Dear Major League Baseball

I didn’t always hate you, really, I didn’t. I even used to defend you. When my friends would complain that the season was too long, the games too slow, boring, I stood up for you. Boring? I would scoff, maybe to someone with a small mind, someone unable to enjoy the complexities of unrehearsed drama unfolding before their eyes. While kids in school were on the court trying to ‘be like mike’ or drinking Sprite like Grant Hill, I was at the batting cages practicing my George Brett swing, pumping my gums full of Big League Chew. When the NBA began epitomizing the corporate culture of cool in sports, I resisted like a flaming Tibetan monk, opting for the unhip world of the major leagues. Baseball was almost punk rock in that way. In the early nineties it began to be seen as so unappealing and old-hat that still being passionate about it felt authentic – like record collectors eschewing CDs or driving a fuel-efficient Volvo in a world of SUVs. I held fast to the belief that baseball would come back in fashion and I could hold my head up high, knowing I’d always been there, always believed.
But baseball, you sold me out. You were like two seemingly happy parents who one day, out of the blue, tell their children that they are getting a divorce. You were always there for me, until you weren’t there at all. But then, like any child who begins to un-repress the past, I began to see where the clouds first started materializing, those little details, seemingly so unimportant start looking like cracks in the dam. I remember those weeks leading up to the first Player’s Union strike, how unconcerned I was at the time, how naïve I had been. Even when you did go on strike I never gave up hope. If the Major Leaguers were too greedy to play ball, then lets get the minor leaguers in there, I thought. Why not give the guys who were playing out of love a chance? Sure, the quality would go down to some degree, but at least I would be watching something real, something passionate. But alas, you settled your disagreement, made bank, and went on quietly with life.
And then out of nowhere, my freshman year of college you came back, begging for forgiveness. You gave us Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa and the battle to break Roger Maris’ homerun record. You were in primetime, on the front page, people gossiped around the water cooler, made bets, got excited again. After that stellar season however, something started stinking worse than Barry Bond’s jock in late August. All of a sudden records started falling like drunks skating on ice. Players on the brink of retirement were coming back looking like Roman Gods. If you lived anywhere near a baseball stadium it was best to stay in the basement for fear a stray homerun ball would come smashing through your living room window. People speculated of course. Were the balls juiced? Has pitching gone downhill? Maybe the air is just thinner than it used to be? It seemed everyone wanted to look anywhere but the most obvious place.
Baseball was an American game, rife with clichés about past-times and wholesomeness, tradition, fathers and sons and magical lifesaving Babe Ruth homeruns. My best-friend and I used to sit on the steps of his house and trade Don Mattinglys and Wade Boggs for Ken Griffeys and Jose Cansecos. Growing up in Kansas, the one thing that summer always assured us, aside from tornadoes, were Little League games and trips to Royal’s Stadium. Baseball was my religion – Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, my Gods. Baseball had Jackie Robinson. It broke barriers that the NBA and the NFL never dreamed of. What other sport could inspire a movie like Field of Dreams? What other movie could Kevin Costner not make horrendous? – okay, fine, Bull Durham, another baseball movie.
But the sad truth was baseball had eaten itself alive. In a desperate attempt to win back the fans it lost during the strike, it turned into something despicable. The recent A-Rod steroid admission should surprise absolutely no one. This problem isn’t just confined to the Major Leagues or its stars; it’s an epidemic. Baseball has completely re-defined itself; what was once a sport of subtleties and nuances is now dominated by powerful bat-wielding behemoths. If that’s what it takes to make it to the Majors than you can guarantee that this is happening on other levels. If the Yankees are filled with substance-abusing monsters, than you can pretty much guarantee the farm teams are too. If the minor leaguers are doping, then so are the college kids and sadly, the high school kids. This is your fault, Baseball. You did it to yourself. When the new kid moved into town and you lost some of your popularity, you came back with a new toy to impress us but that toy wasn’t yours, you stole it. You cheated and we all caught you.
The saddest thing of all is how you betrayed those of us who stuck with you when you first fell on hard times. The irony is we are the ones you’ll never get back. Now baseball, you will either go the way of marginal sports in America like hockey and soccer, or you will get your act together one day. Maybe you will clean house of all the Bud Seligs, Alex Rodriguezs, discourage any future Barry Bonds or Jose Cansecos and make yourself whole. The fact remains however, that you will never be pure again. The doping scandal was for you, what Watergate was for the presidency - permanently unleashing the cynicism of the American populace. Either route you take, whether you fade into obscurity or transform yourself, I don’t care.