Losing my religion (w/ baseball)

I still there is something that I can’t describe that sets baseball apart from all the other sports. I can never imagine falling out of love with baseball.
There are some people that I’ve said if I ever find out they have done steroids, I won’t like baseball anymore, but I don’t know if I could ever actually stick to that. Baseball’s just different for me.

Makes it all the more human and relatable. Except for the millions of dollars at stake.

First of all, any form of entertainment involves what you might generously call appeal to our better nature and ideals, or what you would more bluntly call self-delusion. It’s a self-delusion to be a fan and really convince yourself for a while that all those guys on the field are your heroes and that they “stand for something” and blah blah blah. But damn it, I’m not gonna stop being a fan, and I’m going to keep feeling that way when I watch.
I don’t mean to be overly negative, but look; we’re all human. We’re all flawed. Baseball is a horribly flawed sport, it just happens to be less flawed than all the other ones, in my opinion. Look at the Black Sox Scandal. A bunch of guys conspired to fix the World Series, and there was Mob involvement. This happened back in 1919, it’s not exactly a product of some recent “fall from grace” or a 21st century moral malaise.
Even though it will never be perfect, people will try to improve it. That describes life in general I suppose, but that’s what going on with steroids. It has been clumsy and wrong-headed, largely, but there is still a striving toward the ideal of fair play, and I don’t see how the steroid era is much different from all the other imperfections in the shady history of professional sports. Baseball never has been nor will it ever be perfect. I think I just disagree with the premise that “now” fair play isn’t the norm, as opposed to it never having truly been the norm. It’s the ideal, or the goal. That goal can never be attained perfectly anyway, but we still try.

and didn’t really get into baseball to the extent i am now until recently.

so, nah, i can’t relate

not so much the fact that players have cheated, but with the accepting nature of the comments from the talk show hosts. They seemed to be trying to convince those of us listening that we should accept the flaws as the way things are, and that we shouldn’t expect fair play to be the goal. Miklasz loves to point to the improved fan attendance and viewership as evidence that fans don’t care about the decades of cheating that were going on. Ramsey likes to try to convince us that the game is still rife with PEDs consisting of more undetectable compounds.

I’m not naive enough to believe any or all players are saints, nor do I expect them to maintain a higher standard than the rest of the population. I fully understand that as long as there has been competition, there has been cheating. The question is not “if” it happens but whether or not it’s alright if it’s intentionally unfettered.

I guess the question really is, if you believed as these guys do, would still have interest in baseball? If so, what draws your interest if cheating is more the rule than the exception?

(BTW, thanks to the kind words. I’m glad this topic resonates with more of us than just myself)

even though I grew up idolizing him, and he’s a part of the reason I became a Cards fan (the other part being that my dad is a fan). I was 6 at the time of the Home Run Chase, and had I known then what I have learned over the years, I would have disgraced McGwire from the beginning.

I feel that McGwire ruined his chance to clear his name four years ago, and I fear now that he will be ripped by the media and some fans day in and day out. McGwire will be forever associated with steroids, and in all honesty, without them he wouldn’t have been who he was. I’ve seen countless people berate him because of the steroids, and making asinine comments like “He’ll teach the Cards how to play the game” and “He’ll bring the juice to St. Louis”.

anything you might hold dear in a childlike way – politicians (please don’t cite any examples; we just know that some of them had a gloss they probably didn’t deserve), public figures, our parents, even concepts like love; anything to which we assign a sense of heroism or unadulterated goodness – has to give way eventually to a realization of the imperfections in the idols.

it’s crushing when you realize none of these heroes were perfect in the way you’d imagined. some of them, you find out, aren’t worth loving at all. some of them are great despite their flaws, or maybe even because of them. sometimes you find that the flaws enhance the appreciation you feel for the people or institutions in your life. caring about something you know to be flawed is much harder and much more rewarding than caring about something you think is perfection itself.

i think there are bits of this in baseball. somebody like boog is a more interesting figure on the diamond because he’s not part of the cheating culture (or if he is, he should get his steroid prescription checked), because he’s pursuing perfection in the harder-to-tinker with defensive skills arena. i’m not saying he’s perfect or that he has nothing wrong with him. but the flaws in the rest of the game sometimes highlight the facets of the game that would otherwise get neglected.

one issue I have with the point of view put forth by Bernie, Joe et al is that the media missed the boat in the 1990s. With few exceptions, media members, along with MLB and the players union, celebrated the Home Run chase while turning a blind eye to the steroids (and greenies) usage. MLB did take action after much prodding but it seems the media can’t come clean itself and announce how poorly they performed.

Instead, this holier than thou approach is taken, with most reporting focusing not on the action between the lines, but the soap opera outside the lines. IMO, this shock jock reporting style is just another distraction from the actual joy of watching baseball, or any sport even handegg.

