Fifty years ago, Ernie Harwell wrote perhaps the best essay ever about baseball.
It says in part, “Baseball is just a game as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.”
The essay ends with “This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball!” That’s the message of movies like Bull Durham, and that is something I too once deeply believed.
But now I am worried. By many measures, baseball is doing better than ever. Forty years ago, the Detroit Tigers were an up-and-coming young team. Now, they have stunk for a dozen years. Yet they drew two million fans this year, twice as many as in 1965.
The players make vast salaries. Almost none made even $100,000 a year in 1965; Today, pitcher Kevin Brown makes $15 million dollars a year. This year, Houston is in the World Series for the first time ever; Chicago, for the first time since Ike was president.
And yet -- I can’t get into major league baseball much any more. Players don’t stay on a team long enough to be truly ours.
There are too many teams today, who move from city to city too often. There are too many playoffs, and with “wild card teams,” i.e. losers, in the World Series, the regular season is nearly meaningless.
That doesn’t mean the old days were perfect.
Yet part of what kept this great game in our national psyche was its dependability; new things would happen, but members of your baseball family would be playing for you for years.
Baseball also meant that actions have consequences. Bob Costas put it best in his superb book, Play Ball. Baseball’s biggest dramatic moment ever was the 1951 home run by Bobby Thomson.
Everyone remembers Russ Hodges shrieking over and over “The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!"
Now imagine him yelling “The Giants Win the Pennant . . . and the Dodgers get into the playoffs as the Wild Card.“
Somehow, it ain’t the same.
One cannot disagree with you because you have lost your love for pro baseball. Although all your reasons are ones I can understand, I want to point out one inaccuracy in your editorial today.
You said, "There are too many teams today, who move from city to city too often."
Although many agree there are too many teams, the fact is that Major League baseball teams hardly ever move from city to city these days.
Prior to this year's move of the Montreal Expos to Washington, DC, the last time a Major League team relocated was in 1971 when the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers.
One move every 34 years is pretty amazing given what has happened in other professional sports franchises.
Posted by: Liam McGowan | October 24, 2005 at 02:33 PM