**Award Winning Blog ** Spring Blues

Regardless of what the brewmeisters in Golden, Colorado like to say, it is my father who has had the greatest impact on my life. Love of Mountain Dew, Italian food, Republican candidates, the God-awful Browns and excessive body hair may as well be genetic impositions. The one thing he will never be able to pass down to me, and ultimately never will, is his baseball. He grew up with hit and runs, catchers calling pitches, and 312-foot home runs. I grew up with 70-homerun seasons, 103 MPH gas, and nine-inning games lasting close to five hours. I have never seen Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale steal not only a hitter’s at bat, but his dignity as well. I have seen Alex Rodriguez slap a ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove and a routine single up the middle go under Andruw Jones’ glove for an inside the park homerun. The moments in baseball that have defined my childhood are as follows:

1997 Pennant Race and World Series
Big Mac & Slammin’ Sammy
The Empire vs The Nation
Game Over Gagne

Money is the root of all evil, or in the case of 1997, the root of all World Series appearances. The upstart Marlins bought themselves a veteran outfield, third baseman, second baseman and pitching staff. Homegrown contributions included: Edgar Renteria, Charles Johnson, Jeff Conine, and the tobacco in Jim Leyland’s cigarettes. Wealthy owner purchasing a roster to win a World Series and the impending fire sale became somewhat of a blueprint to success in a sport with minimal revenue sharing and no salary caps. In fact, just for kicks the Fish did it again six years later. The Diamondbacks gave it a shot in 2001, and sure enough they came away with a championship, turning out the lights on the remaining evidence of true home grown success. R.I.P. 1996-2001 Yankees. It was only a matter of time before an owner realized that if the franchise can make money while outspending other teams, there is no limit to how successful a franchise can be. It wasn’t an owner that realized this, rather two ownership groups 100 miles apart. The result:

The Empire versus The Nation ushered in the new decade of baseball magnificently. It meshed the three most basic and pure attributes of baseball seamlessly: incomprehensible amounts of artificial testosterone, ungodly spending on players, and media love-fests that would make Nicholas Sparks blush. Never had two teams been so deep 1-25. There wasn’t a single player on the Red Sox or Yankees bench that wouldn’t have started elsewhere (even you Doug Mirabelli).  Manny, Papi, A-Rod, Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Andy Pettite, Roger Clemens... all verified users. Tony Clark, Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, Jason Varitek and countless others had “career years” at the peak of the rivalry. The 70’s Sox/Yanks teams threw at each other, spat on each other, and cleared the benches because they hated each other’s guts. The 00’s Sox/Yanks threw at each other and beat up other teams’ coaches because of the HGH and Andro coursing through their veins. This wasn’t my father’s baseball rivalry. It was a chemically engineered bidding war, my rivalry. Player development becomes irrelevant when the spending bank is bottomless and snatching up players from other organizations with MLB experience is not only possible, but likely and efficient (i.e. Orlando Cabrera). The worst part about all of this? It was FANTASTIC. Never in my lifetime has baseball been more dramatic and mainstream. Baseball ruled the sports world. Every game was four hours and 45 minutes and the country didn’t miss a pitch of it. If the game wasn’t on Fox it was on ESPN, and if it wasn’t on either, people were in Red Sox or Yankee bars across the country watching it on YES or NESN with their fellow Empire or Nation comrades. ESPN has assigned specific beat writers to follow the teams and give national updates DAILY. We as baseball fans were force-fed the Greatest Rivalry in Sports for the better part of the decade. It is what we know, and what my people cherish.

These two topics can be glanced over quickly and brushed aside. Clearly the only image that the three names “McGwire, Sosa, Gagne” conjure up is of roided success and the demise of great heroes. After capturing cities and nations alike, these frauds were shown for what they really were. It’s not that the rest of the baseball world isn’t just as guilty, it’s that boys just like me in LA, St. Louis and Chicago put their hopes and dreams into someday being like their heroes; and I know firsthand how depressing it is to watch your hero come tumbling back down to earth in a Mitchell Report-assisted free fall. Forget 100 MPH fastballs. I’ll take a 170-pound closer with a decent breaking ball and no intro music, as long as you can count on him for more than 2 seasons. 

I bring up my tainted childhood because I am worried. I am worried that I will never get to see baseball the way my dad does. It drives me insane that players don’t steal home, squeeze in runs, or run out ground balls. The one thing I never got from my father is his memories of what baseball used to be. His memory list includes events like Pete Rose ending Ray Fosse’s career in an All-Star game because Pete never took a play off. He played the game like his nuts were on fire, who does that now? The Indians sucked for like 35 years in a row, so he loved watching other players like Brooks Robinson. Is there anyone in the game like Brooks Robinson today? No, because a .267 career at 3rd base gets you a one-way ticket to the Carolina League (Mark Reynolds take note). Players are different, they are millionaires in night clubs and beasts in the weight room. No longer is anyone a magician with the glove or an artist painting the black.

It’s not just that I will never get to see Bob Gibson drill fat, southern, white guys after the bigot spouted off. It’s that where the game is going is even farther from where it ought to be. Replay, sabermetrics, fantasy baseball... soon enough umpires will be obsolete. Batting average and RBI will be meaningless, and people will tell us how Mickey Mantle actually cost the Yankees the ’64 World Series because his VORP and OPS weren't as good as Lou Brock’s. Mickey Mantle never cost nobody nothing, he’s as good as they get no matter what your laptop says. Not only will players be chemically engineered physically, but mentally as well. Statistics will tell a player to swing or not, to steal a base, what pitch to throw. Every swing will be nothing more than data, and unless the fan knows what this data means, he will be deemed the village idiot. “Of course signing Mike Cameron will make the Red Sox better, look at his VORP you fool!!” Really? Mike Cameron is a career .250 hitter. You can keep your VORP. 

I hope that we as fans can remember how to use the ‘eye test.’ It does matter how a guy looks in his uniform and how he carries himself to the plate. It does matter how smoothly he glides in the outfield and how quickly he picks up the ball out of the pitcher’s hand. These are things that used to matter before baseball was a Broadway show, before it was a science project, and now before it was a stats project. It was a game with tobacco, bunts, bean balls, and defense. Money was a perk of playing baseball, not the other way around. It was my dad’s game, and I hope someday it can be our game.