2002-08-11 - 11:14 a.m.

Baseball – Where Did It Go?

I became a baseball fan in 1949. My little brother rooted for the New York Yankees, and I told him I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. “Fine,” he said, “then you learn about the Dodgers.” And he coached me until I knew who played all the positions. My intense interest lasted longer than my brother’s, from the Dodgers who deserted us for the West Coast to the New York Mets who kept breaking our hearts. I got excited about baseball as a teenager, as an adult, as a young mother. In fact, I watched enough baseball to infect my son with the baseball bug. I recently found The Glory of Their Times about really old baseball, and the gift card indicates that it was a gift from one of my bosses, way back in 1966! And the first letter to an editor I ever got published was in the Sporting News.

I finally got to see “61*,” the movie about Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961 – the year they competed to break Babe Ruth’s record of sixty home runs in a season. It was worth waiting for. Billy Crystal, who produced it, loves baseball as much as I did – back in the days before major league baseball had capital letters.

The plot followed what I remembered. The cast was mostly ballplayers (whom I could identify) and sportswriters (whom I didn’t know). Mickey’s reputation has become tarnished in recent years, now that the world knows about his drinking and other faults. But he was awfully cute, way back when, and no one can fault that bat. In the Fifties, a popular song extolled “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.” (That’s Willie Mays of the New York Giants, Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, and Duke Snyder of the Brooklyn Dodgers, for those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to see it live and in black and white.) They were all terrific. I don’t care if you think we all say it; baseball was definitely better in the “old days.”

Even though the press was always hard on Roger Maris, he didn’t deserve it; he just didn’t get along with reporters. If there is no story, they have a compulsion to make one up; Roger didn’t have that kind of personality. I have read many accounts from players who were there at the time. Their versions just don’t jibe with the newspaper stories. There was no “feud.” I thought that this movie portrayed that aspect beautifully.

I liked the tie-in with Mark Maguire, one of the modern “good guys.” I loved that Maguire invited the Maris family to be present when he broke the record. I also like the relationship between Maguire and Sammy Sosa, a friendly rivalry – again, no feud. (They never allowed the press to manufacture one.) Bobby Bonds, on the other hand…I don’t care whether or not he breaks any records.

There are two things that seem to be missing with so many of the modern players. For one thing, there really aren’t teams; it’s often every man for himself. It’s a helluva thing when even teams don’t have team players. The other thing is, I’m not seeing the joy of playing. You can still see it in Little League, but somehow the big guys have lost it. What a pity!

Why did I lose interest? I stuck with it through a lot of trash. There were players who threatened to leave their teams if they didn’t get what they wanted – whatever it was – and then became free agents anyhow. (I know Curt Flood was right, but it seems that free agency has swung too far in the other direction.) There was a lot of drug abuse – even worse than the alcohol – and how can you tell your child that’s a good human being? Meanwhile, I didn’t have the free time I once had. When I was single, I could do the baseball thing whenever I wasn’t working. As a working mother, I no longer had that option.

But what disgusted me beyond all else was the owner of the Florida Marlins. His team won the World Series – and he turned around and sold it! You can classify that with Enron and WorldCom. For decades organized baseball had skirted all kinds of laws because it was “a sport, not a business.” In a pig’s eye! A team owner might expect some kind of tax relief for improving part of a city by building a stadium, but I don’t believe the city should be expected to fund the stadium.

A few players still personify the good stuff of baseball. Maguire (who has since retired) and Sosa, as I mentioned. Cal Ripken, who demonstrated the good old Puritan work ethic – and had a good time doing it. Isn’t it a shame that I can only think of three? We just lost Ted Williams, the greatest batter I ever saw, even if I didn't root for the Red Sox. And no one can excite me like my favorite of all time, Sandy Koufax, who pitched for the Dodgers in Brooklyn and L.A. and looked so good, he was better than Nureyev!

The owners of the overextended leagues now want to shut down some of the newer teams. Do they really think that’s going to endear them to the fans – who are, after all, the source of their profits? No, they’ll cry poverty, and the “underpaid” players will go on strike.

Who cares?

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