What Would Dizzy Dean Say?

Nobody Wonders

A Day of Baseball and other Thoughts.

Once upon a time, in a new land called New York…cricket was played in all the schoolyards. The game of cricket was THE game of the new country until 1855.  And then, it happened—in 1845 a group of upper class men would get together and play the new game of “baseball.”  They called themselves the New York Knickerbockers.  And they stood remembered proudly, until that fatal day that the New York Nines beat them 23-1.

And what a beating! The fans were hooked. Here was a game where competition was the name…winner and loser. Battles on the diamond. Mano e Mano.. New York went wild, and the new country of America was hooked.

When the Civil War came the game of baseball spread all over the country. (They had to do something in-between battles.) Soon, there were hundreds of clubs, and so the love of baseball began, but didn’t really become obsessive until one very drunk man stepped up to the plate, and set the record of home runs for one season. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, a record he held until 1974 when Hank Aaron broke it.

 The new game of baseball reflected the new great nation. A nation who thought it could do anything, win any war, defeat any enemy.(and they DID!) ..and the men on the old teams represented the best of us.  The men of baseball were heroes. REAL heroes. And no boy was a boy without a baseball card collection.

And so, the great stadiums went up, and the black leagues were formed and then the women leagues. And then, the night games. We were on a roll.

During the WWII, right here in St. Louis…we had  Dizzy Dean and Stan Musical. My grandmother named her last son after Dizzy Dean, (that’s my best friend, Pattie,  standing next to Dizzy’s statue) so crazy was she about baseball, and he went on to play in the Cardinals minors. This sort of stuff happened all over the country.  

Men and women lived their lives around the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Socks, and the oldest organized club, the Chicago Cubs. All the cities had a team to compete, and on late summer nights, after work..there was always the game, and the beer. It was a great way to unite a country.

Now— we have Facebook.

So what happened to it? Like the country,  baseball has changed.

The last time I had attended a game, was at the old Roman Coliseum looking Stadium, Busch Stadium, since tore down– in downtown St. Louis. It was a couple of years after Mark McGuire (a Cardinal) had slugged out a home run race against Sammy Sousa. (A Cub)  He finally broke the home run record of Roger Maris, by hitting 62 home runs in a season…it was in a game against the Cubs in 1998.

Nobody would say, that was the day, the baseball music died.

 It was the McGuire-Sosa homerun race that got the fans back into the stands after the baseball strike. But, when the nation found out that the record was broken with the help of steroids, (and smaller infields) the magic went out of the game. Baseball players, we found out, were just like our politicians….They lie, and they cheat. They were no longer our heroes.

The Mark McGuire highway has been changed back to the Mark Twain highway. The only thing interesting about the game, after the great strike of 1994, was the home run. No more double-steals. No more pitching matches. It was a suffering 4 hours and I couldn’t wait to get home that day.

I swore I’d never go to another game. BUT….free tickets? Okay, I wanted to see the new stadium at least once.  Downtown we went, my friend Pattie and I, to the NEW stadium.

There I was sitting in an air-conditioned mall of restaurants and bars at a Cardinal afternoon game. As I admired the fact that while my friend Pattie and I could have any cuisine in the world: Chinese buffets to gourmet submarines sandwiches,— with any cocktail we could imagine, while sitting in an  air conditioned comfortable 77 degrees, while watching the hundreds of HD screen TVs.. I realized that

…the game was STILL an utter bore.

The time it took to get from the first inning to the second, you could have taken an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building, got out, walked around, came back down, and it would still have been the bottom of the first, no runs, no hits, no men even chewing gum.

Really.

Here were men, being paid millions to entertain, and about all they did was walk out to their positions, and walk back. They were lame. The crowd was lame, and it seemed this brand new ballpark was all about the concessions and the liquor, where you can practically spent your next month’s car payment on a few drinks and a meal.

A bottle of ice tea was over five dollars. A bottle of beer…eight. The price of a decent ticket? Enough to feed a family for a week.

Of course, there were still baseball fans, I saw them sitting out in the heat, with looks of hope in their eyes, but who were these people I thought? We lost 9 to 3. I had more fun watching my dog sleep this morning.

Every time our big slugger Pujols came up to the plate, he caused about as much excitement as a water beetle having sex. He struck out twice, and not even with any effort on his part.

I  would have given anything to go back to the days where the men hustled off the plates, and each moment was exciting.

But now, they pose for commercials. You don’t have to move too fast to pose.

Watching our team on the field, It was as if the teams reflected our politicians in  Washington. Overpaid…and spoiled, and just plain, incompetent.

As we were leaving early we saw some guy with a McGuire tee shire on his back, walking behind us.
“So, you’re a Mark McGuire fan?” I asked.

“I used to be.” he said.

Yeah, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I used to be a baseball fan. Now the game is a place to eat and drink, and talk to your friends. I wonder if anyone else feels the same way?

Baseball is not what it used to be, but then again, neither is our country.  

August 25, 2011 Posted by Joyanna Adams | American Culture, capitalism, Sports | American Culture, Baseball, Sports | 2 Comments