These days (as happens every decade or so) it is very trendy to talk about how America's youth is not interested in baseball, gravitating toward faster paced sports, etc. Excerpts like the one below are now all the rage:
“The game is getting to be outdated by other forms of entertainment,” the paper noted, “which are more exciting, more accessible, and — in many cases — cheaper.” The problem is, this quote is from 1955, and the exciting sports people were into involved horses and boxing gloves. As those lost popularity the NBA popped up from time to time, then the NHL, then the NBA again, all the while the NFL was building steam. Now, the NFL is king and apparently that's all morning drive sports talk shows are allowed to talk about (Mike & Mike)...even in July. The one constant during all of the ups and downs of other leagues has been baseball.
"But Tonyonball, the season is so long, the games are basically meaningless until September." - baseball haters.
That's true, it is a long season, and that's what makes it so great, the consistency. It's on every day, it's like the sun coming up in the morning, a summer day just seems incomplete without it. The game is the most similar to it's origins as any other major sports (football seems to change the rules every other season, how is a catch defined this year again?). The results are concrete and simple to follow: ball or strike, fair or foul, out or safe. There are no phantom foul calls, late flags for defensive holding, or players kinda sorta being offsides (why does the NHL love the Blackhawks so much?!)
Also, as fantasy sports are becoming more and more popular (and one of the major reasons football remains atop the leaderboard...well, that an gambling) the stat genre has taken off. Baseball has always been about stats. Tonyonball used to look at the box scores of newspapers at his grandparents house every morning to keep track of random statistics, tracking them in a notebook and making comparisons of players current seasons versus all time greats (Tonyonball didn't go outside much as a child). As time went on Tonyonball graduated to reading stats on the internet and compiling spreadsheets showing the seasonal averages of the peak five seasons of current sure thing Hall of Famers (Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr. - this was about 9 years ago) compared to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, et al. (Tonyonball continued to not go outside as time went on).
Recently the Raging Bulls (of the FOY) had an awards banquet. Tonyonball planned to give the following speech, but due to time constraints and Makers Mark, it was not given. Here are Tonyonballs thoughts on why baseball is timeless and will continue to be America's game:
"Baseball is such a great game. What I love most about it is that it takes no particular shape or size to play baseball. Players ranging from grizzly bears (Logan) to hobbits (Fro) can play. It does take some inherent skill, but more than anything it takes perseverance and repetition. Getting ready to hit, knowing you will fail more than you will succeed, but still having the courage to get into the batter’s box (unless you are facing me, in which case opponents get on base about 60% of the time). The effort required to hone the skills of baseball, to take one more swing in the cage, one more ground ball on the infield, one more fly ball in the outfield. That one more repetition may make the difference in one game, or a whole season.
That’s where I think baseball makes a great parallel to life. People come in all shapes and sizes, with varying skills. The one thing we can all do, is persevere, and put forth effort. The effort to study for one more hour, take one more interview, ask for one more task at work, knowing that it can make a difference today, or for a lifetime."
A bit cheesy, and probably a bit of a stretch, but with all due respect to soccer, baseball is the beautiful game.
Tonyonball
