**With A-Rod about to be suspended for at least the 2014 season, and a bevy of other baseball suspensions coming with it, some may say that this is the worst time for baseball since the height of Barry Bonds' chase for the Home Run record. I argue otherwise, it is the best time. For the first time, MLB is taking the bold step to suspend someone for PED use without a failed test. They are sacking up, which I'm sure is being driven by Bud Selig who wants to make one last haymaker to the way people think of him by pulling out all the stops. MLB has introduced HGH testing, they are becoming, or already have become, the most progressive sport in the USA when it comes to doping.**
Baseball isn't for the 21st Century. It isn't for blogs and Twitter streams that refresh the news cycle each time you refresh your page. Baseball rewards patience, rewards loyalty and dependency. The greatest treasure that baseball gives its fans is that in a sports world where the LeBrons and Tebows dominate the headlines and 95% of ESPN's time, baseball accepts its position at the back. It is the steady force in sports today, there for those who need it when the more exciting months come and go. Baseball is there on a lazy July afternoon, on a warm August night. Baseball will always be there. Unlike football which will probably not make it to the 22nd Century, or hockey which may be forced away due to Global Warming (or, of course, the lack of fans), baseball will be there.
In reality, baseball is the only game still recognizable today to someone who remembers sports in the 1950's. Football looks worlds different, same with hockey, which is played now with Herculean goaltender equipment and technical precision. Basketball too has changed into a far more physical game. Baseball is still relatively the same, with the same rules, same constraints. Other than forced changes like innings limits and five-man rotations, baseball today is played inside the same boundaries of baseball fifty years ago. Someone soon will throw for 6,000 yards in football the way the NFL is going. No one is going to suddenly hit 100 home runs or strike out 400 batters in one season. In the most stylized individual sport, it still comes down to one pitcher, one batter, one ball and one stick.
It seems odd that in the only major American sport that plays its entire season in one Calendar year, that their seasons seem to just blend into each other. But in a way, that is what baseball is all about. It is the one sport where the Championship isn't everything. I probably would need some time to tell you which teams met in the 2009 NLCS (while I wouldn't need more than one minute to name every NFL Title Game since 2001), but that isn't what baseball is about. The Fall Classic gets marginalized more and more, and to me that is good. Way too much of sport today is who wins these luck-filled team sports. And when I say who, I mean which individual. The Manning-Brady debate has already spanned a decade, but while sports thinking has gotten smarter, the half-blind focus on who wins teams sports gets more and more frustrating. Two weeks ago, three of six established writers on NFL.com said Eli Manning is better than Peyton Manning. I don't like following a sport in which such arguments are even entertained, let alone appreciated. In many ways, I would prefer the sport where no one considers the 2010 and 2012 San Francisco Giants the most clutch team of all time, and just considers them a team that got lucky.
I love baseball because it is the most inclusive sport in America. What other sport could a man with the body of Zeus like Jason Heyward be less successful than a man that looks like a fat tub of lard like Prince Fielder. Baseball doesn't discriminate by weight, height, looks, and for seventy years, skin color. Baseball accepts all and is also loved by all. What other sports can attract the love and attention of mathmeticians and poets. Both groups have, albeit at different times, flocked to baseball. Sure, the mathmeticians that say Mike Trout was better than Miguel Cabrera in 2012 because WAR said so aren't fans of the Poets that would argue the opposite because of the natural poetic allure of the Triple Crown, but it is because those arguments can be made in baseball that it is so special.
In the end, it is still baseball's endless love of patience that gets rewarded over time. It is the one sport that quickly embraces the slow, slow rebuild, like the one my Astros are overtaking. And the best part of following a team that undergoes such barren years is the knowledge that when the team rises like a Phoenix, the whole country comes along. What is going on it Pittsburgh right now is such a beautiful sight, a city reembracing a team that took their time to get back. So many times we were told that the Pirates are dead in Pittsburgh, in a never-ending cycle of terrible roster moves, management regimes and players. They finally put it together and now there is no more fun location in the United States of American Sports than that gem of a stadium on the banks of the Allegheny.
Baseball will never catch Football as the countries top sport (well, until the NFL is forced to close in about 2075 or so), and basketball may pass it (I would argue otherwise), but it is necessary in the American sports culture. It is needed to fill those months between the craziness/opulence of the NHL/NBA playoffs and the return of football. It is needed to inspire new waves of thinking about sports, as it seems that baseball is always leading the charge in analytical movements. It is needed to teach patience and how to stay calm, as nothing gets the heartbeat rising than the 25 brilliantly silent moments between pitches close in a late game. It is needed to keep us sane. Baseball isn't about dunks and touchdowns and pick-sixes. It doesn't align itself to the Sportscenter generation of fans, those who want sports in doses (like NFL Red Zone, which took better advantage of this than anything ever). Baseball stays the way it is, you either like it or you don't.
