I find the very existence of baseball to be repugnant. I take it's oft-cited referencing as, "America's pasttime" as being equal parts wishful thinking and personal insult. In fact, I actively root against it, revelling in its innumerous missteps, both large and small - whether its the seemingly endless list of players who are leaked as being involved in the same steroids scandal that baseball conveniently (and foolishly) chose to ignore for so many years, its grotesquely largesse contracts, its inability to free itself of the self-imposed bonds of the players and umpire unions, or the calling of their All-Star game for having exhausted the respective pitching staffs of either side. The entire sport has become a laughably tragic caricature of its former self, for these reasons, and many, many more. It's unabated fading from national significance will only continue as the baby boomer's age, and die, as this is the last generation who will hold the sport with such nostalgic romanticism. It's last remnants of importance will go with them. The only slight and tenuous foothold that it remains to have now is nothing more than the result of ESPN's decision to re-sign and continuation to shove and maintain it in the national consciousness, albeit tenuously on the fringe it still hovers. And their decision to do so is the result of little more than the need to possess a cheaply perfect fodder required to fill the dead spaces between for their other programming. Simply, it's an excellent time-waster, and little else. I will be delighted, overjoyed, and elated to see it lose its increasingly weaker grip over the next 10-20 years before finally succumbing to its rightfully relegated place amongst it's true peers - rodeo, bocce, ping pong, badminton and the like, buried somewhere on ESPN 8 , or better still, the Weather Channel. I respect the beliefs of everyone who continues to love and cherish its existence, but I do not share it, whatsoever.
Interesting. Did you by any chance suffer from burnout? Softball is fun if you are out there with a group of guys you enjoy being around that are average to decent players, at least for me. It's also fun to play weekends if you have a competitive streak and don't have kids. It is not fun if you are on a team with or playing against a team of douches who's greatest moment in life occurred on a softball field in Bean Station, TN and think that there are MLB Scouts in the crowd waiting to sign them to replace A-Rod at third for the Yankees. Said guys may not have a job and/or insurance, but have about two grand worth of equipment in their bag and get mad when an ump makes a bad call when they are winning 26-3. Strangely enough, my first memory is at a church league state tournament in Chattanooga my dad was playing in when I was 3.
That was the one area I never criticized Delmonico about. He never lost his touch in recruiting those. Top 10 class every year.
Card, I hate softball because it doesn't replicate any of the actual fun parts about baseball. Throwing a runner out trying to steal, pick-off plays, the nuance of pitching, the role of the sacrifice. I find it dreadful.
I understand fully and appreciate. A couple of the national associations allowed stealing similar to Little League rules two or three years. I thought it was fun and added an element to the game (full disclosure, I grew up catching), but too many hated it. But I do understand completely.
Tenny, you are arguing about things that are external to the game. Whether or not MLB players use steroids and whether or not weepy saps like Bob Costas and Ken Burns wax poetic about the "national pastime" aren't really explanations for why kids are percentage-wise playing less baseball. Now, if you want to hate baseball because you think it is boring and slow, that's fine, because a lot of times it is. But watching a 4-6-3 double play, or a catcher call pitches, or someone lay down a well-timed bunt... those are interesting features of the game that take time to learn and master, and are hard for most people to replicate. Watching a Little League team try to perfect a double play is something to behold. It is really really difficult, the success rate is so low, but when they get it it is quite amazing. So, I dunno, maybe kids can benefit from that experience before they quit the game to play football.
I actually always thought baseball was one of the most fun sports to play. Maybe not do much fielding, but batting and base-running were great.
it's not true in the majors, but it certainly is true in little league where the best athlete is generally your best pitcher and hitter.
I'm still a baseball watcher. It actually fits my personality pretty well - I am always triple-tasking, so a sport that doesn't move so fast is best for me. I would turn on Sox games almost every night and work to them. About the only games where I don't have something else I am doing / working on is Vols football/basketball.
I loved playing baseball, and I still really enjoy going to a game. I side with KidB about getting kicked in the balls or just watching a game on tv though.
Possibly. There was the regular baseball season in the spring. That ended. And then it was an "all-star" team that I was on that was playing all throughout the summer in various podunk towns. I put "all-star" in quotation marks because I was very average at baseball (agility is my athletic strong point, and that isn't much of a help in baseball), but it was a small town and I guess I was serviceable enough to get stuck on the team...at second base, which is a pretty easy position. Anyway, yeah, it was a lot of baseball that summer. The coach was the father of a kid on the team who was clearly trying to relive his athletic glory days through his son. He definitely got overzealous/overambitious as far as the number of games they scheduled in various backwards podunk towns where the gas stations have signs that say "we now have gas"*(and he was also just sort of a [penis]). And this was the summer where I decided I was done with baseball. Summer between 8th and 9th grade, as I recall. All that being said, though, I wouldn't have soured on the game if I enjoyed playing it. I loved playing tennis....would seek out opportunities to play tennis everyday...bugged the crap out of the people in my town that were better than me...was always calling them to play because that was the only way I was going to get better. I loved playing basketball....went to the community center most days in the winter (except for the winter you'll hear about in the following sentence). When I was a ski instructor my junior year in HS, I would happily drive the 35 or so minutes each way to Winterplace 5 or so days a week. Well, okay, that did start to get old by the end of the Winter, but only because east coast skiing blows and when you get to a certain level of skiing you really have to go to the Rocky Mountains to challenge yourself (this is why I took up snowboarding...something to do at east coast ski resorts where I was still challenging myself). Anyway, sorry I got long-winded there. Short answer: yes, I probably got burnt out on baseball, but I probably wouldn't have gotten burnt out on baseball if I enjoyed the game more. *Like, what the [uck fay] did y'all do before the gas station had gas? How did that work?
I completely agree with the general tenor of this post in that I (a) actively dislike the game of baseball; (b) enjoy hearing of its declining popularity; and (c) root for the decline to continue all the way down to Bocce Ball status or worse. But I don't think this will happen. Here is why. Looking to the above-quoted post from Tenny D: the stuff he mentions in paragraph (2) is the safety net to baseball's free-falling popularity and it is what will ultimately prevent the end result articulated in paragraph (1). Baseball would probably eventually wither away and die as the baby boomer's kick off, but baseball won't die because ESPN keeps [dadgum] showing baseball for five hours every night. And they're not going to stop showing five hours of baseball every night, because what in the hell are they going to replace it with? WNBA? There is nothing else going on in the summer months. There is tennis and golf. And as much I like tennis, I do think it would be hard to do a five hour tennis programming block every weeknight. Unless they want to show old Anna Kournikova matches. I could probably deal with that. But I digress...
