The Purity of the Game

Hey friends,

So for many many months, I've spent way too much time considering if I should create a blog.   I've resisted it so often, strictly because it was just "one more thing" I needed to attend to.    For those who listen and follow our show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" you will know that for all of our unusual behavior and weird topics, Earl and I are the most simple of baseball fans.     In general, Earl, also known as "The Verdant Dude" (http://beearl.blogspot.com) , has the most eclectic tastes.   Yet, we like our baseball straight, the way it was meant to be.   Trey Wilson, who played Skip in Bull Durham said it best:

"This... is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball."

That's it.   Its a ball game played on grass.   We identify with the players because they seem like us.   You don't need to be 7 feet tall, you don't need to weigh 320 and bench 500 pounds.    Sports that require you to be a 'physiological outlier' such as basketball and football are interesting, but I personally prefer baseball, and have since I was 6.   I vividly recall buying a pack of baseball cards from the ice cream man and opening it to find a Hank Aaron card.    I remember the moment like it was this morning.   I can remember the gasp, the deep breath I took when I looked at that perfect card, knowing what it stood for.   It was the same size of my young hand, yet it held a history lesson.  It presented a picture of a hero, who had performed for over 20 years at the highest level.   The statistics on the back summarized accomplishments that only a handful of men have approached.   On all of those small lines on the back it showed an aggregation of performance from over 3,000 Major League games played.   My young mind could barely grasp the impact of it all, but I knew it was good.   Damn good.  

And thus, the bar is set.    Millions of young men across the world play the game, and the select few are able to reach some of that success.   Of course there can only be so many Aarons, Clementes, or Seavers, yet being a Teddy Higuera or a Steve Finley is pretty darn good too.   The light may not shine as brightly, but it still shines.  

As a fan I can appreciate the beauty of an outfield throw from Ankiel, or a double laced to the corner by some .200 hitter who was perhaps lucky to get a piece of one.   I dig that Willie Bloomquist has his place in the game.   I even like every teams need for a LOOGY (a Lefty One-Out Guy as coined by John Sickels).    Yet lets face it, most of us are drawn to Strasburg, Josh Hamilton, Aroldis Chapman and the Dimaggio-esque introduction of Mike Trout.   Unlike any other sport, and probably more so than even the stock market, the numbers associated with baseball are unconscionably addictive.   I have dear friends who track lefty-righty stats on a daily basis.    Seriously, if its August and someone is hitting .320 and they go 1-4 versus a righty, do you really need to ensure his average is now .318 after the game.   The answer for many of us is yes.    My answer is yes.    The reason is we use these statistics to gravitate to our heroes.    Thats for the fan.

As far as the player, he knows that other than his health and age, his statistics are the single biggest driver towards driving his or her rate of compensation.   I do not begrudge any one for doing what is necessary to increase one's compensation..... except doing so under false pretense.     So many of us work in a professional atmosphere, and have heard stories about others 'taking credit' for ones work.   The anger and poisonous ill will that arises from such situations is as thick as the Walls of Babylon.    Yet in those cases at least ONE of the parties did work on the level.    The same can not be said of what we witnessed recently with Melky Cabrera.  It was this latest episode that finally pushed me over the top and garnered me with the need to unload my feelings in permanence on the web.   

Cabrera never hit 15 homers in a season, nor had he ever hit over .300 until last year with KC.    He was a good fielder.   He had an above-average contact rate, he was approaching his prime and had long-since overcome the death knell term of being coined as a 'servicable' Major Leaguer.   He was making $6 Million this year.   More than likely based upon his 2010 statistics (.255 / 4 / 42)  he wasn't going to make much more, but surely he was going to be employed, and paid well.   He made the conscious decision it wasn't enough.   What he did was done with such puerile rationale that it was the equivalent of robbing a bank 5 minutes after being told the most sophisticated high-tech camera system was installed.    Fortunately his theft was caught before a multi-million dollar contract was signed.   Yet five-weeks ago he had the gaul to step foot in Kansas City and walk away with an MVP award.   Yes.... a clandestine cheater was labeled as the MOST valuable player at a game in which the greatest players collaborate for a celebration of the sport.

I feel sadness for the player who should have been an All-Star instead of Melky.   I feel sadness for Jonathan Sanchez who was traded from his beloved San Francisco for a basket of false ability.   I feel sadness for the latest notch on the belt of integrity which has been punctured in the game.   But yet I feel the most sadness for the loss of hope as some young child will gasp a bit less when he opens his next pack of baseball cards.  

As the title of our weekly internet show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" is taken from the film "Field Of Dreams", I feel that its both right, and that I am graciously obligated to recite the following:

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

Here's hoping it could be again.  


Colonel Sunday

SundayColonel@aol.com

@JTTTCColonel (Twitter)
Earl N Colonel (Facebook)

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