opinion
In this difficult time, consumed by collective worry, stress and concern about COVID-19 and its immense impact, we search for small pleasures and treasures, the little things that help us cope with the big one. Our world turned inside out, we need something to give us comfort, a reassuring dose of stability.
I was counting on baseball.
Why not? It’s a great American institution, right up there with apple pie, it’s got a quirky, relaxed charm, and it’s just intricate enough to require serious concentration (the more serious the fan, the deeper into the weeds we get). When baseball returned, I knew it wouldn’t make the virus go away, but I sure hoped it would allow me — and lots of other fans — to relish a welcome diversion.
Baseball struck out.
It started with high hopes, muted somewhat by the potential that the virus would hammer teams the way it hammers everyone else. Initially, it seemed to be working. Sure, it was to be an absurdly short season, but a little baseball would be better than none.
Strike one came in high and hard. The Florida Marlins lost a school of starters and benchmen to COVID-19. Then a radiance of Cardinals got sick too, and thus did both leagues stumble right out of the box.
Strike two was a curveball. Guys in offices made changes to the game which seemed interesting but turned out to be sacrilege.
The traditional division structure was abandoned in favor of regional match-ups — the Dodgers play only West Coast teams, the Cubs confined exclusively to the Midwest, the Yankees batting only on the East Coast.
Even at 60 games, contests among the same teams over and over again just don’t measure up.
Then, bordering on the satanic, those same guys imposed the Designated Hitter on the National League. Gone are the complex decisions about pitching and the awkwardly amusing pitcher in the batting box, never mind a tradition as old as the game itself.
Then another foul ball, the institution of an “overtime” provision placing a runner on second base before a pitch is thrown in the 10th inning of a tied game. No walk and stolen base, no double down the line; the man gets to be on second because he made the last out in the previous inning. Phooey.
The final strike was a screwball. Rather than let the game act and speak for itself — baseball is both elegant and eloquent — the office boys elected to pipe in crowd noise and put cardboard spectators in seats. Television made it worse with digitally inserted crowds in empty stadiums. Instead of giving us the chatter in the dugouts, the exchanges on the field, the gossip shared between opposing players on base, we get phony noise and mock crowds.
Nice try, baseball, but "Yer Out!" The boys of summer should stay indoors, watching TV like the rest of us.
David M. Hamlin of Palm Springs is a writer and Cubs fan. Reach him at writedmh@gmail.com.
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August 30, 2020 at 06:32PM
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Valley Voice: Under COVID-19, 'Joltin' Joe' really has left and gone away - Desert Sun
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