Reviews

Baseball: You're Killing Your Own Business

2/19/2022

Bet you 3-2 the baseball season starts late

I think I can speak for baseball fans, given that I am about the average age of people who still care about the “sport.”
People my age talk about the day Mel Stottlemyre legged out an inside-the-park grand slam (past Yaz!) or the day Rod Kanehl joyfully earned $50 from Casey Stengel for getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Seems like yesterday.

I bet more kids of a certain age recognize Kylian Mbappé or Mohamed Salah than most baseball all-stars. They are better fans than soccer deserves, given the clueless lusting to hold the World Cup every two years instead of every four. Somebody please pass the news to FIFA President Gianni Infantino that the four-year format is precisely the reason the World Cup is the best sports event in the world.

Now Commissioner Rob (Roll Those Bones) Manfred is gambling that he can put the squeeze on baseball players, even if he loses a month or three of the season?
Doesn’t Manfred know that the baseball season actually begins when the Super Bowl (I didn’t watch) or the Olympics (ditto) are over?
It’s in the body clock of the established baseball fan to anticipate photographs of ball players loosening up their arms in a warm climate. (Just the names Vero Beach and St. Petersburg and Arizona used to get me through the viciousness of late February.)

But now Manfred is toying with the business he helps run. He’s gambling – there’s that word again -- that he can put the squeeze on the players even if he loses spring training….and April….and May. After all, there’s always expanded playoffs. (I just read Tyler Kepner’s informed column in the Saturday NYT that says MLB’s bottom line is 14 playoff teams into November.)

Plus, this lockout is costing television commercial revenue from sport’s New Best Friend -- gambling dens online –every gambler a king, if he hits it right. (Got a gambling problem? Oh, yeah.)
Sports leagues have done an ethical 180 about gambling. The money will roll in when the ads start playing, and fans – even in the high-roller seats behind home plate – are dialing in bets on the next at-bat.

I can picture Aaron Judge coming up to bat in a crowded Yankee Stadium and striking out with the bases loaded – followed by cameras showing a couple of schmoes behind home plate, sporting Yankee caps and maybe even Judge jerseys, whooping it up because…they had a hunch the big guy would whiff. WTF???

However, that scenario depends on a settlement. Right now, we are in the great frigid gap before warm-weather sports.

I ducked the Super Bowl, even on an icy day when there was no way I was even going outdoors. I’m retired and I don’t get paid to spend four hours watching that stuff.

I also ducked the Olympics because I realized a decade ago that the best part of the Olympics, for me, was going somewhere interesting and seeing how Seoul or Barcelona handled a major event. I have memories of dozens of great Olympic experiences like watching Sarah Hughes perform a joyous free skate for a gold medal in 2002. (Look what Laura Vecsey wrote in the Seattle P-I that night.) I wouldn’t trade those superb Olympic events for anything.

But the Olympics have morphed – no matter how much TV still pumps up the product -- into a costly spectacle, that only dictatorships can justify anymore. The best thing that ever happened to my hometown of New York was not getting the 2012 Summer Games (I will always be proud of my blatantly minority stand against New York’s bid.)

The true face of today’s Olympics is the cruel molestation of a young Russian figure skater who had tested positive for drugs coursing around in her system, perhaps to keep her 15-year-old body from developing, so she could perform a quad. And when the Russian and Olympic complicity and dawdling broke the poor kid down, her coach berated her at rinkside and could not even extend a consoling embrace.

The Russian apparatus seemed untouched by setting up a young girl for this.
Then again, there are far more ominous things going on in the world.

Given that, it is stupid of me to wish there were traces of normalcy for that aging cadre of fans who still talk about Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente -- guys warming their arms in what passes for southern heat in late February, a sign that something, anything, is all right.

ALAN D. LEVINE

2/19/2022 03:09:40 pm

George--I have nothing to add. You've said it all.

Ina

2/19/2022 07:08:11 pm

Way to go, Laura. Liked your stuff, too, George.

