Baseball, 2023

 

I wrote a post called "Baseball" on Apr 5, 2015. At the time, it was one of the most-praised things I'd ever written. I was asked to read it on the air on the HAN Network at that time.

In truth, I wrote it with my heart in my throat. Things at HAN were, oh, tenuous and I wrote to be in a happy place. Yet, fearing my every step at that time, I wondered if I should post it. But something wonderful happened and the reaction was overwhelming. I've referenced the post or even reprinted it every year since. I post it this year with a few updates on our game eight years later.

Happy Opening Day.

*****

From left: Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio,
Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. 

Check out that picture above. Look at them: Gehirg, Cronin, Dickey, DiMaggio, Gehringer, Foxx, Greenberg. Even non-baseball/sports fans know at least two of those names (Gehrig and Joe D., of course).

It was taken at the 1937 All-Star Game at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Look at that glorious NBC sign in the background. Incidentally, three radio networks broadcast that game (NBC, CBS, and Mutual).

You might not know that every one of those players is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet they are. Those guys aren't scrubs. They're among the best to ever play the game of baseball. Naturally, I've written tons about The Iron Horse, and a few words about DiMaggio as well. Bill Dickey, by the way, is vastly overlooked.

For you non-fans, Jimmie Foxx was the loose model for Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.

You probably know this, if you've read anything here, but I love this great game. My god, we've screwed it up incredibly over the years. The race issues were deplorable. The sport struggled with growth and competition from the NFL through the 70s (and it continues today). We've added playoff teams and dealt with drugs (steroids, greenies, cocaine, etc. Go on. Look it up.). We're worried about pace of play and bringing the inner-city back.

Well, here's my first interjection. Pace of play has become everything to baseball -- far more than concerning themselves with inner-city fans. Oh, they think shortening games will return the inner-city fans who specifically love football and basketball. Why? There's more action in the other sports. Baseball will always be for the thinking soul. That's why it's the hardest to broadcast. There's more down time. But, yes, put pitch clocks on the field and ban the shift and enlarge the bases.

We had Black Sox and a gambling Red (just put him in the Hall of Fame, please?).

Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose are no closer to getting into the Hall of Fame than Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are. Yet, I think the PED users are going to eventually find a way to get in, and, let's be honest, there are several users who are already enshrined in Cooperstown. You're a smart audience. You figure out who the guilty parties are.

We have the Babe. The one and only. The single greatest, most important athlete in the history of sports. Yes, I know, Jim Thorpe, Bo Jackson, and others might have been better true athletes, but given everything involved, there's Babe Ruth and everyone else.

Nothing -- not even Shohei Otani -- is changing my mind. It's Ruth. Next case.

We've sold our souls too many times. Baseball shouldn't open at night, but ESPN's money is too much to overlook.

It's Opening DAY, people. Not Opening Night. Can't even blame ESPN anymore. It looks like every team will open on the same day (or night) for the time since 1968 today.

Yet tomorrow (today), in the day, with the stands full and the records 0-0, the lines will be painted fresh. The grass will be gloriously green. I wish a band would play, and we could recreate some of the openings of seasons past, but a voice will intone the starting lineups, and they will gather on those freshly-painted baselines. The anthem will be sung. A ceremonial first pitch will be thrown. There might be a flyover or some other special effect.

I miss Bob Sheppard, forever the "voice" of Yankee Stadium. His introductions of the starting lineups gave me chills. It just sounded right.

Then, as there has been since 1869 (the generally agreed upon "first year" of Major League Baseball), a batter will step up to home plate. A pitcher - 60 feet, six inches away - will author a first pitch.

And there will be baseball. To me, for its history, grandeur, strategy - everything - it is the greatest game of them all.

Football is the national passion. Baseball is the National Pastime.

Give me 714. Give me .406. Sixty-one. Fifty-six. I wish we could have 1918 back, but time marches on. A fan knows what these numbers are.

It does concern me that these numbers are becoming less sacred. We had a long discussion about 70, 61, and 62 last year. Yes, the record book says 70 home runs is the record but the court of public opinion overwhelmingly said 62 became the new benchmark. But baseball has always been a numbers game. We've muddied that water badly.

