Foul Ball!

Part of me feels like the newspaper boy in Chicago who encountered "Shoeless Joe" Jackson on the street, just after the news of the Black Sox scandal broke after the 1919 World Series. Jackson was one of the White Sox players who had been accused of consorting with professional gamblers, and had taken money to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

"Say it ain't so, Joe!" the news boy begged.

Of course it was so, and Jackson (who otherwise would probably be in the baseball Hall of Fame today) and the others were banned from the game for life by Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

I grew up loving baseball. It's different from the other sports. Baseball is played in a pastoral setting. There is no time clock to add pressure to the sport. It is the only sport in which the defense has possession of the ball! It's a throwback to another age and by in large the game hasn't changed a lot since George and Harry Wright started the first professional team in 1869 - The Cincinnati Red Stockings. Football has arguably taken over baseball's former title as the "Great American Pastime", but it is still the sport of my youth - the one I loved and consumed as a boy.

George Carlin had a great comedy routine contrasting football and baseball.

"Football is played on a GRIDIRON.
Baseball is played in a PARK...
Football has the blitz; the bomb; the crack back block; the monster man defense.
Baseball has the bunt and the squeeze play...
In Football you score by driving down the field into enemy territory, gaining yardage, and eventually penetrating the opponents end zone.
In baseball, you just 'Go home!'"...

Critics claim that the game is too long and boring, but anyone who has loved and played the game can testify that there is nothing like the crack of the bat, the smell of the leather gloves and the fresh smell of a new baseball. One doesn't have to be 7 feet tall to be a great player, nor does one have to weigh 300 lbs to crack the lineup. It's a game of skill and beauty. Watching a perfectly turned 6-4-3 double play is almost like going to the ballet. The skill, quickness and hand/eye coordination required to hit a sphere (thrown at speeds up to 100 mph) with a cylindrical bat is unparalleled in any sport. Especially since the hitting coach admonishes you to "hit is squarely"! The dunk and the three point shot in basketball are impressive... breaking the kickoff return for a touch down or a long bomb for six in football will bring the crowd to their feet... but nothing in sports compares with the home run. There is just something majestic and awe inspiring to seeing the ball soar out of the park.

As you can probably tell, I have a romantic infatuation with the game. I love it. I tried to pass that love down to my boys, and I want their boys to love it too.

A couple of years ago, Major League Baseball commissioned former Senator George Mitchell to head up an investigation of the use of anabolic steriods and Human Growth Hormones (HGH) among major league ballplayers. Yesterday's report of the findings by Senator Mitchell felt like a blow to gut to those of us who love the game. The "boy" in me wants to say, "Say it ain't so, George!" but the 57 year old man that I am knows that it is true. And it is so sad to see the list of nearly 80 players who have been implicated in the scandal.

All of us knew about Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Rafael Palmerio, and Jason Giambi from books and magazine expose' stories that revealed their useage of the outlawed substances. But to see the names of MVP's and Cy Young Award winners was just heartbreaking to someone who loves the game. "All American" boys like David Justice and Andy Pettitte (who teaches Sunday School in a Houston Baptist Church) shouldn't be on such a list. But alas, they are.

I'm not naive. I was born at night but not last night. I know that many of our boyhood heroes have lived a tarnished life. Babe Ruth was a womanizer who often showed up at the ballpark hung over. Ty Cobb was such a jerk, none of his colleagues would even attend his funeral. Pete Rose gambled on the sport and was banned for life. Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford were alcoholics whose antics off the field would never be written up in "Boy's Life Magazine". Alvin Dark slammed bus windows on the hands of kids who were trying to get his autograph. Darryl Strawberry and Steve Howe's off field drug usage was like a never ending soap opera.

Former major league pitcher Jim Brosnan in his published diary, "The Long Season" chronicles the less than admirable actions of a number of big leaguers, and Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" blew the lid off the use of "greenies" in big leage club houses, told us of the "Baseball Annie" groupies in each major league city, and knocked the halo off many of our presumed heroes of the game. Bouton became public enemy number one among his colleagues, and former Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said the book had "given baseball a black eye." Poking fun at Kuhn, Bouton's equally explosive sequel, "I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally" sported a large baseball with a black eye on it's cover!

The inside look at baseball wasn't pretty. Neither was the 400+ page report released by Senator Mitchell yesterday.

Major League Baseball has lagged far behind the other big league sports in dealing with the issue of steroids. Part of the reason is the strong players union. However, the time has come (no the time has passed) that baseball needs to clean up it's act. It's time for all the righteous indignation of the Commissioner's office (formerly only directed at gambling in the game) to come down hard on these cheaters.

Former NBA star Charles Barkley drew a lot of criticism a few years ago when he said, "I am not a role model." He probably meant "he shouldn't be considered a role model" yet he and other highly paid professional athletes ARE thrown up to our kids as role models - and they shouldn't be. The greed and avarice that professional sports has become is an abomination that has infiltrated all aspects of the game and it is sickening.

Kids need role models. Good role models. Marion Jones, Steve Howe, Barry Bonds, Randy Moss, Pete Rose, and Latrell Sprewell are NOT the role models our kids need today. Neither is Sean Penn and that Hollywood crowd (but that's another subject for another time). Perhaps kids should look to some lesser paid, less glamorous folks, such as good teachers, dedicated coaches, band directors, Sunday School teachers, pastors and others who will teach them the right values, and realistic lessons about life. Role models like this will help mold them into the men and women who will be able to properly mentor the next generation.

I still love the game, but I am saddened at what it has become on the professional level. Perhaps Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Union representative Donald Fehr will get together on this and be a catalyst to clean up the greatest sport of all. It's too great a sport to be tarnished by the actions of some so called heroes.

As that great poet and philosopher, Paul Simon, once wrote, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns it's lonely eyes to you..."