Baseball Strikes Out (Again)
Growing up in as a young black male in New York City one of the recurring questions on the racial litmus test pertained to my love of baseball. There was a period of time when there wasn't a stat or obscure fact that I couldn't cite. When friends and I debated greatest teams of all-time I was the only one to routinely invoke Josh Gibson's name as catcher for this all-century team in lieu of more popular players such as Yogi Berra or Johnny Bench. Therefore whenever friends or classmates questioned my blackness, and by extension whether I had the necessary toughness to survive as a black male in New York because of my affinity for baseball, a supposedly white boy sport, I was able to confidently disregard these slights because I knew that baseball was going to always play a role in my life. Moreover, I knew that either by hook or by crook, I was determined to become a sportswriter, or one day my beat was going to be the New York Yankees.
Over time I grew more interested in other sports namely basketball, and other literary and professional endeavors where baseball did not factor in as prominently. As I cultivated these other interests, I still kept abreast of what was happening in baseball and took great pleasure whenever I got a chance to go to a baseball game. Whether it was a New Haven Ravens minor league game or an outing to the legendary Yankee Stadium, whenever I watched a game it was a spiritual experience just a notch below attending church. While basketball, football and hockey arenas always tended to feel a tad bit claustrophobic and increasingly more like a tacky mall, every baseball park that I ever went to always managed to retain a divine quality about them. In a sense I realized that I attended basketball and football games to watch an event, but I attended a baseball game to dream events.
These dreams evolved over time to visions of taking my children to the ballpark, a longstanding desire to complete a road trip of all the major league stadiums, or to at least visit all the ones on the east coast. Occasionally, I'll find myself hankering for cracker jacks, a snack that I for all intents and purposes despise, except when I'm in a ballpark. And I have no qualms about admitting that getting my driver's license ranks a distant second to finally being eligible to order a beer to go with my hotdogs when attending a baseball game.
I was so enamored with baseball that I was able to look past the steroids scandal of the last fifteen years. Most of the players involved were never among my favorites, and I was always one to argue that a lot of the criticism was overblown. However as the years wore on, I became angrier about the toll that the steroids scandal was having on baseball. It has always been my contention though, that steroid abuse is not an isolated phenomenon because it is intricately connected to inflated salaries and profit margins, teams strong-arming municipalities for new stadiums, "prime-time" games and a overall disconnection from the communities they serve. More recently, I have come to see baseball's problems (as with many issues faced in this country) as the result of a collapse in effective ethical leadership.
In spite of all of its problems in the recent past, it wasn't until today that for the first time in my life, I am ready to turn my back on baseball. When I heard the news today that players David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez allegedly tested positive in 2003, while with the Red Sox, I had to finally throw my hands up. I can really care less about Ortiz, (he was always suspect in my book), but Ramirez who I have watched play since he was a student at George Washington high school in New York City has long been one of my favorite baseball players. He's arguably the greatest hitter of his generation and a player who I paired alongside Ken Griffey Jr. my longstanding choice for the greatest player of his generation. I never fooled myself into thinking that I could have a career as a major league baseball player, but seeing Ramirez in high school and looking at the wide disparity between his physical talents on the diamond compared to mine helped me to realize that I was destined to use my talents were with the pen and not coming out of the bullpen a la one of my other childhood heroes Lee Smith.
My brother and I used to fall asleep talking about Ramirez and his acumen as a batter. We were in awe of the fact that he never appeared fazed at the plate. I remember telling him that he should approach his homework assignments like Manny approaches an at-bat cool, calm and with success already at hand.
Major league baseball could care less about me, and I'm perfectly OK with this fact. So my decision to not attend or watch any games for a year after this latest news will hardly effect their bottom line.
But, you know what, if when I get ready to come back and start watching next summer Bud Selig is still the commissioner, it's going to be very hard for me to sign back on again. The players are being rightfully punished whether it's through suspensions or the erosion of their legacies, but Selig has gotten off completely free in spite of his unethical leadership. If news broke at a school or a university that teachers were rampantly cheating, getting promoted in spite of setting bad examples for students and the community at large, not only would those teachers be fired, but so would the university. How, Selig has managed to evade responsibility for what has occurred under his watch is bewildering to me.
Therefore, since my appreciation for baseball runs deeper than my feelings for any player or team, I will merely presume when I return to the sport next year if Selig is still commissioner, then cheating is permitted and will leave my dreams at home because surely they are prohibited.
Follow Ferentz LaFargue on Twitter: www.twitter.com/professorf
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See Tom Matlack's Profile
I am with you. I live a few blocks from Fenway and have been a fan for decades. But I really am most interested these days in looking hard at our problem with manhood in America where 1 in 8 black men 20-34 are in prison and guys on Wall Street are robbing us blind. We have a crisis on our hands so my love for baseball has to take a back seat when my heroes turn out to be cheaters. If they are taking drugs how can we ask teenagers in both rich and poor neighborhoods to do the right thing and abstain?
Follow the St. Louis Cardinals and you won't be dissappointed so much. No crazy BS and they show up for in the fall. The team and fans have integrity and win, what more could you want.
