Doesn’t it feel like ages since the Boston Red Sox won the World Series? I know it was only last October but with all the talk of steroids and congressional investigations, it is like the world has forgotten. I was lucky enough to get tickets for my dad and me for game 4 of the World Series. It was an experience I would never forget. There was a tension in the air. It was in St. Louis and all the Cardinals fans were hoping for a win to prolong the series but there was also an excitement of possibly seeing history in the making. All of us who were in Busch Stadium got to see live and in person something that has not been seen since 1918. It was amazing!
It was not long for all the good feelings that came out of the Red Sox win to quickly dissipate for me. Soon after talk about which multi-million dollar player deserved another multi-million dollar contract and which player may or may not have used steroids. Why do I like this sport of over paid, self absorbed, juiced up little boys who hit a ball with a stick?
About two weeks ago, I was on my lunch break between classes. I was sitting in my favorite Sports Bar, when on one of the big screens was a Spring Training game between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates. As much as I tried to resist I could not stop myself from watching. The sound was off but the closed captioning was on. I swear between every at bat the commentators spoke of nothing else but Jason Giambi and steroids. I hate what this scandal has done to the sport because baseball is a great sport. It is our American Pastime. This is the sport of my childhood. I can not even tell you how many games I saw the summers we had season tickets to the Kansas City Royals. I saw George Brett’s last big league game. I’ve seen a game winning walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning and a triple play, two of the rarest feats in baseball. I did go through a period of disinterest in baseball but I have always loved the game.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
thanks Beth, you express the magic of baseball's embodiment of eternal hope quite well! And I share your enthusiasm (now it's the Indians' turn)
2 - Eric Berlin
Great post, Beth.
I can tell that October doesn't seem like very long ago to Boston native and best-selling mystery author Robert B. Parker. When I interviewed him last week, he took supreme pleasure in saying "HA HA, HA HA" when I told him I was originally from New York.
I agree with many of your feelings with regard to baseball... but I have an immensely huge problem with Major League Baseball that really steals more of my love for the game every year: the money.
I'm a Yankees fan, yet I find it appalling that the Yanks (and half a dozen teams) buy their way into the playoffs year after year. It doesn't guarantee a World Series, and some low budget teams do well every year, but the playing field is far less than fair, and it gets worse every year.
I'm not even saying it's the Yankee's fault. It's an institutional thing. It's difficult to cheer on $25 million players (or more) when you know there's a good chance they'll just be off the highest bidder the following year, or half the team will be gone in a budget sweep out. "Rooting for laundry," the expression goes.
There are problems with football and basketball as well, but it's so much easier to enjoy those sports as every organization has a semi-equal shot to build and develop a squad over time under a salary capped system.
Okay, I've said enough for now. Good topic for March, though.
3 - Richard Porter
Eric, if you haven't done so yet, go see a minor league game. It truly is a beautiful thing and conjures all sorts of the old romance of baseball again. It makes you feel like a kid again!
Better yet, just go to the park and watch a little league team play and again it makes you feel good and hopeful about everything in the world.
It is this time of the year when I get the itch about baseball and I am a New York Met fan with plenty of disappointments over the years, yet I will never give up watching them.
4 - Eric Berlin
Richard - I went to quite a few games at Shea as a kid as I grew up in a family of Mets fans (I was the outcast, of course). Sat behind homeplate and saw Daryl Strawberry hit one of the longest homeruns that it's possible to hit (great talent wasted there...). Also saw Cone throw some good ones.
I went to see some Binghamton Mets games while I was in college and really enjoyed it. (Man, and I really enjoyed the Binghamton Rangers games -- those minor-league guys go after it in the playing and the fighting!)
Thanks for the recco -- I'll have to check out some minor league stuff one of these days.
5 - Eric Olsen
agree with all of that Richard, my daughter has sung the National Anthem at minor league games! And I coached my son in little league until he was 14. Our 5 year-old daughter is starting t-ball this year, very exciting! The 15 month-old will not escape either.
6 - Richard Porter
Good to hear it Eric!
I am trying to get my 3 year old in t-ball and trust me, he has a hell of a pitching arm! He loves and breathes baseball since he turned two and it makes me feel good to bond with him on something that I have such fond memories of.
7 - Eric Berlin
It's nice to see that baseball still has a place in today's youth culture. If you listen to some reports, it will all be soccer and video games and and skate kids before long.
8 - Mark Saleski
Better yet, just go to the park and watch a little league team play
ohh! i've got a good little league anecdote.
i used to stop and watch little league games in the town i used to live in. there always seemed to be a game going as i drove by the park on my way home from work (i think around 4:30pm or so).
anyway...this team was getting the crap beat out of them, but then they started a rally in the bottom of the 6th.
they get the bases loaded, but then who comes up? this tiny, tiny little girl. i'm tellin' ya, she couldn't have been much more than 3ft. tall. her helmet was so big on her that she looked like a cute little bobblehead ballplayer come to life.
sadly, when she walked out of the dugout you could hear the parents in the stands let out an audible groan.
well, this little left-handed girl stepped into the batters' box and ripped the first pitch down into the right field corner.
bases cleared, game over.
dang, it was cool.
9 - Eric Olsen
stuff like that can literally bring a tear
10 - Beth
Great Story Mark. It is hits like that makes sports great.
Thanks for all the comments. Yeah, baseball is flawed but it still is able to capture our imaginations. Eric B., I also do not like the money in baseball. It never seemed fair to me being a fan of the Royals. The Royals have become the farm system for the rest of the league. Carlos Beltran and Johnny Damon first started out as Royals. David Cone said after winning the Cy Young award the year he was Royal that it was good and bad. It was good, obviously because it is a great achievement but bad because he knew the Royals would not be able to afford him and they couldn't. He was traded that shortly after that.
