Dear MLB,
A few weeks back I waxed nostalgically about you with my 82 year old father, who didn't remember taking to my first major league game in 1963 at the Polo Grounds to watch the New York Mets play the Cincinnati Reds.
I played in little league and then in high school. I followed the New York Mets and have an autographed ball from the winners of the 1969 World Series. I use to love you. I really did. Then you changed, and I've lost that loving feeling.
Tonight the World Series begins beftween Texas and St. Louis, and for the 10th year in a row I am not watching. I guess I'm not really that into to you anymore. It doesn't matter who is playing. Really.
I don't know if its the recent antics of the Red Sox players who drank beer and ate chicken in the clubhouse during games this past season, or the fact that a .225 hitter receives over a million dollars a year compensation.
My last trip to a Major League game was in Boston in the 1990s. Fenway Park was interesting, but even more interesting was, at that time, none of the people working in the concessions were people of color. NONE. That amazed me.
Today's game is glacial in pace. When the glaciers are melted, historians will use the modern baseball game as means of comparing the passage of time of glaciers.
I will never step inside a major league park again. I can't afford the tariff nor do I wish to contribute to both the players' and owners' bank accounts. They make enough money as it is.
I have better things I could with four hours it will probably take to play a game. In the old days, it would have been watching Bob Gibson pitch against Tom Seaver, and I'd have two and half hours left over.
Not only don't I love you anymore, I can't even call you friend.
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Comments
Eve -- You're pretty optimistic about a settlement in the NBA. Don't get me started on that league.
Cranky -- The new stadium? You mean the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame? When I found out how much ticket prices were, I almost had a coronary. Now that I know about the Wilpons' connection to Bernie Madoff, I'd rather write a check to Bernie's victims than by tickets to watch the Mets. I miss Lindsey and Bob.
Major League baseball can go suck a fart out of Babe Ruth's ass!!!!!!
Congrats on your resolve OE>
He just never gives up..
:)
HUGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Rita -- It is hard to walk away. I will go to a Bridgeport Bluefish game or a Portland Sea Dogs game. The majors? nah...
Con -- I always wondered why Red Schoendiest wore 2 instead of 1. And how they got all those letters on his back, too.
Coog -- When I explain the Polo Grounds to Red Sox and Cub fans, I watch their face reflect with awe when I describe the club house in center field and the long walk a pulled pitcher had to take to go to the showers after he was relieved. That memory is etched like acid in concrete. I love minor leage baseball, but the bigs...no more.
Linda -- There's always Curling.
Stim -- I watched Gibson beat Seaver 2-1 in an hour and 45 minutes. No kidding.
On the million dollar non-star, if he were paid less, the owner would just pocket the money. I read in the late 90s that ticket prices, adjusted for inflation, were cheaper than the average hourly wage than they were in the 1920s. Dunno if there's been significant inflation since then.
On the other hand, if you haven't read it yet, may I suggest the new novel, THE ART OF FIELDING? I loved it. So maybe you can enjoy baseball that way.
rated with love
OES, I still like baseball because there is less of a threat of brain damage to the players - unlike football and hockey.
What I've loved is now in the past. It is a glorious past. But it's past. Even the chicanery, the bullshit. Imagine the guys who thought up Cooperstown. "Let's pretend the guy who invented baseball came from here! We'll make big dough!" Now even that has just been translated into one more beer commercial.
Still there is that hope. . .
Of course I'm a Cubs fan. . . . .