I love baseball – watching a game in person, the sights, smells, & sounds, accompanied by the PacBell/SBC/AT&T food & beverages menu (nachos, garlic fries, quesadilla, dogs, Gordon Biersch) is at the top of my list of favorite experiences. My next favorite way to experience baseball is listening on the radio – some of my earliest memories are hiding under the covers with a transistor radio (btw: the size of 3 iPods stacked together,) listening to the play-by-play of some really terrible Giants teams in the 70’s & 80’s.
So, I’m pondering the most recent news out of baseball… as if the ‘allegations’ of steroid & HGH use were not enough, now it has been revealed that sometime last year, Barry Bonds tested positive for amphetamines. Using speed is illegal, even in baseball, though the usage of greenies had long been winked at by MLB, with the understanding being that with the travel & game schedule being what it is, the only way for players to be able to be physically ‘up’ for the games was to use artificial means. Baseball passed a rule against the use of greenies, & has included the drug on a list of banned substances that they test for. Greenies Story
One of the things that is not supposed to happen is the release of the name of the accused in the event of the 1st failed drug test. But, because its Barry Bonds, the info is leaked. Kind of like the ‘sealed’ grand jury testimony that leaked containing the revelations that Bonds had been using 2 substances, The Cream & The Clear given to him by his trainer, Greg Anderson.
Why the incoherent ramblings this Friday morning? I’m in mourning. Mourning, because it ticks me off that with only about a month until pitchers & catchers report, that baseball has been reduced to sensationalistic sound-bites full of allegations & accusations, with the press playing the protagonist… the same press that trumpeted McGwire & Sosa’s chasing of the Maris record as “the salvation of the game.” Too bad.
I think that baseball, for those of use who like it, is something that will always be tied wistfully to childhood. That’s what makes it so hard to continue to be a fan today.
Although the game itself has not changed, the attitudes and actions of the players have. As a result, the media chooses to focus more the on human frailty of those players.
That’s why it’s so much better in person, because when the pitcher steps out onto the mound, the only record you have to hear about is win/loss, rather than his criminal record.
**As I write this, know that I have a single tear slowly falling down my cheek, much like the one that can be seen on the faces of transient Indians when drivers throw trash at their feet.
true.
**what a coincidence! I had that same tear rolling down my cheek as i posted this morning!
…The one constant through all the years, Louie, 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, Louie. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again…thus the tear…
Thanks, Terrence.
BWAAHHAAHHA! sorry. “what do you want?”
I WANT PEOPLE TO LEAVE ME ALONE! i WANT PEOPLE TO START THINKING FOR THEMSELVES…
“No..I mean, what do you waant?”
Oh..dog and a beer.
I am with you though Louie (not Louise). I love watching baseball in the stands. Everything about it is goodtimes. It is the only time I love hotdogs. It isn’t their fault, I just disagree with their existance any other time.