April 03, 2012

It's Baseball Season

There was once a time when baseball was king.  The nation practically stopped on Opening Day, which was on Monday.  The first game of the season was always played in Cincinnati, because they were the first professional team and that's the way it always was.  Hot dogs, beer, crackerjack and peanuts.  The greatest moment ever was when you climbed the stairs from the Wrigley Field concourse and you first glimpsed the beautiful expanse of green beneath brilliant blue skies.

At which point, you knew that all was right with the world.  Oh, the Cubs might lose or win, depending on the vagaries of the day, but for a few hours at least, you were in a better place.  I'm sure there were similar moments at every ballpark. 

Along the way, though, something changed, and not for the better.  Baseball is no longer the king of American sports.  Sushi, nachos, toasted ravioli and... walleye?... are being seen in more and more stadiums.  The season isn't even starting on a Monday in Cincinnati; it's starting on Wednesday night in Miami, for Hornsby's sake!

Except that won't even be the first game of the season.  The first official game of the 2012 Major League Baseball season was last week in Tokyo Japan, between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland A's... and it wasn't even televised.

There is something wrong with baseball, my friends.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I still love the game, and will until I die.  Maybe there's a bit of "Back in my day..." going on, but I don't think so: perhaps the pace of today's world has passed baseball by.  Cellphones and iPads are replacing transistor radios and scorecards.  Maybe "America's Game" has become America's Anachronism.

Maybe, therefore, I'm an anachronism.  Perhaps.  I don't care.  Give me the National Pasttime, please.  With plenty of mustard and bright green pickle relish.  And NO ketchup.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:49 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 316 words, total size 2 kb.

1

Baseball has been dying for a long time, a death of a thousand cuts. One of the larger cuts was when Yankee stadium was torn down.

"This is the house that Ruth built." Only it isn't, anymore. There's nothing left but the memories.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 04, 2012 12:37 AM (+rSRq)

2

Yea, verily, ketchup on a hot dog is an abomination in the sight of the baseball gods.

Kinda wish my old rotisserie league hadn't broken up....but

 

PLAY BALL!

Posted by: The Old Man at April 04, 2012 06:16 AM (TcNy+)

3 Ah, it's just because you're going to Wrigley.  I am not "really" a baseball fan, and I don't cheer for the Cubs - I cheer for whoever plays at Wrigley.

One of my intense disappointments was the week work sent me to Chicago, the Cubs were playing away, so I had to watch that other team at that other place instead.

Posted by: Mycroft W at April 04, 2012 01:30 PM (Z484j)

4 It was the every-man sport. Sandlot games, Little League, middle and high school ball, amateur leagues, and a whole array of single, double, and triple-A leagues leading up to the majors. Who didn't play some as a kid?

So what happened to that? Well, a lot of other sports got more accessible to kids, and the big-league games got a lot less accessible as prices went up (though it's still the cheapest of the major sports). Football is king here, of course. Among the urban crowd who would root, root, root for the home team, basketball has risen as the sport of choice. And among the suburban crowd, soccer has made a lot of inroads.

That breaks the chain of tradition, where you're a baseball fan because it's what you and your dad did to bond when you were a kid. And, let's be honest, baseball isn't exactly an enthralling sport to pick up if you're not already steeped in the mysticism...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 04, 2012 03:00 PM (pWQz4)

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