Cheating will continue in all sports as it does in many aspects of life. Making it more difficult to successfully cheat levels the playing field as much as possible.

although i was expecting a REM connection. Well done.

is really starting to wear this old baseball fan down. The fact that only the large market teams can afford star players (be it in either re-signing players or through free agency) and in turn can more than likely punch their ticket into the playoffs every season is really starting to make me sick. Yeah I know the Cardinals have been in the playoffs as much as these large market teams in the past 15 years but as a baseball fan and a fan of the sport I get tired of seeing the Yankees, Red Sox and Angels in the playoffs every year. Which I guess is more of an American League problem but it’s still a BIG problem for me. When I was a kid falling in love with the game.. teams like the Royals, Blue Jays, A’s and Orioles all had just as good of a chance to win their division as the Yankees and Angles did. It was more about which team played the best and not which team has the most all-star players on it with obscene contracts. It was MUCH more of a balanced League as a whole. That is not true anymore and I really miss it as a fan.

Seems like after the strike of 1994 things changed and it became a sport of the haves and have nots. And it’s really starting to wear me down as a fan. Yeah I can scream and shout “Salary Cap” but we all know it’s not going to happen so it’s a pointless arguement.

I’m just thankfull that the Cards play in the National League where at least for now there is MUCH more parity and yes except for a couple of teams (Pirates and Nationals) fans can actually think their team might have a chance to get to the playoffs and the start of the season. Although that’s starting to become less of a reality in recent years as well. If the Cards were in the American League or say in the AL East I’m not sure if I would still be as much of a die-hard fan to tell the truth.

Steroids hasn’t really effected me as much as the greed and the idea of buying your way into postseason has.

I find your post title particularly apt.

David Foster Wallace wrote a piece on Roger Federer in which he described watching Federer as a religious experience.

Link

Long read, but worth it, even if you don’t like tennis.

Reason I bring this up is I think his point applies equally well to baseball, or any other sport.

Here it is in Wallace’s words:

There’s a great deal that’s bad about having a body. If this is not so obviously true that no one needs examples, we can just quickly mention pain, sores, odors, nausea, aging, gravity, sepsis, clumsiness, illness, limits — every last schism between our physical wills and our actual capacities. Can anyone doubt we need help being reconciled? Crave it? It’s your body that dies, after all.

There are wonderful things about having a body, too, obviously — it’s just that these things are much harder to feel and appreciate in real time. Rather like certain kinds of rare, peak-type sensuous epiphanies ("I’m so glad I have eyes to see this sunrise!" etc.), great athletes seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, move through space, interact with matter. Granted, what great athletes can do with their bodies are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important — they make up for a lot.

Whether PEDs cheapen that experience for you, that’s your own decision. For me, they don’t.

The lying-about-it, though, that bothers me.

and I’m glad someone brought it up in this manner. I want to start out with two quotes, from two great baseball movies, because I think they have relevance here:

Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come. — Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), Field of Dreams

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring… which makes it like sex. There’s never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn’t have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I’d never sleep with a player hitting under .250… not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there’s a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I’ve got a ballplayer alone, I’ll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. ‘Course, a guy’ll listen to anything if he thinks it’s foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. ‘Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball – now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God’s sake? It’s a long season and you gotta trust. I’ve tried ’em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. — Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), Bull Durham

(Emphasis mine)

The first quote is taken from a movie about second chances. Second chances to play the game you love, second chances at getting to play a game of catch to reconcile with your father. Second chances are a big part of life. We all have them, we all deserve them. This notion that those who make mistakes should have to live those mistakes down forever is ludicrous, yet our current hyper-sensitive media environment essentially drowns anyone who makes a mistake to the point where true forgiveness, understanding, and restitution is nearly impossible.

As Terence says, our country has re-invented itself many times over, “erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again”. It’s ingrained in our culture. I believe passionately in the second chance as a focal point in the American ideal, the ability to re-invent yourself and learn from your mistakes. I think the fact that the game of baseball has had so many flawed characters is proof positive that this game and our culture can survive any momentary crisis or issue in any era. It’s America’s game, and it’s the game that we turn to when the chips are down, when we feel bad about ourselves, when we try to relate to our children our memories of the past. I don’t see how a few guys getting bigger and stronger chemically is going to change how we view the game, it’s history, and it’s relevance in our culture, but I think that sportswriters like to play on that fear because of the records being set by “tainted” players. It makes a great story, and it strikes a chord with populists everywhere, but if you look at the whole picture instead of the eye of the needle, baseball has always had problems, just like America — we’d just rather not think about them because Americans are cultural optimists, we like to only think about the good times and how we can get back there again.