I lost interest in basketball when it started developing a gang personna with Rodman, Iverson, et al. Now I've lost interest in football since so many of their players have been convicted of felonies and violent crimes like Ray Lewis, Michael Vick, the NY Giant receiver who accidently shot himself, and about 25% of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Yeah. It's getting so that pro sports is no longer family entertainment.
The main disappointment for me in the Ortiz story is that it now crushes the Red Sox world championships this century after such a long drought. They will now be known as the Boston Roid Sox and their accomplishments forever tainted.
I directly blame Selig. He bought a team, the Seattle Pilots, known to be using amphetamines. He did nothing to put drug testing in place then (and, in fact, allowed his teams to continue using greenies). He then sat idly by while then MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth allowed players to buy out their suspensions that arose out of a major cocaine scandal with donations to charity. The only one, in fact, who paid for his involvement in that with his career was Willie Mays Aikens.
Steroid use among athletes has been known since at least the 1970's, when pro football players wrote about it in their memoirs (that is how I found out steroids existed). There were also major doping scandals revolving around the East German and Chinese olympic teams. Yet, Selig never questioned whether it could be happening in his sport even as it was occurring in swimming, track and field and the NFL. He and the other owners chose, instead, to be ostriches and bury their heads in the sand and so now baseball is under this cloud. Helluva job there, Bud!
Several no so subtle differences with "drugs " in baseball.
Its not that it is a banned substance, in almost all cases it is illegal substance, that means a violation of law. Second, these guys are demanding and getting paid large amounts of money that is coming from you and me.
They want the money and adulation fine. The law wants to look the other way and not treat them like every other criminal, fine. The baseball players of old may have drank to excess but violating the law they did not get away with.
Keeping the The Hall of fame out of rach for any of those who used drugs is the minimum we can do and should.
Turn your back on all of the sports then! You think there aren't NFL roider's? Ray Lewis is all-natural? And how about the NBA and guys like LeBron and Amare Stoudamire? I really think that if we cleaned house there would be NO HONEST sports left. They have been using performance-enhancing drugs since the 1940's when "greenies"(speed) was widely used especially after a hard night of drinking(and many players partied..Mickey Mantle..ect) So let's get off the high-horses and just let them either ALL use it or ban everyone that uses it. Start in the minors. Before someone can go the majors, they have to test clean. But I love the game. Getting a edge on the other guy has always been the name of the game, whether it is a spitball, a corked bat, a new shoe, stick'em, lighter jerseys..ect Just play ball!
Here is the issue with banning steroid users after a first failed test:
Ever look at the names on the list of those serving suspensions for failing PED tests? Almost all are Latin American (and at least two are on their second failed screening). You can calculate the racial politics and the public relations problems for yourself.
Mind you, I don't totally disagree with that part of your argument. But I don't think it will happen.
I agree that Selig has been very bad for baseball. He continues to keep Pete Rose in purgatory for gambling, yet every ballpark has casino ads in it and home team play by play announcers plug them throughout the game. Radical realignment has destroyed the fundamental fairness of the game. Any wild card club that has won a World Series since it began isn't truly a champion. All clubs have 162 chances to make it to post season. If you're not on top by then, TJTMFB! But Selig has given some clubs who've finished as much as 15 games out of the running an undeserving chance at the ring.
I propose making me commissioner of baseball with Landisian-like authority to determine what is in the best interests of the game!
Why are baseball players held to a higher code of conduct than Congressmen and or our Financial Institutions...?
Because baseball has for over a century and a half been a metaphor for American life. Until the Selig era, it was a fair game, and those who excel had a social responsibility to be public exemplars because they are on the biggest stage of them all. Politics doesn't happen in the pressing of flesh during the campaign, but behind closed doors. Moreover, rare is the politician who is altruistic, or even practical. They're in it to squeeze a pork teet.
You're a college educated author, right? Have you ever drank a cup off coffee to study or write longer, be more alert during a test or make a writing deadline? Well what about all those poor classmates who didn't? Did you disadvantage them? Should your degree or published works have an asterisk next to them? The problems are our selfish win-at-any-costs attitudes and our diefication of grown men who play a game for a living. There will always be ways to enhance one's performance, but I'm not hearing the objections to test takers who use ADHD meds to concentrate or the 65 year old using viagra. Our 'fairness' in sports is from the same mythological place as our 'democracy at home and abroad' or our 'social mobility' or our 'Christian nation'. We cheat, we lie, we steal. Its what made the US the US, and you know this because you are writing a book on slavery, one of the biggest lies, cheats and steals in American history. Your not a little boy talking to your brother anymore dude. The only problem Americans have with cheating is getting caught.
You site some pretty poor examples. A 65 year old on viagra is not getting paid millions to have sex nor is anyone but his wife admiring him for getting it up. Someone with ADHD has a diagnosed illness. And a student might not drink coffee, but instead Coke, or fruit juice, or even water. All of those can perk you up one way or another and none of them are ILLEGAL like steroids.
You also have a very different view of the United States as a whole than I do. I've always thought that the US was built on hard work an innovation (the airplane, the car, nuclear technology, NASA, etc). None of which did we lie or cheat to achieve. If you're OK with baseball players getting ahead by lying and cheating, good for you. I, and the author, obviously disagree.
