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Unit1011.pptLecture 10:
The Future of the Game
The Future of the Game
While baseball is more popular than ever in terms of team revenue, fan interest, and media coverage, there are dark clouds on the horizon. Some are more problematic than others, but baseball should face them all if it is to remain America’s pastime.
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Baseball or Scrabble?
W.P. Kinsella was shaken by the 1994 work stoppage and with the steroid scandals that followed. Speaking with Sports Illustrated reporter, Gary Smith, after the Congressional Hearings on steroid abuse in the spring of 2005, Kinsella conceded that he and other fans have “grown too cynical to be outraged. Maybe that’s what baseball is counting on…but to baseball that should be the scariest thing of all.? Kinsella, Smith reports, used to attend to major league games a season, now enters Scrabble tournaments instead.
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The Issues
Player-fan alienation
The Latino invasion
The steroid problem
The escalating costs
The minor league dilemma
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Players and Fans
Since the fan is such a central part of the baseball experience, we need to worry about the alienation of fans who no longer feel connected to players and even to the teams for whom they root. One of the unfortunate effects of free agency has been rapid player movement so that whereas once most players spent their entire careers with a single team, they now move from team to team with increasing frequency. The rise of “fantasy baseball” can be attributed in part to player movement, since in the fantasy game, a fan can field the players he loves even when they leave the team for which he roots. But this is hardly a panacea for a problem that if not seriously addressed will erode fan support for the game.
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Sheffield at Fenway
BOSTON -- Baseball's greatest rivalry has been officially ratcheted up. Now the fans are part of the action, too.
It'll be days, if not weeks, before Boston police determine whether a crime was committed at Fenway Park Thursday night. But this much is certain: the near-brawl between Gary Sheffield and the fan who allegedly struck the right fielder in the eighth inning has strained relations between the Yankees and Red Sox.
While Joe Torre was quick to say, "we're not mad at the Red Sox" he harshly criticized Boston fans who he felt were responsible for provoking Sheffield.
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An Antidote to Selfishness
Some teams strongly encourage their players to become involved in civic affairs in the communities in which they play, both in the major and minor leagues. Starting in 2005, the New York Mets sponsor a program for their minor league team in Hagerstown, MD where players work with at-risk young people in a local Boys and Girls Club. Efforts like this can promote healing and bridge the widening gap between players and fans.
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An Antidote to Selfishness
The Mets service program just completed its eleventh year with programs in every community in which the organization has a minor league affiliate…..Kingsport (TN), Brooklyn, Savannah, Port St. Lucie (FL), Binghamton (NY), and, yes, Las Vegas. At the right see current big league pitcher Seven Matz working in a 2015 school-based anti-bullying programs in Las Vegas while he was the Mets AAA affiliate in that city.
The Latinos
Latin players, chiefly from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, now comprise nearly thirty percent of Major League players and an even higher percentage of players on minor league teams. In the minor leagues, at least, where young men compete against one another for those few prized roster spots in the “bigs,” antagonisms exist between American and Latino players in which the Americans resent competition from the Latinos and the Latinos feel misunderstood and unwanted. The fact that many minor league managers and coaches don’t see or understand this and other issues that deal with Latino ball players makes it even more problematic. Teams must develop cross-cultural education and diversity appreciation initiatives to avoid what could well become a divisive force which will undermine the very nature of “teamwork” upon which team sports depend.
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The Latinos
All thirty major league organizations run baseball academies in the Dominican Republic where young Latino players strive to “make it” to the US. As we’ve seen in Sugar, this is no easy task. To help solve the kinds of problems Sugar faces, the New York Mets have instituted an English language and culture program at their academy in which American college students live and work with the players – teaching English and preparing to live and work in the USA. At right, see a UCF student meeting with players she taught in the DR who, in 2015, played for the Mets affiliate in Kingsport, TN.
Steroids
The failure of MLB to deal quickly and decisively with the use by players of performance enhancing drugs is disgraceful. The House inquiry into the matter in the Spring of 2005 was humiliating to both the players who testified and to the Offices of the Commissioner and the Players’ Association. The revelations by Jose Canseco, while probably exaggerated, were damning. And the negligible punishments meted out to those involved in the BALCO scandal, were shameful. Something needs to be done NOW!
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Steroids and Fans
“I was there, that June at Wrigley, when the fever caught Sammy,” writes SI’s Gary Smith. “See, that’s me and the three kids in the bleachers that weekend he rocked five out of the cathedral.” And now, “I look up…My God. It’s Sammy and Big Mac, six and a half years later, together again…at a table in the Rayburn building on Capital Hill…McGwire clenching back tears, refusing...to answer questions about anabolic steroids. Sosa denying he used them…but boy, of boy, that body language and those brief mumbled replies….[And] another summer full of moments will soon begin, the biggest home run record of all ripe to fall. What will we do, each of us, now that we know?”
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Steroids or Black Sox?
“This is worse than the Black Sox scandal,” says Terrence Moore, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“That was several players fixing one World Series. This is a much larger group of players fixing records that may last for decades. The story has become baseball’s Watergate. It started as a minor break-in and just kept growing.”
At right see Baltimore outfielder Brady Anderson whose home run production went from 16 in 1995 to 50 in 1996. He hit 18 in 1997.
