In the same ballpark

I can’t say that Len Kluge and I were friends exactly, but we were solid soul mates when it came to one particular subject: baseball.
Whenever I wrote about the splendid spectacle, I could count on a passionate, and often poetic, response from Kluge, the local theater icon who died last week at the age of 63.

In April 2002 I climbed upon my baseball soap box to rail against the growing sentiment that baseball, with its luxurious pace, was doomed to extinction in this age of short attention spans.
Kluge rallied to my cause. Here’s what he wrote:
“When the subject is ‘the death of baseball,’ I can’t resist putting in my two cents.
“Maybe, the two of us are the last line of defense but, by God, I’m going down waving my treasured Al Kaline-autographed bat.
“When I was about 12, my father brought home the evening paper one night. He handed me the sports section and I unfolded it on the floor of the living room. My eye caught a headline asking: ‘Is Baseball Dying?’
“I couldn’t catch my breath. The room started to spin. How could I be having a heart attack at age 12?
“Once I recovered sufficiently to read on, I realized this was just SPECULATION!
“So, I’m now kind of used to hearing that baseball is dying.
“To me, it’s like saying chess is dying, to be replaced by video games, or hip-hop will toll the death knell for rock ‘n’ roll.
“It’s like saying a cold glass of lemonade, on a backyard hammock, on summer afternoon is passe and we must all pile into our SUVs and go for Slurpees.
“Not this old coot!
“Don’t fear, my friend. Your grandchildren and grandchildren’s children will have this most perfect sport in their future. Yes, we must defend it against the voracious action-seekers, but we cannot lose. The mental agility of the game will always win out over the brute force of football, basketball, etc.
“If we’re lucky, we all get to a point where the cerebral becomes more interesting than the physical.
“How can you not love Barry Bonds facing ‘The Big Unit’ (Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson)?”
Amen and hallelujah.

Comments

[Martha]

I can appreciate a leisurely pace, I'm tired of go go go all the time. But I'm not a big enough fan to pay money to have something be the background to food and drinks and friends. But baseball isn't losing me, it never had me to begin with.

I'm not sure that I agree with the interpretation of it being a mental agility activity though, no more or less than any other sport. They all have their strategies, but it's not like it's Scrabble or chess...

[John Schneider]

The thing with baseball is that there is a lot going on, strategically, even during the frequent periods of apparent inaction. Think about the pause before a 3-2 pitch with bases loaded in a tight game. The tension is delicious.

[JRS]

I think the whole attention span
aspect relates to TV and baseball
has never played well in that format, the leisurely pace of the game seems to be magnified
on the small screen make sticking
with a whole game difficult. I was reminded of this the past weekend when I went to a Lugnuts game and it was so much more enjoyable in person with the larger perspective of the stadium itself.

Football in contrast is close to
being perfect on TV with multiple
options to start each play whereas
with baseball it is basically the
ball back and forth between pitcher and catcher.

[Michael Motta]

I used to love MLB almost as much as the NFL (1980s mostly) but the coming together of a few things at once doused my enthusiasm.

The Orioles lost their pitching.
The Tigers lost their pitching, and their hitting, then Cecil Fielder.

Players started changing teams like changing socks, and making so much money that they ceased to be rich and became filthy rich. They were not members of the community in any sense - but instead high class mercenaries. What possible connection do I have with a guy who is from Florida, has played for half a dozen teams, makes more money in a year than I will in my lifetime, and probably won't even be on the team next year?

And the biggest thing is I had become a convert to college sports in general over pro sports.

After I lost most interest it seemed like the game got worse too. I felt like it was becoming home runs or bust, and then of course the steroids stuff of late.

Baseball in the abstract is a pleasant concept, but professional baseball as practiced lost its charm for me long ago.

[OhioSparty]

JRS Please learn how to type properly, your posts are too difficult to read. Let me show you by example. Isnt it easier to read the first paragraph then the second?

JRS Please learn how to type
properly, your posts are too
difficult to read. Let me show
you by example. Isnt it easier
to read the first paragraph then
the second?

[Michael Motta]

Maybe JRS is using form to convey part of his/her meaning regarding pace, perspective, and attention spans. If so, I'm not sure it's quite successful, but it's a valiant attempt.

However, I doubt it.

[libertarianman]

I laugh to myself in amusement, or shake my head in bewilderment at the irony every time somebody demands the channel be changed to football or basketball because “baseball is boring”. All three have allure, but the former two are gaining more. The trend mirrors the general dumbing down of American society. Baseball will continue to lose popularity because the masses have too short an attention span to pay sufficient attention to the subtlety of baseball to ever gain an understanding sufficient to develop an appreciation of it.

Basketball and football are hip-hop, slam dancing and graffiti, the dime novel. They are power and speed, the awe what is possible by the physically extraordinary among us.

Baseball is the symphony, ballet and sculpture, poetry. It is finesse, the awe of what is possible by the physically ordinary among us.

In football, two-way play is unusual. In basketball, it’s optional. In baseball, it’s (generally) required. It takes two extraordinarily different skill sets to play offense and defense. You can spend ten years in the minors developing and still get a crack at the bigs. The others write you off if you haven’t made it by age 21. Baseball doesn’t require stamina for a game, but it does for a season.

Football and basketball allow you to redeem your failures on the next snap, or the next trip down the court. In baseball, you have to wait two or three innings for your shot at atonement. In baseball, a 35% success rate gets you to Cooperstown; in the others, a 40% success rate gets you an unemployment check.

Baseball doesn’t allow a clock to run out your chance to come back. There is no taking a knee in baseball. There is no partial credit. There are no field goal attempts if you are stranded at third, no free throws if a hard knock keeps you from crossing the plate. It’s one run at a time, and that’s the only way to win.

Appreciation of baseball is dying. A pity, but given a “culture” that demands instant gratification and eschews lifetime achievement for fifteen minutes of fame, what else would you expect?

Baseball is Augustus; football and basketball are Nero.

[JRS]

Oh brother.... the only thing you
forgot in that laughable essay of
cliches is how the start of baseball season in the spring signals a new beginning of life.

[JRS]

"JRS Please learn how to type properly"

People have been telling me that for years, sorry, it is not going to change

[Michael Motta]

I don't know that appreciation for baseball is dying, it's just that appreciation for other sports (in the U.S.) is rising. I speak for instance of soccer, lacrosse, women's sports in general, NASCAR, and I think various collegiate sports, not to mention so-called "Xtreme sports". I suspect that Asia has picked up the baseball to any extent that the U.S. has dropped it. The money these guys make must come from somewhere!