"The problems are our selfish win-at-any-costs attitudes and our diefication of grown men who play a game for a living."
-If fans didn't get all riled up for grown men playing a game, then they wouldn't be paid millions. I was refering to students without ADHD who use it to improve concentration. Look it up, it happens and its illegal. Besides, the legality or lack thereof of drugs has nothing to do with the drug itself. We currently classify natural plants in the same category of synthetic drugs while the FDA approves medications that are deadly.
I've always thought that the US was built on hard work an innovation (the airplane, the car, nuclear technology, NASA, etc).
-So to you, the US wasnt built until the 20th century? You're disagreeing with history and me. Also, none of those inventions were accomplished in the spirit of a selfish win-at-any-cost mentality. The work of many great minds contributed through their trials and errors to every innovation you mentioned.
My point was simply that America and American's are no strangers to cheating. We live in a stolen country, occupy foreign countries on lies, exploit slave labor for low Wal-mart prices, pillage resources for our benefit and pollute the globe as though no one else lives here. Then we act surprised when our baseball players cheat? Wow.
Your recollection of telling your brother to approach an assignment the way Ramirez approached an at-bat is one of the many reasons baseball (although at any level) is important. It's a team sport that showcases the individual as well as a sport that encompasses pretty much all athletic skills. And it provides examples of endless life lessons. Love of the game is passed down from generation to generation. When you move to a new city, you may then choose to follow that new home's basketball or football team....but your original baseball team is yours for life.
That's why so many of us feel so betrayed by the Steroid Era and Selig's inability to lead. And no rubbish about who drank, who did greenies, and who did coke. Those substances do not aid recovery time, build muscle, extend stamina, and lengthen careers.
I'm amused at the few bitter posts here about the game....didn't make the team as a kid, eh guys?
I didnt make the team (little league), but I played sandlot and pick up until pony league when I finally made as a right fielder. I even made my H.S. team after I matured. I identified with right fielders especially Clemente who is, to this day, a life inspiration. He was a great athlete.
I used a big, thick handled Jackie Robinson bat. I remained a rotten hitter but I was fast and could cover the outfield in right and center.
I went to college on a track scholarship. My inspiration to stay in sports were those baseball players tho: Vada Pinson, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Ron Santo.
Ruth and Mantle drank way too much beer. That does it, I'm done with baseball.
Wassup my man?! Good article! Once again this kind a crap rears it's head again!
Sir;
Re: 'In spite of all of its problems in the recent past, it wasn't until today that for the first time in my life, I am ready to turn my back on baseball.'
With all due respect, what took you so long?
See Ferentz LaFargue's Profile
You're right it did take me long enough. It's not that these players were cited. It's baseball's apathy about this issue that continues to be disappointing.
I honestly don't see much point in getting upset about rumored-to-be positive steroid tests that were taken 6 years ago, especially with so much damning information already out. Baseball, top to bottom, did a terrible job with performance enhancers. It's better now.
See Ferentz LaFargue's Profile
On a similar thread, I believe it was Howard Bryant in his recent espn.com column on Ortiz that makes the point, why don't the players just come out and say we did it because it wasn't banned, and that there are a range of supplements that contain traces of PEDs so even if we weren't doing steroids, we'd still test positive.
See Steve Parker's Profile
Great column! Thanks!
We already kind of knew about Manny, though, didn't we?
There was plenty of outrage here in Los Angeles where Manny and Kobe are not mere more mortals, but gods ... but baseball let him back in after 50 games, not the fans. We didn't vote.
Growing up as a young white male in NYC and Long Island in the late '50s and early '60s, these were Yankee glory years. Maris' 60 homers ... then driving cross-country in 1961 and seeing "Mickey Mantle's Holiday Inn" somewhere in Oklahoma ... what a thrill for this then-8 year old!
But just a few years ago, at the Bob Hope Golf Classic at Bermuda Dunes Golf Course outside Palm Springs, I had a greater thrill --- there he was ... Yogi Berra! I greeted him with the traditional NY-Jewish greeting for Yogi ... "Yo-ga-la!" and he responded very graciously.
Should have asked him for some Yoo-Hoo ...
But again ... why the anger about Manny now and not 60 games ago?
Steve
See Ferentz LaFargue's Profile
Yogi is definitely a transcendent figure. He was one of New York's best ambassadors during the 80s. As a kid I really enjoyed hearing him talk and watching clips of his games.
I felt Steinbrenner treated him horribly..oy vey.
Yogi, Scooter and Bill White are still the voices that surface in my head when I think of the Yankees.
I gave up on baseball in 1994, when the game (excuse me, the owners and players) showed their disrespect for the fans by allowing their disputes over money to cancel the world series. I've been to maybe 3 or 4 games since, but only because someone else had already purchased tickets. I don't watch on TV and I don't listen on radio except (god help me) sometimes I watch the world series. I grew up playing baseball and deeply loved the game. Still do, to some extent. I just can't seem to forgive what is now mostly a business, not a sport, for what it did all those years ago.
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