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 | Written by Jim Sarruda on Tuesday, 08 July 2008
Category:Sheldon on Sports
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I play in a baseball league every Sunday with my friends. Usually about ten of us show up every weekend and we play two games beginning at nine in the morning, seven innings each.
We are not pros by any means, in fact, this is the closest I can get to little league without being in fifth grade again.
We usually put together a similar lineup for both games, as our first four batters remain the same from week to week. Everyone plays the field where they are most comfortable, and whoever can consistently throw multiple pitch types is our pitcher.
The games are often the highlight of my Sunday, as baseball really is one of my favorite sports to play.
 America's Passtime
But somewhere up the ladder to the pros, we seem to have lost site of the true beauty of baseball. Maybe the problem is the A-Rods who make far too much money, the John Rockers who can’t appreciate the diversity of the game, or maybe the problem is the Scott Rolen’s who take for granted the most coveted luxury of working as a professional baseball player. Whatever the problem may be, baseball has distanced itself from the overgrown Little League games our group of twenty-five year olds play in Far Hills, New Jersey.
Baseball seems to have become a business, like many of the other popular professional sports. A lot of the professionals have forgotten the joy of playing baseball every weekend and their managers are investors treating them like stock . It no longer feels like little league. Baseball is about winning and money. It is about selling merchandise. It is about TV ratings. It is about selling tickets.
I have to admit that baseball has become far worse then its popular counterparts, football and basketball. Baseball salaries are easily the highest. The players are starting to look less athletic, more lethargic, and worst of all—more lazy. I feel like the sport is distancing me from its business, which sees me more as a consumer then a fan. And then I hear Hank Steinbrenner complaining to a newspaper that the National League should be forced to allow the DH.
For those that don’t know, the DH stands for designated hitter. The American League allows a substitute to hit for the pitcher whereas the Nation League makes the pitcher bat.
 Baseball isn't modern enough
It's time the National League joins the 21st century," Steinbrenner told The Post, "or is forced to join. The National League is playing the same way it did in the 1880s. That's over with. The National League should have the designated hitter. There's no question the National League should have it.
What bothers me most about his statement is the “force the National League to accept the DH" segment. It feels like he doesn’t care what other people like about baseball, only about himself and his empire.
Would installing a DH make everyone happy? You already know the answer to that, nothing will make everyone happy. However, you know who would love to see a DH made mandatory in all of baseball? I think the investors would and in my opinion, this would be symbolic for what professional baseball has become over time. Fans are merely consumers.
Installing a mandatory DH is about embracing offense at the expense of tradition.
Installing a mandatory DH is about creating a bigger market for hitters, while keeping the market for pitching the same.
Installing a mandatory DH is about creating more money without consequences. It is about ratings. It is about preventing injuries to save money. It is about hitting more homeruns. After all, if the National League fans don’t like it, who cares. It’s not like they will quit going to games. If anything, maybe more consumers would go to games.
Installing a mandatory DH is about forcing more offense, with the hopes that more ratings and ticket sales will follow.
Hank Steinbrenner doesn’t care that some of us want to watch a fat Bartolo Colon spin around swinging and dizzily crash to the earth, leading to a register on the Richter Scale.
Hank Steinbrenner only cares that his starting pitcher suffered a torn tendon and ligament damage.
This is going to cost him money, it might cost him wins, it might cost him ratings, and it might cost him ticket sales.
Rather then being curious and optimistic for what might come out of the Yankee farm system as a result of Chien-Ming Wang’s injury, some fans are already cashing in the season as a defeat. After all, who cares about the unproven youth of a farm system? Sure, some of them end up being superstars, but most of them don’t. All the fun comes in purchasing that proven free agent right?
If there were a designated hitter that game, then Chien-Ming Wang would have never tore a tendon and Steinbrenner would never have lost money. The big market fans wanted a designated hitter and they are all who matter right Hank?
Then why are you pretending that this is about an outdated mindset of the National League?
Hank would say,“Stop upholding tradition!” “Stop it with America’s passtime already. That was then and this is now! Baseball is now a market, it’s a business. It’s not a game! Don’t be ignorant. It’s time for the National League to join the 21st century.”
In other words, America wants to see an extra bat in the lineup. Give America what they want because it is more cost effective.
That is what I think when I read his statement. I think of new money. I think of a spoiled bureaucrat that could care less about little league, because he probably never played it. I think of a United States of America that has forgotten why it loves to watch baseball. I think of a culture that is so preoccupied with marketing, statistics, records, and homeruns, that we don’t even realize that we are complaining that baseball is giving us exactly what we are asking for.
We put a designated hitter in the American League because we wanted to watch nine hitters who are a threat to go over that wall. We don’t care if a pitcher bunts. We don’t want to see that. We don't want to see strategy. We don't want to see the small ball. We want to see homeruns. We want to see records broken.
 A busy DH
Enter performance enhancing drugs and steroids. Well, some players were convinced that drugs would help them hit homeruns. Whether they do or not is irrelevant, the point is the mindset of producing more offense is why these drugs became an issue in the first place.
And that’s what baseball is all about isn’t it. Producing more offense. Homerun records. Ticket Sales.
Sure the true fans of baseball will appreciate a pitchers duel, but we need to appeal to the masses don’t we. That’s where the money is.
I understand many of my already minimal readers may not agree with the points raised in my article, and this is fine. However, Manrants.com is about getting issues off your chest and the above rant details what bothers me about baseball. Baseball is supposed to be one of the most traditional and sentimental sports in the United States of America.
This Sunday I am playing in a double header off the Garden State Parkway. Our best pitcher is also the best hitter on our team, in fact, he loves hitting more then anything else in the universe. (I'm referring to Jeremy) Sunday I will bring with me $14 to pay the umpires fees, so that our game can feel as close to what Alex Rodriguez does every day for a living, as possible.
Nobody is going to pay me. I’m not going to break any records. Nobody is going to even watch me.
And when I bat leadoff on Sunday, the first thing I am going to do is bunt, because not everyone goes yard.
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By:Jim Sarruda
Category:Sheldon on Sports
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