We're Talking Baseball

Baseball has seen better days. News about the game millions love has been grim for years. Strikes and drug scandals involving its biggest stars have stained the game's image while enormous player contracts have driven wedges between the game's stars and its fans. But for those who still believe in the magic of a mid-summer's night, the beginning of a new season brings hope.

This time of year is a time to hope, for the teams who take the field and for the fans at home. Now is the time when little boys and girls stand in front of the mirror imitating the titans of the game. Whether it's because of the devastating fury that the Los Angeles Dodgers' Eric Gagne conjures lightning and thunder from his arm or the way the San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds severs the air around home plate with his bat, each fan finds a player in whom they can place their trust and dreams. It is a fantastic fleeting time when anything can happen and almost always does.

Yet there are those who don't understand the game's appeal and choose to turn their back on it. "It's boring,"said one woman. "It takes forever just to play one game and the players take five minutes between every play." For those who know the game and its rhythms, baseball is never boring. Each pitch is a new struggle between pitcher and hitter in which only one can be the victor. At the same time it's a dramatic game of cat-and-mouse between the catcher, who is trying to steal a strike here-and-there by framing an outside pitch on the corner of the plate and the umpire who wants to give nothing to the visiting pitcher.

"It's theatre, really," said Dodgers announcer Vin Scully in a 1976 interview. "The star is the spotlight on the mound, the supporting cast fanned out around him, the mathematical precision of the game moving with the kind of inevitability of Greek tragedy."

Beyond theater, baseball is also history. It has paralleled the American experience. As the America has grown and prospered, so has baseball. Similar to the fate of many other family-owned businesses, baseball has been swallowed up by mega-corporations running their sports divisions with cold precision. Equally, as America has grown decadent, so has baseball. The game's biggest stars once lived in the same neighborhoods as their fans. The golden age of baseball was filled with stories of guys from the neighborhood making good but living in the same neighborhoods they grew up in because they were paid workman's wages. Many players shopped in the same stores as their followers and knew the names of the local kids. Nowadays if a fan wants to get a glimpse of their favorite star they'd better have a telescope and the patience to wait outside the player's mansion.

At its best, baseball has not only reflected the times, it has shaped them. In 1947 Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and changed the game forever. A four-sport letterman from UCLA, Robinson was an officer in the U.S. Army during World War II and was hand-picked by Dodgers President Branch Rickey to be the man who crushed the color barrier forever. More than a great performer on the field, he was a true hero with the courage and fortitude to stand up for what was right. In the army, Robinson was court-martialed for refusing to sit in the back of a bus, but the charges against him were dismissed and he was honorably discharged.

Robinson went on to make a name for himself in the Negro Leagues but was by no means the best player in the league. That title probably most deservedly goes to Josh Gibson, the catcher for the Homestead Greys whose power was legendary. Some called him the "Black Babe Ruth," but if anything Ruth should have been called the "White Josh Gibson." While there is still ongoing dispute about how many homers Gibson crushed in his career, his Hall of Fame plaque credits him with nearly 800 home runs. Ruth retired having hit 714.

Gibson's experience is testament to the power of baseball and the forces of history which have shaped it and the nation as a whole. It is why baseball is more than a game-for good or bad, it's an integral part of the American character. Gibson died a young man at the age of 35. Despite all his accomplishments he died not having fulfilled his dream of playing in the Major Leagues. Had he lived longer, he may have made that dream a reality-the Major Leagues were integrated three months after his death.

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