Widukind Diary Entry #9

My mom found this blog and wrote on one of my posts asking why I had to use the "F-Word" so much. I really, really tried to restrain myself, but how else am I gonna put it?

Baseball is fucked up.

I was waiting for abriendo_bitches to write his Mitchell report review, which of course never came, so I thought I had to give my views on the matter. I'd first like to establish that I could care less about who was named in the report (of which the sources were two guys basically. Is that all the government of the United States, the most powerful force God has ever allowed to exist on this planet, can come up with? The government that brought down Sadaam? That faked 9/11? That killed Tupac? I mean, c'maaaaaaaaan). The reason I don't care about the names is two-fold. For one, I'm basically forced to because I've supported poor Barry through all of his trials and tribulations, and if I all of a sudden started slandering Clemens I would just be a really big douche bag. Secondly, and more importantly, I really just think baseball would be better if they just let the whole thing go.

Don't get me wrong, I'm terribly disappointed in the MLB for letting something like this go on for as long as it did. Though it's a stereotypically cream puff response, I think the impact that the rampant use of steroids had on younger generations is extremely serious, and one that major leaguers should be ashamed of causing. I also support new testing techniques that will help catch steroid abusers, and anything that will help crack down on their use. However, I also believe that there is something inherent in the game of baseball, something that can't be cleared away by lab testing and life-time bans, that played a big role in why the Mitchell Report was such a huge deal, and even why steroids were so popular in the first place.

As seen over the past few years, baseball has become a sport increasingly driven by statistics. The use of sabermetrics has risen so much, that not only are dorks like me using them for fantasy purposes, but general managers are using them to run their teams. When you pair this with the extreme nostalgia Americans have in respect to baseball, the great "national pastime", it's like mixing 2girls1cup and an underground society of poo-porn lovers.

Specific numbers like 755 and .400 are placed on pedastals made of marble, gold, and everlasting-life juice. Other more general numbers like 300 and 500 are made into exclusive clubs of elite ballplayers, who have seemingly transcended the game and are all of a sudden expected to be lighthouses of morality in this dark, cold place we call Earth full of corruption and death. But what happens when those latter characteristics creep into these wholesome groups of men? All fucking hell breaks loose.

Bonds passed 700. Clemens passed 300. Then they got linked to steroids. Consequently, they get drawn and quartered by the media week-in and week-out, while the hundreds of other ballplayers are curiously ignored. Meanwhile, Shawn Merriman runs roughshod through the NFL, goes through a similar controversy, and no one bats an eye. No media members declare football disgraced, no presidents order government investigations. Let me illustrate a key difference between baseball and football: in football, the goal of a defender is to slam his opponent to the ground, while in baseball, a hitter has to hit a leather ball someplace where it will hit nobody. Given these distinctions, logistically for which sport should steroid use be abhorred? Even a damn Tusken Raider could deduce that the use performance enhancing drugs should be greater shunned in a sport where the health and safety of players are at stake. But no. Instead, Americans care about numbers, and records set by guys 30,50, even 70, years ago, on completely different playing fields.

Journalist Mary McGrory said "Baseball is what we were, football is what we've become", a statement I love. While this quote has multiple implications that can be examined in different arguments, the one that resonates here is the fact that baseball is no longer our "national pastime". It was once the sole, dominant force in American sports, but the emergence of the NFL, NBA, NCAA, NASCAR, NAACP, NAMBLA, etc., has resulted in baseball sharing the glory. Consequently we look to the "good ol' days", times void of steroid use and full of perfect athletic "icons", and constantly compare them to the ballplayers of today. This behavior, paired with the statistical nature of baseball, have led us to the clusterfuck we find ourselves in today, with little insight in to how it will all play out.

I for one can only hope that the players do exactly what their title suggests: play. I don't want a strike, I don't want guys resorting to roids, and I don't want a big hullabaloo made about meaningless records.

I just want Tim Lincecum to stay healthy.