The second quote is about viewing baseball with the cultural reverence reserved for religion. We put religious figures up on a pedestal while stripping away their flaws just like we do our baseball heroes. Only later, when we reach middle age or a higher level of cognition to we begin to question those figures’ perfection. Nobody is inherently perfect, everyone has flaws, and I think what Bernie means by “mysticism” is that we’ve long wondered how these players are able to advance their abilities to the point where they make a near impossible task look effortless. This is true for baseball as well as it is any other sport, be it soccer, golf, football, etc. It seems like magic to us, because it’s something that we can’t fathom doing or even having the ability to do consistently. When we talk about Mickey Mantle, you talk about his 3.1 seconds to 1st base, his 565 foot homer at Yankee Stadium, but we don’t talk about his drinking, his womanizing, or any of his other problems off of the field. We don’t want to believe that they have the same problems that we have in their private life. We romanticize these players because we’re looking for our better selves, looking for something more to believe in. The issue of steroids, not so much the issue of cheating per se, tarnishes the luster on the idol. They are no longer better versions of ourselves, but chemically enhanced super humans, and ones the we feel we could be if we also made the same sacrifices to our health.

Annie looks at baseball as her religion, how she relates to the world, how the world explains itself to her. The game itself isn’t perfect, but neither is life (“Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball…”), so the key is finding what makes you happy, what touches your soul, and what marks the time for you.

I’m always a little suspicious of end-times hysteria, if only because it has such a hilariously bad track record. People have been announcing the death of Baseball’s Soul since Old Hoss Radbourn was on some Fetal Hoss Radbourn shit, and for just about every reason imaginable. So when I hear folks saying this sort of thing, I don’t sweat it much—especially when some of the folks saying it are grizzled sportswriters, whose standards of baseball naiveté are…um, non-standard. I understand that baseball has lost its magic for them—but what does that mean for me, or for anyone else?

Religion really is a decent analogue here. If my friend loses her sense of connection with God, I might well feel sorry for her, and even appreciate the explanation she gives. But why, if my own connection to God remains intact and vibrant, would she be justified in calling me naive or benighted? I believe that emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic responses are things that can properly come under rational scrutiny; I just don’t see the move in this particular case. (Full disclosure: I’m your typical smug atheist.)

So, yes: if your love of baseball is intimately tied up with its fairness, and if you think PEDs have seriously undermined that fairness, the cognitive dissonance might getcha—it might mess with your ability to find joy in the game. But if you don’t think that the PED situation is threatening to baseball’s fairness, or if you simply aren’t sure what to think about that, or if you have counterbalancing reasons for loving the game, or…you get the idea. Point is, there’s joy to be found as long as people are still finding it. Like Jules in Pulp Fiction says, what matters is that you feel the touch of God (in our case, Mike Shannon). I still do—and how. But that’s just me.

FWIW, I’m wayyyyy less worried about baseball losing its grip on people that love it fiercely (or once did) than I am about baseball’s ability to attract new lovers. And on the list of reasons to worry about that, PEDs don’t crack the top ten.

whilst their industry depends on indoctrinating children to continue their financial viability.

Creepy, eh? I could argue that they’re not meant to be role models, but they are role models, like it or not, and there’s not a one of them who can come to the ballpark and see all those young faces and deny that they’re not.

As for the game… baseball itself is such an equalizer. Justice comes to those who wait. As long as they play as many games as they do, and play it the same way, it will out. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. No one person is greater than the game of baseball. You test that at your own risk. And so far, I haven’t heard a single person saying they took PED’s to help their team win. It was all about them, and their careers.

(The GOB are not vengeful. There’s no spite there. They’re just mean bastards who don’t like to be ignored, and have no sense of time. They make their presence known sooner or later.)

That’s caused the romanticism of baseball to go from Don Juan, to Christopher Walken as “The Continental” on SNL in terms of romantic ability.

Yes there’s the cheating, the steroids, but there was always some form of cheating throughout the years, be it the Black Sox, Pine Tar, Pete Rose’s gambling, etc. Also I agree with the all access reporters who would give the Bambino a pass, but publicize every time Barry Bonds so much as farted in public.

I think the thing that has ruined it beyond repair for me though is the horrible announcing of the games, and the way they try to force everything into being more meaningful than it is. I know that may be unclear, but the way we are 3 innings into game one of a divisional series, and anything that has happened that’s even slightly above average, is packaged into a montage shown before they cut to commercial. Yay Jeter made a charging through, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be set to Tchaichovsky’s flight of the bumble bee and shown 50 times in slow motion.

