The World Series starts next Tuesday and I would be hard-pressed to name one player from either team. I think it’s San Francisco versus Kansas City –but don’t hold me to those teams. I just don’t have interest in the series or even baseball these days.
I was a baseball fanatic for years. I can still recall baseball stats I learned as a child: Ty Cobb, .367 life-time batting average; Babe Ruth, 714 home runs, Ted Williams, .406 batting average (The last player to hit .400. It happened, I think, in 1941.)
Now, players are traded so often that it’s hard to feel a home-town kind of identity for any of them. Yet, I remember Cobb played for Detroit; Ruth, for the Yankees for most of his career; Williams stayed in Boston.
The games I watch today are played by millionaires who couldn’t care less about the fans. The game is slick and without the passion that Casey Stengel used to exhibit when he would come out of the dugout to argue…and argue, a third strike. You are not allowed to dispute a called strike any more.
Uniforms make fashion statements these days. Back in the day when baseball was the pastime and passion of the nation, players wore serviceable work clothes to the stadium and they got dirty during the game.
Players seem preoccupied with their stats rather than their teams. Baseball seems broken to me and I don’t know what it would take to fix it.
I miss baseball but I don’t think it will ever come back. Of course, I do believe in the power of prayer.