Sports : A letter to baseball, from an old fan

Dear Baseball:

As we approach the end of our season together, I thought it would be a good time to thank you for being at my side in 2001.

It began in February, when the news that pitchers and catchers were heading to camp made the coldest days of winter feel a bit warmer. Soon we were reading about spring training. Then came opening day, and the eternally springing hope it always brings.

I admit it: I was not always there for you this year. I was busy with projects on most Saturdays. And on your worst days – when some idiot in California nearly killed an EMT just because he was a fan of a different California team – I said nothing. Later, when a kid watched his dad fall to his death while trying to catch a souvenir ball in Texas, I again answered in silence.

It’s been that kind of year for you, I guess. While in some places, stadiums were filled with your friends, in many places you were simply ignored all together.

You are still the best pastime a nation ever had. But we are certainly not the best nation a pastime ever had. Attendance at MLB games has gone up by approximately 450,000 from 2010 to 2011, but: In our biggest population centers – New York City, Chicago, Florida and LA – attendance is down by a total of 1.5 million.

That means that the people who decide how much baseball Americans want to watch – most of whom live in those areas – look around at those 1.5 million empty seats and say, “Americans don’t like baseball as much.” While this seems like nonsense to the people who love the game, it’s true that Americans -- especially our youngest ones – are finding increasingly less profitable things to do than choose up teams to hit, pitch and catch that iconic spheroid.

For example, when people should have been watching the pennant races, and then the playoff, they were busy instead trying to occupy someone else’s space. I had to laugh, when just a dozen miles away from where some people were loudly protesting how the rich always get their way, the Yankees lost to the Tigers – who, as a team get paid about half the money the Yankees make. But then again, you’ve always had a sense of humor, and a gift for the ironic.

Part of the problem is geography; the four teams left in the playoffs are from the middle of the country: Detroit, Texas, St. Louis and Milwaukee. And the stadiums of the World Series teams, St. Louis and Texas, are not within driving distance of the vast majority of the country.

Arlington, Texas, is more than 1400 miles from LA and the other cities in California. St. Louis is more than 900 miles from NYC and 1,800 miles from LA. This weekend’s playoff games took place in a completely different time zone than that of at least 200 million Americans; and is at least one day’s drive from just as many.

The distance makes it harder, in these days, for people to get as excited about a team in another part of the country.

Another art of the problem is our urban lifestyle. Park commission members are still debating the use of asphalt – yes asphalt, the stuff you are supposed to drive on – as a surface for baseball fields in New York City.

Part of the joy of baseball is savoring the feel and smell of the dirt and the leather from your glove. But you can’t smell the dirt if your ball field is a painted parking lot. And it hurts too much to dive for a grounder. While I am very glad to hear that New Yorkers are abandoning asphalt as a baseball playing surface, the fact that it ever was considered acceptable is a terrible tragedy.

But, my friend part of your problem is cultural. There are fewer kids playing baseball during the summer; they even had to cancel a Vinton Park and Rec program because of lack of participation. As more kids spend more time inside, fewer are learning the lessons you have to teach.

Even last Friday night, instead of watching a playoff game, millions of Americans instead watched a news program about a woman who claimed her attempts to hire a hit man to kill her husband were just part of an attempt to get on a reality show. Our whole country would have been better off if all of the people involved in this show would have paid more attention to you.

When I was a kid, the parks and back yards were fill of baseball games, whether or not their was an official “diamond.” Now, most diamonds sit empty.

I used to say that baseball is a key to world peace, that most of the places where war begins are places without baseball. Remember Japan? Before you came along, they tried to conquer the world. But after WWII, they beat their swords and weapons into baseball bats.

Just about every place in the world where there is unrest would become better if instead of fighting over whose religion is best, the people would lay down their arms and pick up their gloves. But here in America, there are 25 percent fewer kids playing baseball than there were in 2000.

But the good news: It’s October. It’s that time of year when guys that many Americans have never heard of inspire us with their plays and with the way they use the platform of baseball to help others. Maybe, just maybe, some kid will watch or hear a game (or like me, follow it on his computer) and realize that a diamond is still, a boy’s (and a girl’s) best friend.

And as always, the World Series brings along some story of some guy most of us have never heard before.

Like Mark Rzpeczynski. Rzpeczynski -- don't ask me how to pronounce it -- joined the Cardinals in a trade from Toronto just before the deadline in July. He was the winning pitcher in the game that sent the Redbirds to the World Series.Given the nickname Scrabble, Rzpeczynski (the R is silent) has lost more games than he has won in his short career. But when it counted, he helped the Cardinals hold on to some late leads as the team rallied to make the playoffs on the last day of the season. He also contributed to keeping the powerful Milwaukee Brewer offense from scoring this month.

There are lots of other players whom Americans will meet for the first time this week as we watch the World Series, and who will inspire us with their play and their off-field stories.

It’s still too soon to tell if “my team,” the Cardinals, will win the World Series. Both Texas and St. Louis have great teams, each led by creative managers, filled with guys with great talent, great history and great stories. So, if I end up watching someone else’s team win, it’s OK.

Whoever wins, I hope they do it in a way that inspires young people – and the not-so-young – to pick up a ball and glove and pass on the pastime.