Lee Lowenfish link

2/19/2022 03:19:46 pm

Pretty amazing how long after Dickens and Balzac, names of people define them. Didn't know that Gianni Infantino was the soccer honcho childishly expanding the World Cup. Did know that Morgan Sword is Manfred's lieutenant who is slicing down the minor leagues.

ALAN D. LEVINE

2/19/2022 03:36:22 pm

You left out Troloppe's Dr. Filgrave.

George

2/19/2022 08:08:34 pm

The villainous previous head of soccer was Sepp Blatter. When Robin Williams had to introduce him at a soccer bash, he couldn't believe his luck. "May I call you Mr. Blatter? I've been feeling you a lot lately," or something like that. Blatter wanted female players to wear tight shorts. Infantino wants to cut the process and the rarity of years of qualifying and speculation and heartbreak at not making the final tournament. Where do they get these people?

Andy Tansey

2/19/2022 03:34:51 pm

Thank you, George, for this perspective which generates a range of feelings, from nostalgia for the innocent happiness of pure sport to despair about the control of money and win at all cost mentality.

I'm old enough to remember when ordinary ballgames involving teams with no post-season hopes, when the odds were stacked as one team from each league, brought moments of great happiness. John Ellis hitting a double off Vida Blue. Has baseball changed, or have I just gotten older? I am old enough to remember enjoying baseball statistics when they were generated by outstanding performances, as opposed to when statistics now dictate who gets to perform on a pitch-by-pitch basis and will determine the odds for so many who have stakes but who cannot afford them. I am old enough to know that having something to look forward to can be more important than the actual occurrence of that event. Pitchers-and-catchers-report was always one of those days generating happy anticipation of more pleasant times to come.

That so much of the USA economy is based on entertainment and shuffling dollars from virtual place to virtual place, as opposed to work ethic and tangible product, troubles me. Has our society matured to the point where we have been too comfortable for too long, so that now the way to earn our keep is to sit back, enjoy, play and manage risk while other countries control the means of production? Is there cause and effect between the domination of leisure by money and the prevalence of money earned from leisure?

Russia's state-sponsored cheating convinced me early on about the leader of the bigger threat we see unfolding in the Ukraine. What type of leader would want his national team to win so badly that he would foster cheating? Where is the satisfaction in such victories? I appreciate the insight that only dictators can comfortably aspire to host the big games nowadays - so much that they'll cheat to get them.

George

2/19/2022 08:11:05 pm

Andy: regarding your comment about the murky economy, I have only one word (which I dont understand): Bitcoin. WTF.

Doug Logan

2/19/2022 03:50:48 pm

I knew when English soccer started pandering to the betting shops, that the world, as we knew it, was over. Manfred is playing with fire. All people see are padlocks on palm tree shaded gates and Soto turning down zillions. “Pitchers and Catchers” has lost its allure.

George

2/19/2022 08:12:42 pm

Estimado Sr: Tienes razon, pero no digame. GV

Darrell Berger

2/19/2022 03:54:09 pm

We long for our lost innocence and blame the bosses, We now see the skull beneath the rosy cheeks of youth.

2/19/2022 08:13:32 pm

Darrell: so Shakespearean. GV

Marty Appel

2/19/2022 04:03:33 pm

The Judge scenario is a good one because not only will there be people cheering when he strikes out, but a lot of people wondering whether his brother in law just made a fortune on the "tip" from Judge, because who cares about a first inning strikeout. Watch for suspicions on field goals and foul shots too. The suspicion is enough to kill the games we love, and the athletes have to live in that world now, people doubting their intentions. As for Manfred, could he at least PRETEND that there is a fan interest in mind? Or do we just sit back and say "charge us more!!!" as the economics gets out of hand.

Ed Martin

2/19/2022 07:44:52 pm

Alan, its been several years since I sat on the sidelines of a college game, home team side and watched two “fans” not really caring about their team winning, they were following the spread they had bet, thats what counted.

Nothing good for sport can come from gambling, I remember CCNY, NYU! Seton Hall Kentucky and, anybody recall horse and dog racing?