There are many people that find baseball boring. In fact, many real, true baseball fans find it boring, but it is the beauty in the boredom that is so alluring. It is the game theory between batter and pitcher, the sight of a small white ball filling up a dark night sky, that draws people to baseball. It is the reward hidden inside the waves of boredom, the joy hidden inside slow, humid summer nights. Baseball was America and that is no more. Because of societal changes, technological advances and Americans' perverse aversion to being without constant stimulation, baseball is no longer America, but in so many ways I still feel like it should be.
Baseball isn't for the 21st Century. It isn't for blogs and Twitter streams that refresh the news cycle each time you refresh your page. Baseball rewards patience, rewards loyalty and dependency. The greatest treasure that baseball gives its fans is that in a sports world where the LeBrons and Tebows dominate the headlines and 95% of ESPN's time, baseball accepts its position at the back. It is the steady force in sports today, there for those who need it when the more exciting months come and go. Baseball is there on a lazy July afternoon, on a warm August night. Baseball will always be there. Unlike football which will probably not make it to the 22nd Century, or hockey which may be forced away due to Global Warming (or, of course, the lack of fans), baseball will be there.
In reality, baseball is the only game still recognizable today to someone who remembers sports in the 1950's. Football looks worlds different, same with hockey, which is played now with Herculean goaltender equipment and technical precision. Basketball too has changed into a far more physical game. Baseball is still relatively the same, with the same rules, same constraints. Other than forced changes like innings limits and five-man rotations, baseball today is played inside the same boundaries of baseball fifty years ago. Someone soon will throw for 6,000 yards in football the way the NFL is going. No one is going to suddenly hit 100 home runs or strike out 400 batters in one season. In the most stylized individual sport, it still comes down to one pitcher, one batter, one ball and one stick.
It seems odd that in the only major American sport that plays its entire season in one Calendar year, that their seasons seem to just blend into each other. But in a way, that is what baseball is all about. It is the one sport where the Championship isn't everything. I probably would need some time to tell you which teams met in the 2009 NLCS (while I wouldn't need more than one minute to name every NFL Title Game since 2001), but that isn't what baseball is about. The Fall Classic gets marginalized more and more, and to me that is good. Way too much of sport today is who wins these luck-filled team sports. And when I say who, I mean which individual. The Manning-Brady debate has already spanned a decade, but while sports thinking has gotten smarter, the half-blind focus on who wins teams sports gets more and more frustrating. Two weeks ago, three of six established writers on NFL.com said Eli Manning is better than Peyton Manning. I don't like following a sport in which such arguments are even entertained, let alone appreciated. In many ways, I would prefer the sport where no one considers the 2010 and 2012 San Francisco Giants the most clutch team of all time, and just considers them a team that got lucky.
I love baseball because it is the most inclusive sport in America. What other sport could a man with the body of Zeus like Jason Heyward be less successful than a man that looks like a fat tub of lard like Prince Fielder. Baseball doesn't discriminate by weight, height, looks, and for seventy years, skin color. Baseball accepts all and is also loved by all. What other sports can attract the love and attention of mathmeticians and poets. Both groups have, albeit at different times, flocked to baseball. Sure, the mathmeticians that say Mike Trout was better than Miguel Cabrera in 2012 because WAR said so aren't fans of the Poets that would argue the opposite because of the natural poetic allure of the Triple Crown, but it is because those arguments can be made in baseball that it is so special.
In the end, it is still baseball's endless love of patience that gets rewarded over time. It is the one sport that quickly embraces the slow, slow rebuild, like the one my Astros are overtaking. And the best part of following a team that undergoes such barren years is the knowledge that when the team rises like a Phoenix, the whole country comes along. What is going on it Pittsburgh right now is such a beautiful sight, a city reembracing a team that took their time to get back. So many times we were told that the Pirates are dead in Pittsburgh, in a never-ending cycle of terrible roster moves, management regimes and players. They finally put it together and now there is no more fun location in the United States of American Sports than that gem of a stadium on the banks of the Allegheny.
Baseball will never catch Football as the countries top sport (well, until the NFL is forced to close in about 2075 or so), and basketball may pass it (I would argue otherwise), but it is necessary in the American sports culture. It is needed to fill those months between the craziness/opulence of the NHL/NBA playoffs and the return of football. It is needed to inspire new waves of thinking about sports, as it seems that baseball is always leading the charge in analytical movements. It is needed to teach patience and how to stay calm, as nothing gets the heartbeat rising than the 25 brilliantly silent moments between pitches close in a late game. It is needed to keep us sane. Baseball isn't about dunks and touchdowns and pick-sixes. It doesn't align itself to the Sportscenter generation of fans, those who want sports in doses (like NFL Red Zone, which took better advantage of this than anything ever). Baseball stays the way it is, you either like it or you don't.
There are many people that find baseball boring. In fact, many real, true baseball fans find it boring, but it is the beauty in the boredom that is so alluring. It is the game theory between batter and pitcher, the sight of a small white ball filling up a dark night sky, that draws people to baseball. It is the reward hidden inside the waves of boredom, the joy hidden inside slow, humid summer nights. Baseball was America and that is no more. Because of societal changes, technological advances and Americans' perverse aversion to being without constant stimulation, baseball is no longer America, but in so many ways I still feel like it should be.
