It’s hard to believe the MLB All-Star break is upon us. With summer yet to arrive in the northeast, the weather here still feels like NBA playoff time. When do the Lakers arrive in Boston for yet another NBA Finals? Is Garnett’s balky knee good enough to play? What…you mean we have to wait another year to see that? The addition of Ron Artest and Rasheed Wallace to the Lakers and Celtics, respectively, has all but assured that rematch in 2010. But that’s for another Blog.
So, I guess it really is MLB All-Star week. For some reason the lure of the game no longer exists for me. Is it my age, or has the steroid era dampened my enthusiasm for the game and its stars? Probably a little of both.
However, for me, the game of baseball, once filled with statistics that mattered and star players who gathered yearly to put on a “show” for baseball purists, no longer exists. Oh, sure, the All-Star game now “counts,” as the winner provides its league with home field advantage for the World Series. But that, too, is a joke. Why they allow an exhibition game to carry so much weight for its historic Fall Classic is mind-boggling.
I also wonder; do the names Pujols, Utley, Beltran, Teixeira, Longoria, and Bay bring as much excitement to today’s young fans as did Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Musial and Clemente did for my generation? I hate to sound like an old fart, but I think not.
Don’t get me wrong. Players of my youth were no angels. They drank and chased women with the best (or worst) of men. We just seldom heard about it. But there was a “star power” in those days that simply doesn’t exist today. I’m sure being a kid and only getting to see baseball games on TV on weekends helped make players larger than life during those innocent years, but I think it goes beyond just that. Times have changed – and so has the game of baseball. Sadly, for the worse.
How does that song go? “Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio – a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Do you think Albert Pujols and his fans know Simon and Garfunkel?
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Old “farts” think alike. Today’s players may be better athletes, but they don’t hold a candle to the names you listed. Those were truely great baseball players.
Comment by BBallGuy — July 11, 2009 @ 8:21 am
Bah-humbug? Don Gilbert, you’re showing your age! What do you mean, “baseball has chenged … for the worse?” Baseball is still at the top of its game! Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Musial and Clemente? That may be all of them. Today, many more players put up the numbers those “old timers” did in their day! And, more! Assisted by steriods? Maybe some. But steroids or not, the parks are still full, and the TV’s are still tuned to baseball. Funny how that works.
Comment by sailorman — July 11, 2009 @ 8:30 am
Hey Sailorman…today’s numbers are fraudulent. And if you think those six names are “all of them”, then you don’t know your baseball…..
Comment by MrMet — July 11, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Sailorman…. baseball attendance is actually slightly down this year. And TV ratings are flat.
Comment by Delmartian — July 11, 2009 @ 9:05 am
As to whether Albert Puljos might know the iconic American song from The Graduate, I am afraid he would not. Perhaps if La Raza did not get so much of our tax money we might even stay an English speaking country by mid century.
Comment by Bostonian — July 12, 2009 @ 7:18 am
Mr Met,
Of copurse there are a lot more great players from years past than the ones mentioned, but I think a lot of them are bigger “in our minds” than they actually were. Check the stats … and please don’t throw PHD’s in my face! Remember, when we were younger, a .275 average was pretty good. Today, if a player doesn’t hit .300 or better, he isn’t that good.
Comment by sailorman — July 12, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Sailorman….don’t you get it? Today’s baseball stats don’t matter anymore. The steroid-era has ruined the great baseball tradition of statistics.
Comment by MrMet — July 12, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Okay, so I watched the game and was impressed (not) by the girly-man President’s first pitch. I thought John Kerry looked like a pansy when he threw out the first pitch at the Red Sox game during the Democrat Convention in 2004.
Here’s an exchange in the Fox broadcast booth I would have liked to see and hear last night:
Obama: Well, we didn’t play much baseball in Hawaii when I was growing up.
Buck: I guess you wouldn’t be playing much baseball in that Muslim school in Indonesia either.
McCarver: Yeah, and in your college days in Pakistan stoning of infidels seems more like the national past-time there.
Buck: And what passport did you use? At the time Americans could not go there. Did you renounce your citizenship to get an Indonesion one? And what about your birth certificate?
Obama: Where’s my teleprompter?!
Comment by Bostonian — July 15, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
Bostonian…..Go back into hiding….
Comment by Wilt Rules — July 18, 2009 @ 3:22 pm