2/19/2022 07:46:22 pm

Marty, Said Alan, ment your comment. Je regret!

2/19/2022 08:16:10 pm

Sitting in MSG and hearing a rumble of happiness/discontent over the last foolish layup cuts the margin to 5 points, beating the spread. I used to refer to college games in MSG as Point Spread University.
First game I ever saw was a dump -- Kentuciy to Loyala (Ill)

Alan D Levine

2/19/2022 04:11:39 pm

Actually, George, I do want to bring up one issue you didn't mention. Actually, it doesn't seem to have been an issue for players and owners as they seem to have both agreed on it. I'm referring, of course, to the spread of the designated hitter to the National League. Yes, I'll keep going to games despite this abomination, but I predict there are others who will consider it the last straw and just find other things to do in the summer.

George

2/19/2022 08:22:29 pm

Alan, the Mets have kept me going during two years of quarantine and I'll need their erratic presence again. I maintain my posture about the DH because of good hitting pitchers in my youth -- the great Don Newcombe, whom I got to know. The Dodgers have often had good hitting pitchers. Lasorda and Davey Johnson and Whitey Herzog sent pitchers to the OF in lineup squeezes. But I think that battle is lost. The pitcher is a specialist...let;s say, like the keeper in soccer. Then again, some keepers can dribble out of trouble -- the German national star, Neuer -- and I love watching keepers move forward in the final minutes when a goal is absolutely essential.Still, pitchers soon to be treated as one-skill athletes. GV

Alan D Levine

2/19/2022 08:30:32 pm

George, I know what you're saying, but it contributes to the dumbing-down of the game. The bunt will almost disappear; the double switch will probably fully disappear.

Randolph

2/19/2022 05:45:47 pm

George,
Your musings have triggered an old Simon and Garfunkel song to start playing in my head:
“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you..”

Better yet, whatever happened to Pee Wee Reese, Dizzy Dean and Falstaff beer?

Oh that’s right, now we have gambling commercials and Joe Buck Jr.
I think I am going to be sick.

On a positive note, thanks for the nice article from your daughter, Laura. It doesn’t seem like that was 20 years ago.

Then again, I think that next week it will be 50 years since you were taking that dangerous helicopter ride down in Buffalo Creek.
Keep breathing and of course writing,
R

2/19/2022 08:25:21 pm

Ed, yes, we covered a lot of the same events. Went to the shot-put in the 2004 Olympics in Ancient Olympia in the same dusty field as the first Olympics. Somewhere there is a photo of the two of us in that historic setting, GV

Edwin W. Martin Jr

2/19/2022 05:46:23 pm

GV, until I got to the last paragraph, I was thinking, “and guys my age, and quite a bit younger, remember Jackie, Sandy, Duke, Gil, (hooray, finally,) Carl, Pee Wee, Oisk, and even earlier, Fat Freddy, Miksis, Reiser, Augie, “The Violin”, and oh, Forgot, Gene Hermanski, the rookie outfield opening the season one year, was Hermanski, Snider and Furillo! Soon replace by Dixie and other vets, nut not for long!

And the community! Folks sitting on their “stoops” listening the Red and Connie, later Vince. Kids like me earning money to get to Ebbets, even taking the subway to 155th street to that “fake” ball park, worse than the LA. Coliseum!

After returning to Long Island after 30 years or so, I eventually joined the Met mourners, but managed to see the 1986 playoffs and WS at Shea with my sons!

But the situation you describe George has reduced my interest to checking the scores, scanning, and yawning.

PS. Sarah, Great Neck, came to Sports Night, at the Disability Center, thanks to Jo Jo Starbuck, Olympic figure skater, who co MC’d with John Dockery, a rare Ivy League NFL player.

Cheers gang!

2/19/2022 08:28:09 pm

Sarah -- now a lawyer -- and her family are all class acts. To see somebody you know and respect have a night like that is a great thrill. We're not supposed to root -- and outwardly we don't -- but it was a thrill, all the same. GV

Andy Tansey

2/19/2022 06:37:43 pm

Mom claims that, during the previous World War, to earn their way into Ebbets Field, she and her buddies hauled an old iron stove to contribute to the war effort. Pete Reiser was the heartthrob. With betting in those days, there might be odds on his next concussion.

