MLB, You're On the Clock

 

You can't help but wonder if it has all been a waste of time.

I've loved baseball basically as much as I've (almost) loved any person. I've spent every emotion on a game that has held my soul for basically 50 years.

I've studied it to the extent my father wished I cared a lot more about the history I was being taught in school instead of the 1927 Yankees.

Yet, tonight, as baseball hangs in the balance and with fans bouncing between glimpses of despair and hope, I find myself wondering if we're the fools.

Whether you want to buy into the "millionaires versus billionaires" debate or not, the rhetoric from everyone has purely sickened me. While some are content to literally tweet every last thing as if Woodward and Bernstein have rifled off such facts, I've mostly stayed in the background. The work of a few on Twitter has been my go-to.

Without RTing their every word. That's got to be a sad life.

I've tried to be patient but I've seen this movie and, let's be honest.

They don't care.

Why have I been the fool to have put so much into all of this? I have memories of fifty years of baseball. I've read the books and visited the Hall of Fame and watched the movies and bought the audio and traded the baseball cards and hung the pictures and...

for what?

Why didn't I just invest fully in another part of baseball? Who needs the majors? The game itself is still awesome. A Little League or Babe Ruth or Cal Ripken game brings me tons of joy as I broadcast the sport at its most raw.

It doesn't matter. I can be standing leaning on a fence at Greenwich High School or in some stadium and be pretty happy. 

Literally, sitting in the booth at Trumbull as I have so many times now for Babe Ruth tournament games thrills me. Any place where I can describe the game, enjoy the weather, and tell stories will bring me joy.

Even to just watch is great. Ball? Meet bat. Here's a glove. Make beautiful music together.

Instead, I'm seeing a world where I'm just not wanted.

I realize everyone has been trying to tell me this all along but I guess it's just finally hitting me that it's passing me by.

Maybe I should just stick to being a professor of baseball history, with my focus being up until a certain point.

Like tonight.

Maybe I should stick with the black and white and early color films. With DiMaggio and Musial and Gehrig and Foxx. With Mickey and Roger.

With The Babe.

Maybe my baseball life should end when Vin walked away.

They'll resolve it tonight or overnight or sometime tomorrow. Or they won't. Then they'll start canceling games.

They don't care. Why should I anymore?

There are other places for my passion for this game. Brunswick baseball seems to want me. Maybe Greenwich High does. I hear Fairfield Ludlowe and a few other programs like having me around. Mike Buswell always wants me to call games for him and Trumbull Babe Ruth.

I'm probably turning cable off soon and, with that, I'm likely done with the YES Network.

Why waste my time anymore?

It's not that I'm desperately sitting here pining for wool uniforms or some bygone era. Honestly, I'm not doing that. I've evolved with it, though granted I'm kicking and screaming sometimes.

I'm just pretty convinced that professional baseball -- led by Rob Manfred -- doesn't care.

And when you've lost me...well...who cares anyway?

We've apparently learned nothing. 

This isn't to say I won't go back but I don't have season tickets anymore and haven't been to Yankee Stadium since before the pandemic. 

I'm not done with the game. I don't know that I'm done with MLB. 

But there's damage. 

I never thought I'd say that.

MLB is the girl you've pursued who doesn't love you back yet you continue to woo.

Maybe it's time to stop wooing.

At this time, I'm the washed-up old righty heading for the showers and wondering if I "can push the sun back up in the sky and give us one more day of summer." (Vin Scully, "For Love of the Game")

Tonight, I don't know.

Tomorrow is another game.

Maybe.

Doubleday Field, 2012