Hi, today I would like
to talk about baseball. “Ewww, why bother”, you ask? “Baseball is dying!” they proclaim
in the media. Except the media has apparently been ringing baseball’s death
knell since the 1800’s yet just when you think it’s gone for good it always
stages more comebacks than Bette Midler and my forehead acne. Baseball isn’t
dying even if the media keeps trying to kill it. Last year the NFL earned $10
billion, major league baseball earned $8 billion, the NBA earned $5 billion and
the NHL earned just under $4 billion. An 8 billion dollar failure? We’ll have
to wait for the eighth Avengers sequel before we see that again.
But if you go to the
ESPN site right now you may note how they order their sports: NFL first, NBA
second, MLB third. ESPN is the most powerful sports media driver of public
perception in America and they seem to strive to create the (non evidence
supported) argument that baseball is 3rd in popularity and falling
fast. The fact that ESPN and ABC are part of the same conglomerate and ABC has
an NBA contract whereas Fox has the baseball contract…….maybe not a
coincidence? Average attendance at an MLB game last year was 30,000. And that’s
with 81 games on the schedule! Averaging 30,000 81 times? That’s more than the
NBA, NHL, or even an Eagles reunion tour could ever dream of. Last offseason
The Miami Marlins signed slugger Giancarlo Stanton to a $325 million dollar
extension. $325 million in a supposedly dying industry? And he can hit 500 foot
home runs? AND his name is Giancarlo? If he gets tired of baseball, he has the
name and the muscular build to inspire a romance novel dark, mysterious yet irresistible
stranger. I don’t know…..51 Shades Of Gray? It’s not hard to imagine the words “Giancarlo”
and “smoldering” in the same sentence. Take that, geeky death of baseball
predicting journalist guy.
“But look at World
Series ratings!” the critics say. True, they are never nearly as good as Super
Bowl ratings. But the Super Bowl isn’t really a game, it’s a circus. It’s a
permission slip to drink too much beer, eat too many chicken wings, and bet too
much money knowing no one will judge you for it. It’s the Super Bowl! It
features a halftime performance from a pop superstar that everyone can trash on
the Twitter and Facebook in real time. It’s an excuse for cabin fever suffering
people to have a huge party in early February. It provides a once-per-year
throwback to the days when everyone was watching the same thing because they
only had five channels and no Internet. Comparing Super Bowl ratings with
anything is not a fair fight. It’s like saying if you’re not George Clooney,
you’re the Elephant Man.
And nothing as weird as
baseball can ever go away. Yes, I would submit that despite its national
pastime, Americana, fathers and sons having a catch in the back yard, if you
build it they will come reputation, baseball is possibly the weirdest sport
ever invented. It’s so weird that no one notices its weirdness because it’s so
ingrained into the game! Take this snippet I read about Red Sox 1st
baseman Mike Napoli: Before the Red Sox latest homestand, he had a .162 average
(19-for-117) to go with three homers and 11 RBIs. Over the course of the just
completed homestand he hit .429 (9-for-21) with five homers and 10 RBIs. WTF?
Did Napoli forget how to hit and suddenly remember again? But these wild,
irrational streaks happen constantly in baseball. Every hitter is a streak
hitter no matter his skill level. Lebron James may have off games but he’s
never going to go 2 for 23 from the floor one night and 22 for 24 the next
night. Tom Brady—regardless of the air pressure on the ball—is not going to
complete 5 of 39 passes with 3 INT’s one week and complete 33 of 36 with 4 TD’s
the next. A Bradley Cooper movie isn’t going to gross $500 million worldwide while
his next film goes straight to Starzz. Most people at the top of their
professions generally fall within a certain bell curve from one game or movie
or album to the next—except in baseball. Or let’s consider the guy who
personifies the everyday steadiness and consistency of baseball perhaps more
than anyone in recent times: former Orioles shortstop/3rd baseman
Cal Ripken, Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games
played. He is the embodiment of consistency. Or is he? In 1990 Cal hit .250, in
1991 he hit .323 with 34 HR’s and 114 RBI’s. The next year? .251. The next
year? .257. The next year? .315. And that’s just baseball! Even hitters who
generally put up the same numbers each year will have weeks/months where, like yours
truly in gym class softball, they are lucky if they can hit the ball out of the
infield.
And pitchers? Forget
about it. Performance wise, baseball players all embody a kind of bipolar
disorder, which is probably why they so often develop weird superstitious,
obsessive compulsive habits they have to repeat endlessly such as eating fried
chicken before every single game, avoiding stepping on foul lines like they
were land mines, obsessively taking off or putting on their batting gloves in
the batter’s box, or injecting steroids into their buttocks in a clubhouse
bathroom stall. (Sorry—they I mean they used to do that. And like Mark McGwire,
I’m not here to talk about the past. And like Sammy Sosa, no habla Ingles). In
a game of such wild, hard to control inconsistency, ballplayers have to cling
to whatever consistent, controllable things they can. And the beauty of all this wild inconsistency? We get to see even the greatest players fail. A lot. Sometimes in epic ways. Sometimes for long periods of times. This makes them seem human. Superstars in other sports fail in much less extreme, much more short term ways. This makes them seem superhuman. But superheroes are boring and not even the best examples for the rest of us because they create standards none of us can live up to. Superman is a crashing bore.
Baseball also provides us
with a healthy reminder that sometimes spitting in the workplace is okay. Actually
it’s more than okay. Admit it: it would be easier to slog through some dreary
Mondays at the office if spitting wasn’t so frowned upon by management.
