Other than the times when a nap is in order, I struggle to find a good reason to watch baseball. Game 7 of the World Series (a misnomer if ever there was one), may be an exception, but that one day hardly compensates for the six months of mind numbing boredom that precede it. I don't think I've always felt this way. In my youth, I played the game for several years, recorded 7 home runs, played for a championship team, was once voted Most Valuable Player on my team, and yet now find the sport completely dull and unfulfilling. When I'd accompany my dad to the barbershop on Saturday mornings, the older men would talk about Dizzy, Joe, and Mickey with an enthusiam I suppose added zest to life in a relatively quiet small town. As a young boy, with a 9-volt transitor radio tuned to a local radio station carrying the Houston Astros, I'd make a 'scorebook' and track the play of the game for hours.
Somewhere over time, though, the game has given way to greed, politics, drugs, and abuse. Intense media attention on every detail of a player's movements have replaced the traveling sports journalist who accompanied the teams and knew of all the 'dirty little secrets', but revered the game too highly to tranish it by reporting every player transgression. What remains today has removed the mystique of the hero exposing him for what he really is - human - fundamentally basic and flawed. Today, baseball seemingly has been reduced to 'tell all' books, congressional hearings, player deceit, lies, and tainted records. Greedy owners fight greedy players who fight greedy advertisers who fight a demanding public to the detriment of the game. It's a shame it has reduced to this.
There was a day when it was about the boys of summer and it was fun.
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