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02-18-2009, 04:03 PM
Irid70
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: New Castle, Delaware
Posts: 4,498
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bigdaddyblue73
Ya know I used to really like baseball, followed the players, drafted a fantasy team. Then these greedy f*****g a*****s went on strike and the World Series was canceled. The damn World Series!!!!!!!!! The World Series is for the fans, the excitement, the tradition, and those bums took it all away. And now all these stupid jerks are getting caught for steroid use. What a bunch of losers. Nobody today and nobody today is worthy of carrying the jock strap of great players like Mantle, Maris, Ruth, Aaron, DiMaggio, Cobb...I mean those guys play for low pay, a lot had other jobs in the off season and none of them took steriods........hell they went out every night and drunk til dawn and still put on great performances. Those were men, these bums today suck. With the strike a few years ago and now all of this.....ruined baseball for me.
Well, you're allowed not to like baseball, but frankly there's an awful actually factually wrong about what you've said, especially regarding the players of old. No less august a baseball man than the great Buck O'Neil said the only reason players "in the old days" didn't take steroids was because they didn't have them. Willie Mays has said much the same thing. Ditto Mike Schmidt. Players get to that level by looking for every single competitive edge there is to be had. Now, I firmly believe using steroids is wrong. It is cheating. But baseball itself, not the players, but the owners, the commish, the coaches, trainers, and the media, fostered an environment where a huge, albeit illegal, edge was available...PEDs. Not only was it available, players were rewarded with money, attention, adoration, contracts, and endorsements for the on-field heroics steroids spurred them on to. Now we're going to wag our fingers and moralize? I can't do it. I do believe it is cheating, but the blame does not lie just with the players.
Further, those players didn't play for little money. Babe Ruth made excellent money for his time, more than the president. Joe DiMaggio used to dispute his contracts (and was an enormous ass in person; if you don't believe me, read Gay Talese's excellent piece on him, "Silent Season of a Hero"). Cobb was ruthlessly competitive and would've used steroids in a heartbeat in the same context as modern players; likewise, he died a multi-millionaire. Mickey Mantle pissed away his talent with alcoholism and other shenanigans. I disagree that the "bums" playing today couldn't match the older generations; I think your Ruths, your Cobbs, Speakers, Joe Jacksons...they'd be stars in any era. But the players today are drawn from a worldwide talent pool (the Pittsburgh Pirates have recently signed two Indian men, after holding a country-wide competition there) they face a much more dazzling variety of pitchers and pitches, pitchers face faster swings with lighter and more flexible bats, and so on and so forth. Albert Pujols is as good as any other right handed hitter that has ever played. Frank Thomas was that good his first 8 years in the league (close to, if not better than, Pujols). Ken Griffey Jr was practically a clone of Frank Robinson...and I'm basing this on stats adjusted for things like era, park, and league.
Now, I agree with you about the canceled World Series. That was an undoubted blight on the sport. As is the steroid era. But baseball has always had its blights and it has always come back stronger and better and more popular. It is too great a game to be permanently weighed down by anything those who currently play it can do. They are, as Bart Giamatti once said, temporary bearers of an enduring public trust...enduring is the key word.
You are, of course, free to hate baseball all you like. Me, I could never hate it. Me leaving baseball, not watching it, not reading about it, not playing in my decade-old fantasy league...that would hurt me more than anything baseball could ever do on its own.
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