Spitting is so common in baseball that it actually becomes invisible. My
grandmother used to say to me, “Ryan, why do they have to spit so much?”. I
would then think, “Oh yeah, he DID spit just now”. By contrast, if I had been
watching 60 Minutes and an Iranian diplomat gave Leslie Stahl a little more lip
than she was looking for and she spit on the floor, I would have totally
noticed. Or at the last State Of The Union address if Obama had said
Republicans cannot play political games with the debt ceiling any longer and John
Boehner right behind him had spit, that would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
Only baseball has managed to normalize the (all natural) act of spitting! You
probably did it this morning when you brushed your teeth. The freedom of being
a ballplayer is the freedom so say, “The world is my bathroom sink”.
Baseball is also the
only sport that embodies what we say America is about but kind of isn’t really about.
So the Golden State Warriors’ best player is Stephen Curry. In a 1 point Warriors
victory the other night he took 21 shots, the next closest was Klay Thompson
who took 15 shots. So Curry took almost 1/3 more shots than their second best
player—and that relatively low margin for basketball is only because he’s an
unselfish player. He took 21 of his team’s 77 total shots—so something like 1/4
of all shots. (This blog is unconcerned with exact math). The Washington
Nationals best player is Bryce Harper. Last night he had 4 plate appearances
while the Nats’ #8 hitter, the .233 hitting Michael Taylor, had 3 plate
appearance—and probably only because his turn in the order didn’t come around a
4th time. Red hot, superstar Bryce Harper had 4 of his team’s 31 total
at bats last night—just under 1/8.
Is Bryce Harper less
selfish than Stephen Curry? Actually he comes across as infinitely more selfish and immature and I’m not
just saying that because his name is Bryce. But unlike basketball, football,
hockey, soccer…..unlike every team sports I know of, Bryce Harper plays in a
sport of mandated equal opportunity. There are no rules preventing your best
basketball player to shoot as often as he likes or your superstar quarterback to
throw as many passes as you want him to throw, but in baseball your best player
has to take this turn just like everyone else. He has 1 spot and only 1 spot in
your 9 man batting order and he can only bat when his spot comes around just
like your backup catcher who may be hitting .189 and is only in the lineup
because you’re resting your starting catcher in a day game after a night game.
We all know this, but I don’t think anyone steps back and reflects on just what
a radical game of equality of opportunity baseball is compared with every other
sport and…..life. Even when the rulebook doesn’t dictate it, baseball’s
inherent radical equal opportunity surfaces almost by accident. A manager can
pitch his best pitcher any time he wants, but because pitchers are stretching
the limits of the human arm and shoulder beyond where it should be stretched to
begin with, an ace starting pitcher likewise has to wait his turn in the
rotation just like the 5th starter who may have a 5.54 ERA. (Or, in the case of
the 2015 Red Sox, the “ace” who may have a 5.54 ERA).
Let’s say baseball’s
doomsday prophets have an argument. But if baseball is seeming more quaint and
out of step with today’s society, could the reason have less to do with the
slow pace and everyone’s apparent ADD than with the reality of a game where you
are treated like an equal even if you’re not an equal? Maybe we have become so
complacent about accepting that the CEO should make 409 times as much as a
company’s everyday staff member that we can’t even relate to a game where (at
least between the foul lines) the superstars are afforded zero preferential
treatment over the everyday journeymen players? And the concept of batting
orders and pitching rotations is so ingrained that no one even proposes
changing it. I suppose you could make an argument that—for the benefit of
entertainment and TV ratings—a manager can choose to bat his best hitter twice
in the lineup and have someone else just be a designated fielder. Or he can bat
his best hitter in the ninth inning even if he’s not due up that inning. That
might be great for “fan interest” and capturing the “young demographic” but
these are terrible ideas! And they are terrible because they would kill the
team aspect of baseball that makes it so unique. Often you are only as good as
your worst hitter or the 25th man on your roster. People like to say
baseball is less of a team game because no one passes the ball to each other
but looked at another way it’s the most team game there is. It’s much harder to
simply rely on your best player to carry you. It takes contributions from
everyone and that’s the whole beauty of it. It’s a less narcissistic game.
Another weirdly beautiful
thing about baseball is unlike other sports it’s not a game of keep away.
Football, basketball, hockey, soccer….all games of passing/handing off the
ball/puck to your teammates and trying to prevent the other team from getting
their dirty paws on it. Baseball couldn’t be more different. It’s a sport in
which you, the one with the ball, are the one—the only one—who feeds the
offense the ball and gives the hitter at the plate a chance to crush a ball 500
feet off you. Of course the pitcher tries to make pitches that the hitter won’t
be able to turn into souvenirs but he still stands essentially defenseless
before his opponent and hopes it all works out. Now isn’t this a better lesson
for life? We can pretend our opponents don’t exist and try to maneuver where we
want to go without them interfering—kind of the way politics works these days—or
we can actually be the ones who serve our opponents what they need to succeed
but take the leap of faith that our skill and guile will get us through.
Baseball represents a far more inclusive, self-confident way of dealing with
our enemies. No wonder it’s “dying” in 2015 America!
It’s also the only
sport that can treat seasonal affective disorder for unfortunate souls living
in the north. I had some anxiety and depression this past brutal, awful, God
forsaken, heinous, evil winter but spring training was a beacon of light in a dark,
snow filled dungeon. I actually started watching meaningless games on TV when I
normally just wait until Opening Day. And I realized you can listen to
virtually every game on the MLB app on your phone. Grapefruit League games in
Florida started at 1 every day, Cactus League games in Arizona started at 4. I
became a daily listener. The games provided a portal into a world where it was 81
degrees and sunny. You could even overhear vendors yelling, “Cold beer here!
(And water)”. It all sounded like it was coming from pure heaven even if it was
only Jupiter, Florida. Football? Watching those guys doing drills in the heat
of July just seems like hell on earth.