Betting on games! What next? Will they legalize pepper games? Pete Rose's Hall ban lifted?

2/19/2022 08:32:06 pm

Andy, your mom is right. One of my earliest memories is fall of 1944, a war-bond drive in Ebbets Field, free admission, just buy bonds. I can remember my father driving downhill on Bedford Ave, and seeing the back of the outfield fence -- it was like going to the Mother Ship. They had a tank rumbling around the outfield and the only sign of a player ws Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons, no longer a Dodger, but operator of a nearby bowling alley, hustling war bonds.I was 5, and can visualize it all. GV

Edward M. Shain

2/19/2022 07:29:48 pm

Very nice to see you're still here and writing. I've fond memories of our exchanges when you were still at NYT.

Had no idea you were blogging. Will bookmark and follow.

As with you, my wife, Laura (really!) and I are of that certain age. We're baseball crazed. The strike has us miserable. My in-his-40's son is equally soured. It's the only sport we deeply care about, and it's dying on the vine..

We've faced the awful truth. As with so much else, it's never going to be the way it was. Once naïveté is demolished, can cynicism be far behind?

Alan D Levine

2/19/2022 08:20:09 pm

And we haven't discussed Matt Harvey's admitting to a coke habit.

2/19/2022 08:38:14 pm

Dear Mr Shain: Welcome to My Little Therapy Website.
Keeps me going.
It's not what it was -- I loathe all those analytics and uppercut swings and drastic infield shifts and pitching changes -- but the inner logic of baseball still works, if they would just let the players play, Throw strikes. Make contact. Best, GV

Altenir Silva

2/19/2022 08:31:20 pm

Dear George: now, I love baseball more than soccer. What I’ve felt about soccer was in the past. Then, let’s play ball.
Stay well/A

George

2/19/2022 08:42:45 pm

Altenir: You are a great Yankee fan. Likewise, at my first World Cup in 1982, I saw Socrates, Falcao, Zico, Junior -- the best soccer team ever to not win its World Cup. I was hooked on the sport and on the historic link between Brazil and Italy that summer. GV

bruce

2/20/2022 09:36:21 am

george,

all true.

read a piece not too long ago about baseball players--who used to be #1--were way down the (american) list behind football and basketball players when it came to public recognition, endorsements, and sports garb.

ohtani did bring some hype to baseball this past season.

as for the olympics.....not crazy about china getting them.

my viewing was selective.......curling and women's hockey.

Alan Rubin link

2/21/2022 12:54:54 pm

I have rarely watched baseball since my kids finished with Little League many years ago. However, it is the game that I grew up with and it lever leaves your blood. I played both hardball and softball in junior and senior high school, but then continued playing softball into my mid-thirties.

My 3-1/2-year-older sister Gay and I often went to Yankee games at the old stadium. She never saw Joe DiMaggio hit a home rum as he seamed to wait until she went to the bathroom. We used to joke about her going to the bathroom if JD was up and some runs were needed.

I scored every major league game that I attended. It contained more information than even the newer high-tech scoreboards. It was a skill I passed on to both my kids, Jen and Josh, the first time they went to a game.

I also had them pick a player, usually an infielder, and watch what they did just prior to a pitch. “How did the second baseman know to move two steps to the right just before a ground ball was hit that way? The players know each pitch that the catcher called for, although the pitcher did not always comply.

The most exciting play I ever witnessed was when Phil Rizzuto safely executed a suicide squeeze with Joe DiMaggio on third. I happened to be sitting in the lower deck directly behind home. Joe broke for the plate the instant that the pitcher started his motion.

Rizzuto’s bunt was no last second attempt. He squared away the instant that Joe was on the move as it was essential that he made contact with the ball. He may even have made it safely to first.

After that, I always followed Rizzuto’s example when I played, no surprises, just good execution.

