I used to love baseball. Bar none it was my favorite sport. Football was OK and I was a much better basketball player than either of the other two. Yet, my heart was in baseball. It was my passion.
I followed the standings, box scores, and player stats with religious devotion throughout spring, summer, and fall. I hated the designated hitter, the day my Cubbies installed lights, and pitchers that took forever.
Baseball was a game then. When Whitey Herzog or Tommy Lasorda were in the dugout, they were using their minds to come up with their next move. Hell, no one hit home runs out of Busch Stadium back in those days. Willie McGee had to get on base, steal second and then be adavanced to third and possibly sacrificed in home some way.
Baseball had a history too. There was the 1975 World Series where the Boston Red Sox fought so hard in game six. Bernie Carbo faced Eastwick and looked like so overmatched before tying the game with an implausible home run. Yet, the Big Red Machine wouldn't be stopped in Game Seven. You had the Yanks of yesteryear with Berra, Mantle, Ford, and the great Casey Stengel.
Possibly the greatest moment in baseball history took place in 1960 when Ralph Terry threw a 1-0 pitch to Mazeroski and the mighty Yanks lost to the lowly Pirates.
I loved baseball. It was painful watching my '84 Cubs implode. But it was a beautiful game then. Ryne Sandberg rewrote history when he led the leagues as a second baseman with 40 homeruns. A relatively skinny young man named Barry Bonds looked like his old man when he stole 30 bases and hit 30 home runs. Having a 4.94 ERA as a lefthanded pitches wasn't considered to be admirable and worth a multi-million dollar contract. It may have resulted in sending you back down to the minors.
But something happened.
A guy named Brady Anderson, who had never hot over 21 dingers in his career, hit 50 (as a lead off hitter!). Amazingly, he didn't lead the league that year, he finished second! Then hitting 50 homeruns in a season became blase. Something only one man had done in all of the 1970's and 1980's (George Foster) would happen twelve times in the 1990's with Sosa hitting sixty twice and Mcgwire hitting sixty once and seventy once. Thus far (2000 to 2006) it has been reached ten times with Sosa reaching sixty once and Bonds reaching seventy.
The names of these superstars of slugging: Brady Anderson, Cecil Fielder, Albert Belle, Greg Vaughn, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, Luis Gonzalez, Jim Thome, Andruw Jones, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz.
But it isn't just a few names, every position has gotten power and high average hitting. People like Luis Aparacio wouldn't even make the All-Star game any longer. You'll never have a team like the White Sox of old or even the Twins of 1991. Now you have the Yankees and the Red Sox. People were excited about the Red Sox winning the series, but really - who cared? They made themselves out to be David versus the Goliath Yankees...but in reality they were both Goliaths versus the Liliputian rest of the league.
Say what you will, maybe I'm just saddened by the loss of the old game for this new high-octane version. I'm not claiming to have a highly rigid, logical argument. I still cheer for the Cubs and 2003 was painful, but nothing like 1984. Strategies that involve getting up to the plate and slugging for the fences nearly everytime just doesn't impress me. Paying fortunes for teams that have .300+ batters in all 9 slots (I still hate the DH) that hit 25 to 30+ homeruns at least doesn't impress me either. It is just a shell of the game it once was.
College football has for quite a while replaced baseball as my favorite. I hardly watch games anymore. Occasionally I'll catch the Reds or Cubs and watch for a while. Mostly I just lament a game I used to love.