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Escalating Costs
While attending a minor league game or a game in a handful of small-market big league cities remains affordable, that is no longer the case in major markets where rising players salaries and owners’ profits are turning baseball into the pastime of the rich rather than the game of all Americans. A family of four who attend a game in Fenway’s Green Monster seats can expect to pay upwards of $500 for two or three hours of entertainment, and this assumes they have but one hot dog and beverage and have only a single car to park. This cost issue is an increasing and could well undermine the support of the very fans who make the game so very special.
The Minor Leagues
A Special Case
All but a handful of even the greatest of Major Leaguers earned “their stripes” by playing in the minors. DiMaggio and Williams, Ruth and Gehrig; they all started their careers on baseball farms!
“Minor league baseball is where big dreams meet slim chances and wide-eyed boys develop into big-league men – or hang up the uniform for the last time.”
From Brett Mandel, Minor Players, Major Dreams
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The Minor Leagues
Every year, 1,500 young men are drafted by the 30 Major League teams. For those who sign after graduating from high school, after a year or two of junior college, or when they finish three years (or turn 21 years of age) from a four-year institution, it means that their formal educations are interrupted and sometimes permanently truncated as they pursue their dream to make it to “the bigs.” Viewed realistically, however, the majority of minor league players have little chance of making it and serve as role players for those top draft choices who are viewed as genuine prospects by the teams that draft them.
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The Minor Leagues
While the minor leagues date back to the late 19th century with the founding of International Association with teams in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Ontario, and Lynn (MA), the current structure of minor league baseball has its genesis in the so-called “farm system” established by Branch Rickey when he was General Manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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The Minor Leagues
By 1940, Rickey’s Cardinals owned 32 minor league teams and had affiliation agreements with 8 others. Together, Rickey had control of over 800 ballplayers. Today’s minor leagues have been scaled back dramatically, with each major league team having approximately 200 players under contract on six or seven minor league teams. Typically, each team will have a “AAA” team, a “AA” team, a high and low “A” team and one or two short-season rookie league teams. Many major league teams also maintain summer league teams in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
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The Minor Leagues
Derran Watts (above left) from the University of British Columbia and Tyler Davidson from the University of Washington are members of the NY Mets organization who left school early to fulfill their dreams of playing professional baseball. Both played on the Mets high “A” team in St. Lucie in the summer of 2005 and returned to their universities during the off-season to complete their degrees. Watts received a degree in English literature from the University of British Columbia; Davidson in sociology from the University of Washingtoin Both were exceptional college athletes. Each had about a 5% chance of making it to the Major Leagues. Neither did.
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The Minor Leagues
Some players never quite learn from their experiences and have a very difficult time adjusting to life outside baseball when the dream ends. Others, like Greg Mullens, a Columbia graduate who is now a lawyer in New York and Steve Schmoll, a former Mets pitcher who has big league time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, is a successful physicians assistant in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Both are very special guys.
The Minor Leagues
Charles “Bo” Bowman was a gifted high school baseball player from Alabama who left college early to sign a professional contract with the Texas Rangers. Three years later, after being traded to the New York Mets, Bowman was released. He completed both his undergraduate degree and an MBA.
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The Minor Leagues
Mateo Miramontes, a Mets sixth round 2003 draft choice from the University of Nevada-Reno, became frustrated by his failure to pitch effectively and at what he felt was a lack of concern by his manager and coaches. Unlike most players who will hang on until they are released, he quit baseball to return to college.
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Bullpen Gospels
Dirk Hayhurst’s Bullpen Gospels (2010) which to my mind is the best book ever written about baseball’s minor leagues and one of the two or three finest book about any aspect of the game shows us the reality of the game from the inside. Hayhurst was a member of the San Diego Padres organization when he wrote the book. He finally got a shot in the majors with both the Padres and Toronto, but due to some nagging injuries and the increasingly realization that he was a better writer than a pitcher, he retired and has gone on to write a number of other important books about the game. See the author at the right.
Dirk Hayhurst
Actually, Dirk Hayhurst is a genuine original. I’ve met him and have never encountered anyone quite like him in baseball or anyone else. He’s quirky, but he’s tremendously bright and if one reads his books closely, his sincere and unwavering concern for the game and his belief in the ability of players to work meaningfully for important social change in our society shines through. He’s a remarkable human being.
Finale
Despite the nagging problems discussed above, baseball remains alive and well. With the requisite care that needs to provided to the game by owners, players ands fans, it will remain America’s pastime for decades and perhaps centuries to come.
“Attending a Giant game with me, say my cronies, is an experience comparable to shooting the Snake River rapids in a canoe. When they lose I taste wormwood. When they win I do a tarantella on top of the dugout. A Giant rally brings out the roman candle in me. The garments of adjoining box-holders start to smolder.”
From Tallulah Bankhead, “Tallulah”
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Casey at the Bat
What better way to end this inquiry into the literature of baseball than with the most famous poem ever written about America’s pastime, Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.”
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Casey at the Bat
What better way to end this inquiry into the literature of baseball than with the most famous poem ever written about America’s pastime, Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.”
Casey at the Bat
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped--
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted some one on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go.
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville--great Casey has struck out.
