“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

–Lou Gehrig ( July 4, 1939 farewell speech)

Okay, a little less serious topic this week, except for those of you who love the game of baseball as much as I do. Professional baseball has had a tough year. First, it was the revelation that the Houston Astros, long suspected of cheating, actually used high tech cameras to steal signs over at least two seasons and during the 2017 World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Some heads fell, but only at the management level. Basically, the players who cheated were given immunity for turning “state’s evidence.” While baseball lore is replete with stories of cheating, the Astros–perhaps appropriately nicknamed–took it to a new stratosphere. Just my opinion, but Major League Baseball got it wrong. Players should have been suspended for at least a year, without pay, and the Houston organization should have been stripped of its World Series title.

Before baseball could catch its collective breath, Covid 19 came along, shutting down Spring training and delaying the start of a ridiculously shortened regular season with equally silly new rules. The delay wasn’t due as much to teams trying to determine how to play a meaningful season as it was by the players’ union arguing with the league over salary figures. I’m all for the free market system, but handsomely paid athletes arguing over hundreds of thousands of dollars while many of their fans are out of work and at risk of financial ruin is, at best, a terrible optic. The season is underway, but has already been marred by numerous players testing positive for Covid 19. As I write this post, the virus-decimated Miami Marlins are quarantined from play for a week and then will be forced to cobble together enough major and minor leaguers to field a team.

Why does it matter, you might ask? Excellent question. In the greater scheme of things it matters not a whit. But, for those of us who grew up with baseball and loved it as our National Pastime, it matters greatly. We grew up listening to games on the radio–even sneaking our transitor radios into school to listen to World Series games. We idolized players like Robinson, Musial, Kaline, Mantle, and Mays, and rode bikes with baseball cards clothespinned to our spokes, gleefully unaware we were destroying rookie cards that could have contributed significantly to our retirement nest eggs!

Baseball is embedded in our culture, from arguably the greatest-ever 1927 Yankees, to the hugely successful 1970s marketing slogan “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet,” to President Bush’s inspirational first pitch at Yankee Stadium as play resumed days after the September 11 attacks. The hideous illness ALS is commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease, named for the baseball great who died from it in the prime of his playing years. And, long before Tommy John was known as an undergarment company, it was the name given to an orthopedic procedure that salvaged and extended John’s and many pitchers’ careers.

The game of baseball is a beautiful thing. I’ll never forget how the green and brown expanse of the field caught my breath the first time I walked into a major league park–the infield’s perfect geometry countered by the irregular outfield’s lush lawn, bounded at varying distances and in various shapes to give each park its unique advantages and personality.

Yes, I still love the game of baseball, but sadly I find I have to get beyond today’s players and management to sustain my adoration for the game.