For now, we’re talking about baseball, so if you’re not sure how to answer the question above, I’ll give you three choices:
First, you could be Fan #1. He goes to a game once a year, twice maybe, but most likely, the second game is at the invitation of a friend who paid for his ticket. He probably never played baseball on any organized team, and he only watches the MLB playoffs if his hometown team is playing.
Or, maybe you’re Fan #2. He reads about his home team most mornings when he wakes up. He had season tickets at one point, but he doesn’t anymore. He watches the playoffs partly because he likes baseball, but mostly because he wants to be able to talk about the games with his coworkers. He can tell you who the best teams in the league are, but he’d look at you funny if you said ‘Zack Greinke.”
If you’re truly obsessed, you may be Fan #3. He loves baseball. He loves it because it ties him to his father, and his grandfathers, and the men who built this country before them. He loves the magnificently cerebral experience that is a game of baseball. He definitely played, or, if not, wrote about his high school team. He watches Baseball Tonight whenever he can. If he doesn’t have season tickets, its because he either doesn’t live in his hometown, or simply can’t afford them.
It doesn’t matter what kind of fan you are. Major League Baseball will take us all.
But, if you play the game, manage the game, own the game, announce the game, promote the game, write about the game, or really, really care about the game, you must be Fan #3. You must love the game. You must stand up for it.
This week, I stood up for baseball.
In his article, which you can read by clicking here, William C. Rhoden of the New York Times claims that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be the only great match up for baseball. He says:
What follows is the letter I sent to Mr. Rhoden and his editors at The Times.
Dear Mr. Rhoden,
I write to commend you on your October 11th column, in which you claim that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be the best match-up for baseball, the only truly ‘Great Series’, and a ‘Series for the ages.’
The intention of your piece is a good one. Clearly, you care about the future of the game, and in searching for a good story you found an option that may provide a therapeutic moment of closure to the steroid era. But, I also write to challenge you, since, I would ask, “For once, why can’t baseball, alone, be the story?”
We’ve been so conditioned to dig for the ancillary plot lines, I’m afraid we’re missing the obvious beauty in the game itself. It can’t be ignored that the four teams left standing are the best four teams from the 2009 season. When was the last time that happened? These four teams finished first or second in each of their leagues, and they were the top four teams in all of baseball when playing teams with winning records. The Dodgers and Phillies are in the midst of a heavyweight bout. They traded devastating offensive blows in Game 1, and then gave us a pitching duel for the ages in Game 2. The Yankees, on the other hand, needed every bit of muscle they could muster to outlast the scrappy Angels in 13 rainy innings late into Sunday morning.
In match-ups this close and with teams this talented, the speed of the game is breathtaking. The pressure each team puts on its opponent influences every play, since any mistake could be the difference in the game, and the Series. And with games this good, the two best teams will inevitably advance to the World Series.
Besides, any way you slice it, the World Series will sell itself.
A Dodgers-Angels final would put Baseball’s biggest stage under America’s brightest lights in Los Angeles.
A Yankees-Phillies series would pit the two deepest offensive clubs against each other, and bring the defending champs back to the ring to face the most dominant franchise in World Series history.
A Phillies-Angels battle – clearly the least attractive for Fox – would still include two of the top 5 major markets in the country, and pair the two most fundamentally balanced teams in the game.
And, yes, if a Yankees-Dodgers series is what we get, it too will be great. It will be great for pitting the Yankees, a group of championship veterans managed by a second year coach, against the Dodgers, a group of future champions who are managed by the Yankees’ old veteran skipper. It will be great for matching up two teams that refused to lose in 2009. But for all the reasons that a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be a great one, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez aren’t on that list of reasons.
If we really want to move on from the steroid era, then let’s stop talking about it altogether. Because hyping Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez – two whose faces will forever be etched in the steroid era’s stone of Mount Mash-More – would only remind America of baseball’s tainted past. It would only reinforce the persistence of baseball’s soiled decade, and the dishonesty of the game’s heroes.
Mr. Rhoden, for those of us who love the game, who care about the game, who want the steroid era to be a transgression of the past, let us not perpetuate the continuation of this sour topic. Let us instead prop up the great teams left standing, with honest heroes named Jeter, Howard, Hunter and Kemp. And let us pass on to the newest fans a postseason of great games, a strategy of winning baseball, and a tradition that is purely exhilarating.
Respectfully,
DJ Gregory, Philadelphia, PA
I have acted as a therapist of sorts all season.
Mostly, my clients have been Philadelphians. Since I live on the west coast, and can therefore watch from afar instead of being sucked into the funnel of worry and cynicism that is the local Philadelphia sports opinion, I can approach things from a slightly less emotional place. I’m a rational guy. I believe in things that make sense.
I believe in The Phillies. The Phillies make sense.
It makes sense when Charlie Manuel makes the tough decision to start JA Happ last night, a lefty, the sort that the Rockies don’t hit well.
It makes sense when he has the conviction to pull the young starter in the top of the fourth. Cholly makes tough decisions.
It makes sense when Carlos Ruiz, who, by the way, since the NLCS against the Dodgers last year is now batting .341 with 7 RBI in the post season, helps his staff out with two RBI hits tonight. Chooch is clutch.
And then the ninth inning arrives, and all you can do is hope. You just hope things keep making sense.
You hope that your leadoff hitter, Jimmy Rollins, is gutsy enough to tough out his early post season struggles to slap one through and get on base. You hope Victorino can get the bunt down and make it interesting by flying to first. You hope Utley busts it down the line, even if the ball DID go off of his shin, even if he WAS out at first base, just to give the umpire the chance to call him safe for his hustle. You hope Howard can hit a fly ball. You hope.
And on a cold night at Coors Field, it kept making sense, until…
…Brad Lidge walked in from right field, and nobody knew what made sense anymore. That’s what made last night’s finish ‘epic,’ as my dad so appropriately texted.
The moment he walked out of the bullpen I started jumping around like a 6-year-old on Christmas Eve, pulling the hair on my head from its roots, screaming, “He’s coming in! He’s coming in!”
Though Carlos Gonzales did his best to single handedly keep the Rockies in the playoffs, Lidge was clutch. With nobody but the struggling Myers, the young Bastardo, and the questionable Kendrick left behind him, Brad Lidge stepped up, rode the momentum of his team’s loyalty and got three big outs. He saved the game, and, ultimately, it makes no sense.
Side note, I’d have paid a few ‘G’s’ to have been a ‘fly on the mound’ for Charlie Manuel’s think tank session before Helton’s at bat in the ninth. Seemed like he said something like, “Pitch around Helton, I know you’ve got Tulowitzki…oh, and don’t screw up again.”
For a game that relies so heavily on numbers, and trends, and rationale, the climax of Game Three was an unforgettable moment in Philadelphia sports history where the hero closer who limped into the playoffs got reinvented by postseason pressure; resurrected by pure emotion.
The Phillies proved themselves to be the resilient bunch they claimed to be all week with a gutsy, come from behind victory, in a frigidly hostile environment, capped by an unimaginable ninth inning. They found a way to win when it made sense. They found a way to win when it made no sense.
They know how to do it.
After all, they’re still the champs.