The Major League Baseball season opens this week.
I don’t care.
They’re wrong.
I grew up loving America’s nominal National Pastime. I learned to read thanks to the baseball cards on the backs of cereal boxes. At 12 years old I was selected for my town’s Little League all-star squad, and three years later made the Babe Ruth League all-star team. I never got to play in any games, though. Back then there weren’t rules mandating everyone had to participate. The coaches played the nine kids they thought gave them the best chance to win, and the men guiding our team decided, probably correctly, that I was not one of them.
Some might think this commentary was written by a cynical, bitter, ungrateful guy sitting on his front porch yelling at passersby to get off his lawn.
They’re wrong.
I coached high school baseball for five springs, then spent nearly 15 years working in the minor leagues, trying to get to the majors as an announcer. I wanted to be what Lindsey Nelson was for the Mets, Phil Rizzuto was for the Yankees, and Ken Coleman was for the Red Sox. I was good at what I did, but so were many others. (I also neglected to play big league ball myself or have a famous relative in the business, but that’s another story.)
Calling play-by-play on the radio was, in retrospect, not quite the equivalent of curing cancer. However, thanks to my involvement with professional baseball I saw nearly all of North America, crossing paths along the way with some remarkable folks (some of whom are still good friends today) I’d never have met otherwise. I also made a living, albeit a modest one, thanks to my baseball-related connections. Later on I helped coach my children’s youth teams, and after they aged out I began umpiring.
Some might think this commentary was written by a cynical, bitter, ungrateful guy sitting on his front porch yelling at passersby to get off his lawn.
They’re wrong.
The minimum salary for a major league player last year was $700,000; the average one was $4,410,000. This past off-season a player named Manny Machado, feeling slighted by the 10-year, $300 million contract he signed with the San Diego Padres way back in 2019, exercised the “opt out” clause included in the agreement. His team responded by signing him to an 11-year, $350 million extension.
These days numbers concerning salaries, contract length and inflated attendance figures get far more attention than those reflecting batting average, home runs or pitching victories do. The average time of a major league baseball game has increased nearly as dramatically as ticket prices have. For me to go to Fenway Park costs the equivalent of a car payment; taking my family would require the better part of a mortgage payment. I’d no sooner put any of my limited discretionary income into the pockets of entitled young millionaires than I would into the coffers of the billionaire oligarchs who pay them.
This year new major league rules ban defensive shifts, on the grounds that they inhibit offense. If they’re worried about scoring, why not prohibit the curveball? Or better yet, any pitch that travels faster than 75 miles per hour?
Some might think this commentary was written by a cynical, bitter, ungrateful guy sitting on his front porch yelling at passersby to get off his lawn.
They’re wrong.
I don’t have a front porch. <
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