One of the beautiful things about the past that I think led to it being more romantic is the fact that if you were listening on the radio, or watching older broadcasts, the replays were less frequent, and the moment was memorable because of Harey Caray, or Joe Buck making a great call. They didn’t have to package it to tell you what was memorable, because their genuine (and I’m guessing mostly unscripted) reaction and silky voices (well maybe not Caray) made it memorable. Now you see guys (and I like Buck’s son mostly) who obviously script and write down their nuggets they will say if so and so hits a homer, and if another guy makes a great play. They seem canned and forced.

On top of that, most former players turned announcers, or at least the ones who get the biggest gigs (Morgan, McCarver, etc) knew how to play the game, but don’t know much about the analytical side, and they end up saying stupid things like this from Game 2 last night (Even if the outfielder doesn’t have a good arm, and the runner is fast, he will usually hold up if the outfielder is charging.) not a direct quote from McCarver, but he said it when Cabrera picked a ball up in the 8th that was maybe 50 feet into the outfield. No Shit Rollins is going to hold up, and it doesn’t have to do with that. It would have been better analysis if he said something like, “Because Victorino isn’t as much of a power threat, Cabrera can play in, and since he was also charging, Rollins thought better of it.” That’s better then saying charging alone, because is there ever a grounder through the hole where the outfielder just sits there and waits for it?

Sorry about the vent. Thanks to anyone with the patience enough to read this. After last nights horrible officiating, I can’t help but root for the Phillies, as much as I hate there fans. I’m out.

I grew up loving baseball during the Whiteyball era Cards. I played it as often as I could and collected baseball cards like crazy.

Baseball cards led to the romanticism of the game for me, because I started looking at the books that they tell you the value of baseball cards, and wondered why Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio, et al cost a lot when Steve Braun and Tom Brunansky didn’t (to use an extreme example). So I’d read up on those players and found out who they were and what they did (in a library, because this predates the web or at least the non-govt / university version of it). I fell in love with the Cardinals b/c I’m from St. Louis and also fell in love with the Yankees because of their history. I began reading as much on Roger Maris as I could, and went as far as saving up to buy a Maris rookie card. I found it interesting that this guy who had such an amazing season, under so much pressure, who by all accounts was a cool, shy guy, was so un-liked in NY because he wasn’t Mantle. I also thought it was really cool that the back of his card said Raytown, MO.

Anyway, as I grew up, I would read the STL P-D every day for box scores and remembered being really excited to see Ray Lankford in person for the first time (and being really, really bummed when we traded McGee). The strike broke my heart. Because I had just graduated high school and couldn’t believe that these jerks couldn’t get it worked out.

I was still at Mizzou when we traded for McGwire and remembering thinking how awesome and weird of a trade that was, considering how far back we were at that time.

I watched (and read about it daily) the 98 home run race, visiting St. Louis as often as possible to see games. I wasn’t stupid, I figured McGwire was on Andro or more, but I didn’t care at the time. It was fun. It brought the game back (along with Cal’s streak).

The Cardinals teams of the Aughts have been awesome to watch both in person and through the internet. Getting a subscription to baseball prospectus and sites like this and understanding SABR side has helped me enjoy the game even more.

So with my whole life history as a baseball fan here, the question I ask of Miklasz, Burwell and all of them (especially McKenna), where were the questions in 98? Why didn’t everyone do more asking? Why did it take Canseco blowing a whistle to make the truth come out?

Did it turn me off from baseball? Maybe a teensy bit, but it definitely made me a cynic. Did it make it less romantic? Not in the least. For as much as I love Lankford when he was coming up, I loathed seeing him in pressure situations near the end of his career, because by then I was calling him Always K Ray. Being a romantic doesn’t mean you aren’t a realist. And just like I was a realist about steroids, I’m a realist about McGwire now. If he can help the Cards be more patient and have a better strategy than this season, I’m all for it. I just hope it doesn’t become a distraction, because even the romantics are realists.

The lifeblood of a sport is the next generation. My concern is that, with the way ticket prices have gotten, it’s getting harder to bring a family to a game. That is going to reduce the number of passionate fans. I think baseball could be doing fine in the present but shooting itself in the head when it comes to the future.

… does that meanz i has no pashinz?

Even if every single player on both teams was roided up, it would not make the happenings on the field any more or less real. In fact, they should really legalize steroids for everyone, if we want a truly competitive group of players.

And why should we not like baseball anymore? Because we are confronted with truth that we can no longer look away from? You watch baseball to see athletic and strategic achievement. If you like the game, you keep watching, if you don’t, you watch something else. The fact that now I know that Joe Ballplayer goes to strip clubs or Steve Bullpen beats his wife or that every last one of them uses steroids effects me ZERO. The game is hit the ball, throw the ball, catch the ball, no more, no less. If you watch baseball as a way to lie to yourself about reality and human nature, you don’t deserve to have anything to enjoy in life.