Give me the billy goat. The Bambino. Curses real or imagined.

Give me those uniform numbers that we all know: four. Three. Seven. Five. Forty-two.

#BlackIsNotAMetsColor

Give me The Mick. Jeet. Gabby. Dizzy. Daffy. Dazzy. Pudge. Yaz. Three-Finger. Blue Moon. Vida. Catfish. Bucky. Stan the Man.

Funny thing: I referred to Anthony Volpe as "AV" in the last broadcast of the 2021 season. That was apparently mocked behind my back because who was I to create such a moniker? Yet I said at the time that I knew it was tenuous and I was just having fun. And since last Sunday, more than ever, what have I seen Volpe referred to as? "AV." Vindication.

Give me Willie, Mickey, and The Duke. Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Give me The Called Shot. The Homer in The Gloamin'. The Shot Heard Round the World. The Miracle of Coogan's Bluff. Those last two are the same thing.

One note -- baseball or otherwise -- that scares me is how little many care about history anymore. I'm willing to bet a lot of you don't know a lot of these references. Baseball loves its history. I love history and baseball.

Give me Ebbets Field. Forbes Field. Crosley Field. Now give me Camden Yards and Fenway and Wrigley. The Big A. Chavez Ravine.

Give me the corner of E. 161st Street and River Ave. The most famous address in sports history.

Give me the Royal Rooters and the Bleacher Creatures.

Give me 27 rings.

I'd gladly accept 28. Or more.

Give me those great quotes, from music to movies to TV and beyond.

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game." "Luckiest Man."

“That's baseball, and it's my game. Y' know, you take your worries to the game, and you leave 'em there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It's good for your lungs, gives you a lift, and nobody calls the cops. Pretty girls, lots of 'em.”

―Humphrey Bogart

Give me Vincent Edward Scully. The man known as Vin. The man who learned at the side of Walter Lanier Barber, the Old Redhead himself sitting in the catbird seat, while the bases were FOB (full of Brooklyn).

Vin was still working when I wrote this. He's since died. Damn, I miss him a lot.

Give me a Ballantine Blast. Tell me "It's Miller Time" or "This Bud's for you."

Ah, Yankees broadcasts of the 70s and 80s. I can still see Reggie, Munson, Piniella, Nettles, etc, crossing home plate and listening to one of the Yankees' "voices" saying "Hey, Don Mattingly. This Bud's for you!"

Give me Cooperstown (maybe in a little over a week from now).

We did go to Cooperstown not long after I posted this in 2015 and had a good but crazy weekend. Calling a game at Doubleday Field is a career highlight and I'd love to do it again.

I love this game. It energizes me. Engulfs me. Fills my heart, yet breaks it. It enraptured me for sure when I saw my first pro game in 1972 and a guy named Murcer doubled off another guy named Palmer. One is a hall of famer. The other doesn't need to be.

It made me cry when in 1996, my boyhood team won their first title in 18 years, and I couldn't share it with the one person I wanted to share it with.

Most of all, selfishly, give me a microphone so that I can broadcast it.

Yeah, about that. I'm getting desperate here and I read people online moaning about opportunities when they have gigs I'd give a year of my life for.

This is the beginning of my year. This is when I feel refreshed.

This is when I know that this horrible winter is over.

It's Opening Day.

Play ball.

*****

I haven't been to an Opening Day game since 1998 (I think) and that's OK. So long as I can watch the lineup intros and ceremonies, and take in the game, I'm fine. I'll be happy here at home.

I've sat and shivered through many openers but I have wonderful memories that I carry from them. It's possible that I'll go back again one day.

But there's just nothing like today. No other sport does it this well. Will the new rules be good for baseball? That's all I can hope for. There comes a point that I can only state my disagreement but still have to move forward. The Yankees opening with the San Francisco Giants -- a National League team -- is silly but interleague play has been a thing for years. I still don't like it but I'm going to focus on enjoying the game.

The game. That's what it is, right?

Yes, I know. It's also a bu$ine$$. 

But it's still the game that first pulled me in as a little kid. I was probably two or three when my obsession began.

It continues today.

First pitch: 1:05 p.m.

It's time.