Early in the season of the Mets first pennant run, I took Josh and my nephew to a double header. Not only did they win both, each game was over in just under two hours.

Under the category, “Things you do for your kids”—Josh and I went to see a Metrostars soccer game in the Meadowlands. We had good seats up close and it started to drizzle. We elected to stay in our seats expecting to get a little wet. When the rain increased in intensity, we figured we were already wet, so we stayed put. When I got home I discovered that the money in my wallet was soaked.

My mother rarely accepted the fact that I did not always have homework. I had a very sophisticated dice baseball game that I would play for hours when my mother thought I was doing homework. I played full league schedules and I’m sorry that I never kept the sheet. You could select to steal, do a double play and just about any real-life baseball action.

I once passed by the press area during a game and observed how sophisticated the sportswriters score books were. They kept track of every pitch, foul ball, etc. Each inning was two pages of an open book. They indicated where the foul ball went, etc. I then understood how the broadcaster could accurately recall the previous innings.

Even today at age 86, I often mentally scoop up ground balls. Unlike in real life, I never make an error.

bruce

2/21/2022 01:09:19 pm

alan,

long time memories.

i'll be 72 in april.

i noticed you said hard ball....that's what we called it when we were kids. don't hear it that often today.

we also said fastball not softball.

played both. i was the youngest player in the men's fastball league. i turned 17 the month after the season started.

i preferred fastball because it was fast.

i was nine when i started going to fastball games in 1959.

there was a centre fielder who was the last player in the league who didn't wear a glove.

seemed ancient to me. he was probably 40.

bruce

Sidney Strauss

2/21/2022 10:36:37 pm

Suffice it to say that those of our generation are baseball “purists,” we like stolen bases , hit and runs, squeeze plays and the like. I discussed all this with my son who is 56 but his take is a little different. He loves the game to be that way too, “but Dad, analytics say it’s gone forever.”
Yet, I guess it’s called denial.
The late Bart Giamatti said there’s one game:3 outs, 4 bases and 9 innings-had he lived long enough as Commissioner, there would never would be a DH and certainly not a universal one.
In essence with the analytics, the players are just chess pieces used in a pre-set exercise. Oh yes, guys will hit 40 homers because that’s where the big money is but for me, i’d give the big money to the guy who steals 100 bases, those are the ones the fans love most. Unfortunately, with the huge TV contracts, owner could care less about fans in the seats. Look at today-no urgencyfor spring training or even the season, now it’s all about expanding the playoffs to make more and make sure there will never be another “Mr. October” because the World Series ends in November.
My stream of consciousness has run dry as we prepare for GW’s real birthday tomorrow.

George

2/21/2022 10:44:57 pm

Sid, nice to see your name here.
I agree that Bart Giamatti was a purist about baseball ...as a writer and fan....but much more of a realist as league president and commissioner. Would he/could he have abolished the DH? I kind of doubt it.It had been festering for a decade and a half. But I do know this: He was dead set against gambling, and took it personally, way too personally, when Pete Rose stonewalled them. Giamatti was also against lotteries -- government not doing its job, so approving lotteries to raise money, off the gambling of others I'd love to hear him on Rob Manfred's "roll-em" style GV

Alan Rubin link

2/22/2022 09:49:17 am

Shortly after Bart Giamatti was named baseball's commissioner he spoke at a Symphony Space Selected Shorts program at Broadway and 95th Street in Manhattan. The stage was laid out like a baseball diamond and it was a great evening of baseball stories.

I remember thinking, what a gem he was going to be- a renaissance man as the Comish.

He loss was very tragic and baseball have not really recovered from it.

George

2/23/2022 05:08:36 pm

Alan Rubin, regarding Phil Rizzuto's bunt:
Did you know that Rizzuto had a signal that he gave when he was going to bunt?
True. In those days, the photographers were on the field, and inched toward home plate, brave souls. Rizzuto was friendly with Ernie Sisto of the NY Times, both proud smaller artists who bonded, He would signal Sisto to get in position -- don't know what it was, but Sisto did, and profited from it.

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Baseball: You're Killing Your Own Business

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