But I always have faith that the Royals will be the Cinderella team and at least make the play offs. Something tells me it won't be this year but you never know.
11 - Mark Saleski
i'm still delirous from the box coming back to beat the yanks.
i hardly remember the world series!
12 - Eric Berlin
I'm curious to see if anyone read Stephen King's "Faithful."
13 - The Theory
I love baseball. I've already come to terms with the money and the steroids because none of that changes the fact that when the players are on the field, there is a short stop sliding for a ball and throwing a bullet to first... or your lead off hitter reaching for a bunt... or a pitcher who has a chance to throw a no-hitter.
14 - Geo
I grew up watching the Washington Senators hold down the "losingist" spot for years. Denny McClain came on the scene (to a losing ball club) and really brought with him some life to the game. Then in '72 they left for Texas. We used to get seats at RFK down by 1st base, and be the only people there! My friends dad was a career SEARS guy (this was the '60s) and SEARS had their own box, I guess it was because Ted Williams was the coach at the time.... anyway I digress.
Washington went to Texas, so what was a poor AL fan to do? Philly was okay but they were NL, Baltimore was the big rival so we couldn't go there. Pittsburg... naw. New York, baby! Old established club, lotsa' history, cool hat... so a lot of REAL Senator fans went to NY. Losers fan went to Baltimore. So I've been a Yankee fan since '72. The Red Sox angst didn't phase me because I was a drop in. And, it is neat to observe some pretty impressive stuff in my life, so far.
The Red Sox took a pennent, Three triple crown winners, 61*, actually owning classic base ball cards. Dolphins '72, Vince Lombardi at Washington, Ted Williams at Washington, Halleys Comet, George Allen at Washington, Joe Theisman getting his leg broken by Lawrence Taylor (Thiesman was dispised at Washington when he dumped his 1st wife), Boog Powell
Now Washington is getting a new team... and they're bring the 72 ballcap cap. That's Blasphomy! Get your own hat!
New York Yankees are still my team, Red Sox are a distant cousin... My the way the oldest BaseBall team in history is the old industrial team from the Arlington Ironworks, just across the Potomac from Washington D.C., so they count too.
Why am I writing this? I've got homework to do. Yeah, I'm STILL in school. Talk with you all Later>
15 - Dave Nalle
Wow, Geo - you must be about my age. I used to go to ballgames at RFK with my aunt. I transferred loyalty to the Rangers when I moved down to Texas, though they don't suck in the endearing way the Senators used to. Now that the nationals are in the picture, who knows.
>>Now Washington is getting a new team... and they're bring the 72 ballcap cap. That's Blasphomy! Get your own hat! <<
Someone stole the free home game cap I was given for attending cap day back in '69 and it's been damned hard to get Senators caps since then. With the nationals using the same caps I ought to be able to at least get one, so I can't complain.
One thing I haven't seen in the news - since the team is already playing exhibition games, I assume they are going to be playing this year. Are they playing in RFK? The money for the new stadium was only approved a couple of days ago so there's no way they're playing there? If they're playing in RFK it would almost be like old times to go see them before they shut the rickety place down.
Dave
16 - Eric Olsen
I hear for this year the Nationals are playing in my sister's backyard in Manassas
17 - Eric Berlin
During the Dot Com Start-Up Years, I worked for a company called myteam.com. It was devoted to kids and sports and community, which was pretty cool. It was also devoted to becoming a Big Media Property, which didn't rate quite as high on the Cool-ometer.
Anyway, I got to be part of the over-hyping of the Little League World Series... with webcasts, ESPN-sponsorship, live blogging (or its version at the time), interviews, having 12-year-olds announce the games, and on and on.
Kind of nice on one level... yet kind of creepy and demoralized on the other. Sort of a microcosm, too, for the letting kids be kids thing.
18 - Eric Olsen
very interesting experience, "developing" concepts that involve the recreation of children is always a dangerous proposition
19 - Eric Berlin
Watching the media hype machine (fueled in part by the Internet, I hate to say) creep its claws into other sports -- particularly basketball via the AAU -- was further proof that Americans, for whatever reason, are intent on taking childhoods away from children.
The message to other kids: if you're not Michael Jordan by age 8, hang it up, punk.
While this goes for girls and boys, the same is true in more of the female vein with the while pre-teen over-sexualized trip that pervades music, pre-teen culture, magazines, and on and on.
20 - Eric Olsen
I think it ties in too to the reduction in mandatory athletic education in eh school: it used to be everyone had to participate all he way through school, and it was to everyone's benefit even though some people bitched. Reducing that forced very early specialization, which is to the detriment of everyone
21 - Eric Berlin
Interesting point. What's additionally interesting (to me, anyway) is that American students could really be aided by specialization as they reach high school age in academics, which very few do at this point. What I mean by that is: some students should have the option for technical and job-focused training, others for the sciences, still others to the humanities, and so on.
There's too much emphasis on some vague notion of "higher education" and not enough focus on preparing students to obtain actual jobs.
Ass-backwards it is indeed.
22 - Natalie Davis
I am sitting in Boston right now... As I have walked through the city, I have felt the fever; the enthusiasn for the game and the 2005 season is coursing through my veins. Lord knows I am psyched -- I'm an Orioles fan (go Sammy!), but I love the Sox too, and being here has gotten me SO pumped. Will the Os with Sosa make it the playoffs this year? Can the Sox do it again? How dow we crush the Yankees??? Ah, the anticipation for the upcoming season: Just waiting to see this most graceful of sports in action is giving me such a thrill... Steroid controversies aside, baseball is the best sport EVER. And José Canseco sucks.