The New York Yankees have finished their final game of the 2019 baseball season with what I’m sure was an exciting loss to the Houston Astros. I didn’t stick around, I decided I’d had enough viewing after the first inning when the Astros put up a 3-spot. I’m not exactly baseballed-out, I look forward to seeing the “Baby Sharks” in the World Series and I do like a well-played game no matter who’s playing. I’m just Yankeed-out for the year.
This year Major League Baseball made a big deal out of the slogan “Let The Kids Play.” Which seemed like a good idea to me. Baseball is fundamentally a kids’ game. It’s filled with possibility and hope. It’s game of inches, not “territory.” It’s pastoral. You all probably know the famous George Carlin routine comparing baseball with football. By and large it’s still true. It was certainly on display when looking at some of this year’s rookies, many of them in their early 20s.
But Things Happen to ruin the former Great American Pastime. Things like performance-enhancing drugs. I no more believe PEDs are no longer a factor in baseball than I believe a 36-year-old Yankee outfielder can suddenly have a career year through hard work and, what, a deal with the devil? I think it’s just gone back to the days of McGuire and Sosa where journalists prefer to look the other way, particularly with the change in how baseballs are made (also not new but probably pertinent in that MLB controls baseballs now). Things like the prominence of specialization over generalism, as we’ve gotten to the point where an all-arounder who can play more than one position or hit to more than one part of the field, or a relief pitcher who lasts more than one inning, is hailed as an amazing outlier.
Now some of these things don’t really bother me. Is the ball juiced? Well, it’s juiced the same for everyone. But the players? On an individual level if you’re juicing you’re not only going to reap karmic justice (some of these PEDs seem to make the muscles and bones on these thoroughbreds much more susceptible to injury, don’t they? And how many injuries did the Yankees, purely coincidentally, suffer in the “next man up” 2019 season?) but there are other telltale signs somethin’ ain’t right.
Besides the unusually thick necks, I mean.
Look at how some of these guys celebrate. They don’t smile, or jump up in the air, or do all the other things you’d expect grown-up kids playing a child’s game to do. No, they grimace. They emit war cries. They erupt in rage.
Rage is not joy. Rage is ugly, and violent-looking, and unpleasant, and has no place in baseball, any more than the idea that, if another pitcher hits your team’s batter, it’s your pitcher’s obligation to hit one of their guys. “Otherwise it’s not fair, he got away with it!” the sportscasters lament, when they’re not pining for the days when you could break an opposing player’s leg by sliding into him instead of second base, or when a catcher could block the plate with his body and to hell with the unprotected runner coming home.
Folks, these rule changes were a good thing. They were about bringing back fairer play.
But that’s probably hard to get across to someone who’s proud of being a “fucking savage in the box.” Wow, think about that. Savage as a positive trait. One pitcher was too mild-mannered, they said, so they had to toughen him up for the post-season. Because being essentially a good player who does his job just isn’t enough. You need that fire in the belly, apparently.
So I’m actually glad that fire was doused. Sorry, Dad in whatever afterlife you preside. So hard to root for the Yankees when they glorify rage and take umbrage at being called out for acting boorish in the dugout banging the bat like someone in the stands was their upstairs neighbors making too much noise at 2 AM. It ought to be downright embarrassing for any fan of the game.
What isn’t embarrassing? A guy who decides his walk-on music is going to be a kids’ song his young child enjoys, and it suddenly becomes the team anthem. Or, to be fair, a hitter who circles the bases when he hits a homerun like he’s carrying a parrot. Those kinds of things spark joy. People who are actually happy to play the game, and show it.
I don’t care how juiced the baseballs are in the World Series and the 2020 season. I just don’t want to see any more anger on the field where there’s supposed to be happiness. The joyful ones? Please, let THOSE kids play.<
This year Major League Baseball made a big deal out of the slogan “Let The Kids Play.” Which seemed like a good idea to me. Baseball is fundamentally a kids’ game. It’s filled with possibility and hope. It’s game of inches, not “territory.” It’s pastoral. You all probably know the famous George Carlin routine comparing baseball with football. By and large it’s still true. It was certainly on display when looking at some of this year’s rookies, many of them in their early 20s.
But Things Happen to ruin the former Great American Pastime. Things like performance-enhancing drugs. I no more believe PEDs are no longer a factor in baseball than I believe a 36-year-old Yankee outfielder can suddenly have a career year through hard work and, what, a deal with the devil? I think it’s just gone back to the days of McGuire and Sosa where journalists prefer to look the other way, particularly with the change in how baseballs are made (also not new but probably pertinent in that MLB controls baseballs now). Things like the prominence of specialization over generalism, as we’ve gotten to the point where an all-arounder who can play more than one position or hit to more than one part of the field, or a relief pitcher who lasts more than one inning, is hailed as an amazing outlier.
Now some of these things don’t really bother me. Is the ball juiced? Well, it’s juiced the same for everyone. But the players? On an individual level if you’re juicing you’re not only going to reap karmic justice (some of these PEDs seem to make the muscles and bones on these thoroughbreds much more susceptible to injury, don’t they? And how many injuries did the Yankees, purely coincidentally, suffer in the “next man up” 2019 season?) but there are other telltale signs somethin’ ain’t right.
Besides the unusually thick necks, I mean.
Look at how some of these guys celebrate. They don’t smile, or jump up in the air, or do all the other things you’d expect grown-up kids playing a child’s game to do. No, they grimace. They emit war cries. They erupt in rage.
Rage is not joy. Rage is ugly, and violent-looking, and unpleasant, and has no place in baseball, any more than the idea that, if another pitcher hits your team’s batter, it’s your pitcher’s obligation to hit one of their guys. “Otherwise it’s not fair, he got away with it!” the sportscasters lament, when they’re not pining for the days when you could break an opposing player’s leg by sliding into him instead of second base, or when a catcher could block the plate with his body and to hell with the unprotected runner coming home.
Folks, these rule changes were a good thing. They were about bringing back fairer play.
But that’s probably hard to get across to someone who’s proud of being a “fucking savage in the box.” Wow, think about that. Savage as a positive trait. One pitcher was too mild-mannered, they said, so they had to toughen him up for the post-season. Because being essentially a good player who does his job just isn’t enough. You need that fire in the belly, apparently.
So I’m actually glad that fire was doused. Sorry, Dad in whatever afterlife you preside. So hard to root for the Yankees when they glorify rage and take umbrage at being called out for acting boorish in the dugout banging the bat like someone in the stands was their upstairs neighbors making too much noise at 2 AM. It ought to be downright embarrassing for any fan of the game.
What isn’t embarrassing? A guy who decides his walk-on music is going to be a kids’ song his young child enjoys, and it suddenly becomes the team anthem. Or, to be fair, a hitter who circles the bases when he hits a homerun like he’s carrying a parrot. Those kinds of things spark joy. People who are actually happy to play the game, and show it.
I don’t care how juiced the baseballs are in the World Series and the 2020 season. I just don’t want to see any more anger on the field where there’s supposed to be happiness. The joyful ones? Please, let THOSE kids play.<
1 comments:
File this away under "Things I Wish I'd Written." :-)
I'm not convinced it's about PEDs, though it may very well be. I didn't follow baseball all that much this year, because who needs the aggravation when you're a Mets fan? Some of it is the general ugliness and rage coursing through society at large. I'm sure you read about the umpire calling for civil war if Trump is impeached, right?
Honestly? I'd rather go watch the rookie league Kingsport (TN) Mets play the Burlington (NC) Royals, or even the Bulls, for all that their park is pretty fancy now. It's more like baseball SHOULD be.
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