Dear Baseball

(I don't have proper credit for this photo but it's fantastic)

It's me. Again.

I realize I'm not very significant to you. Middle-aged, white, just trying to survive.

In some ways, our affair has been mostly one-sided.

You taught me to hurt when I learned my favorite player could be traded.

You cheated on me in '81 and left me in '94.

There were other times you lost focus.

Yet, after each betrayal, I took you back.

And now here you are again. Another dalliance.

I'll still come back. I always do. I'm part of the problem.

I've bought your tickets. I've sung your praises. I've cried the tears of the ups and downs.

I've played you. I've coached you. I've broadcast you.

I've stood and watched you on a Saturday night at a little league game when the only person I knew was an umpire.

I've sat in bleachers and watched a Cape Cod League game, not knowing the first thing about either team.

I've strolled into a college summer league booth and called games for free when I could have been at home.

I've driven to visit your artifacts and buildings like pilgrimages to some kind of holy grail.

I went and saw the remnants of a makeshift stadium that you had at Fort Bragg in North Carolina in 2016. I'm serious -- remnants -- and I was like a little kid.

In some ways, you are me and, yet, you're not.

Telling people I got a job broadcasting minor league baseball -- at the age of 50 -- was not far off from announcing that I was going to be a father. The joy was that profound.

And I've supported your MLB teams. That's where people have it wrong.

The Yankees could disappear. I loved their history and (mostly) everything associated with them.

But you -- the game -- is what has kept my heart.

I've treated Yankee Stadium like my own church. I've done the same with the plaque gallery at the Hall of Fame.

Sacred ground, I always tell first-timers.

You're blowing it, grand old game. Well, the Major Leaguers are.

The worst part is you don't seem to care.

As I've tried to educate and make non-believers appreciate baseball, you -- hell, WE -- had a huge chance to own the sports landscape. Make whatever financial considerations you have to make and get to wherever you were going to play the games.

Take your time -- sure! Let's be safe with this COVID-19. But if we could back to games by July 4, great!

And now that's not happening. Not due to coronavirus but due to the same nonsense of 1981, 1994, and so on and so on and so on...

I thought you'd learned. I really did.

The problem was that I didn't learn.

It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. Manfred? Clark? Irrelevant. In their completely tone-deaf way, they've forgotten that nobody cares in the midst of a pandemic and social unrest. They just want you.

They want baseball.

We can't have college ball. We can't have little league. We can't have American Legion. We can have smaller versions of all.

MLB should be back. Shut the pessimists up.

I don't care if you only play 70 games. I'd prefer more but pick a fair number and let's go.

Make a deal.

You should own things right now.

And you don't.

You lost a lot in '94. You stand to lose a lot here.

Fix it. Now.