For the love of the game...wait...what game?

For the love of the game...wait...what game?
ghettochild
01/02/07

For those of you who have been reading my columns, you'll know that my Father and I are, not only die-hard Reds fans, but baseball fanatics. We live for Spring Training, the sounds of batting practice when we are first in line, the smell of the concession stands and spilt soda.

I guess you could say we "live for this".

Lately though its been we "lived for this".

Two days ago I took my brother to what I consider the "slums" of Allen. The original city of Allen, the houses nearly seventy years old. But they've got a baseball field over there that hasn't been used in nearly seven years. My brother and I are hitting pop flies, and suddenly we're surrounded by a group of about six or so kids, nearly ten. They're all standing around watching us, and I get this feeling like these kids want to play, but they're too scared to ask...I mean i've been there, done that before at their age. So I ask them, and the "ringleader" as I dubbed him told me he's never owned a glove before. Astonished, I go down the line. Only two of them, out of six, have ever attempted to play baseball.

So what do I do? I tell these kids to stay put, and if they leave I'm not going to buy them ice cream, and leave them a baseball to begin and throw around.

I head up to the used sporting goods store and buy these kids gloves. Not expensive ones, but just something to get the job done. My salesman skills and I got them for two bucks each. Right on. I also decide to get them a whiffle ball/bat. There's no way they could use a drop eleven bat.

I head back with four gloves and a box of Bomb Pops, cause lets face it folks, Bomb Pops, or BP's for short, are the shit.

Sure enough these kids are still here, to my amazement. I guess you can get kids to stay put anywhere for ice cream.

They all get their gloves and I proceed to teach them the game of baseball. Basic throwing, keeping the eye on the ball, great stuff.

I have never seen such great joy on a kids face before when these kids hit the whiffle ball for the first time in their life. The hours that we spent until dusk hitting the ball and attempting to run the bases was such a great time for not only them, but also for me.

We've got another "date" tomorrow.

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I don't know what it is these days. Why I can't find that kind of joy in a baseball game like I had teaching those kids the necessities of baseball. Why can't some players these days remember that not only is baseball their job, but its their passion. Their love. The reason they wake up in the morning is to play the game their father taught them, and grew with such a love and passion that they're playing it for a job. I mean, how many people get to say that they get to do what they've aspired to do since they were a kid for a living?

These days baseball is a dying sport. Overrun with scandals, money-ridden egomatistical players, and more great stuff like that. Today I sat here wondering why I still love baseball the way I do.

To me, baseball has been that relationship that your spouse abuses you, but then later on the next day apologizes, but then abuses you again. And yet you still stay with it...Why? Because you think one day it's going to change. That one day, baseball will become that sport we all once grew up loving.

No one knows how to run the sport of baseball. The commissioner, owners, general manager's, and players have all lost their vision.

What vision you say?

The vision Hall of Famer's such as Hank, Mr. Cub, Lou, Johnny, and others had. Play the game it was meant to be played.

Day in and day out, the teams of baseballs past went out and played the game they loved, for little to no money, no grudges, and the scandal making the headlines back in '38 was Hank Greenberg falling two home runs short because pitchers kept walking him because they didn't want a Jewish player to beat Babe Ruth's record. Yet here we are nearly seventy years later waiting every day break to see if the 100 names of the cheaters have been released.

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I asked those kids why they've never got their fathers to play baseball with them before. Why they can't have the simple game of catch Ray and Shoeless Joe finally got to share. Their response was that their fathers never bothered or would rather play football or soccer (OK soccer I could understand since about 75% of them were Latin).

I can guarantee that's going to change.










[[sorry if this seems to have a lot of rambling and be all over the place...i'm really sick and i'm on like 3 or 4 different meds that make me really incoherant. i just felt like this had to be shared]]