of fans are still watching, then dare go head-to-head against college football and the NFL? (Just an FYI – the college football game showing in my region that would have siphoned off viewers from an afternoon Game 3 was Cal vs. Arizona State. Baseball is indeed in a sorry state when it shies away from that competition.)
And while we’re trimming the schedule and bringing the start of games back to an hour when the next generation of fans, looking for a sport to follow, can actually watch the biggest baseball games of the year, let’s do something about the length of games. How about a timeout system, much like in football? If the manager or catcher really feels it necessary to have a five-minute meeting of the minds on the pitcher’s mound, fine. But you only get three of those a game. A head football coach doesn’t get to call over his entire team for a momentum-numbing powwow because someone missed a sign unless he calls timeout. I want the same standard to apply to baseball games.
Shorten the time between innings. Make the batter stay in the batter’s box unless something is happening on the field that doesn’t involve a pitch home. Put a clock on pitcher’s between pitchers. Give relief pitchers fewer warm-up tosses when they enter the game. (Weren’t they just warming up in the bullpen? Did they get cold while running in from said bullpen? Well, yes, if they’re playing November baseball in New York at 12:25am.)
Baseball, as a sport, is a beautiful American classic that I will always love. But Major League Baseball is sadly losing its way.