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Listening to Soundgarden’s final album today got me thinking about baseball.*
I grew up with an All-American boy’s passion for the American game. The players whose faces festooned my collection of baseball cards were like idols to me. Steve Garvey, Pete Rose, Willie Stargell, the Niekros – Phil and Joe – Ron Guidry, Don Sutton, George Brett, Dale Murphy – they were demigods battling with bat and pitched ball in the pantheon of Major League Baseball.
I loved everything about the game – the slow pace and the Byzantine rules and scorekeeping. I loved hearing the crack of the bat and the thump of a blazing fastball in the catchers mitt. I loved the national anthem and the organ music in the ball park and the seventh inning stretch.
My Dad is a baseball fan and he passed that on to me. He’s a Dodgers fan, so I was a Dodgers fan growing up. My favorite color was Dodger blue. I can still name the legendary infield of the 1981 World Series winners (Cey, Russell, Lopes and Garvey), can still picture Fernando Valenzuela’s bizarre windup and Tommy Lasorda’s waddling gait when he went out to the mound.
At some point, I got to the age when you start to disagree with your Dad and then I became a Braves fan – probably just to annoy him. I loved the Braves when they sucked, in the 80’s when they wore powder blue and averaged 65 wins per season. When Dale (The Stormin’ Mormon) Murphy was their sole All-Star. There’s something pure about a team that bad, something simple and something loveable. The best thing was that 
every single game could be seen on “The Superstation” sandwiched between reruns of “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Dallas”. That glorious 1995 series win over Cleveland made it all worth while, even if they’ve never won since. I love the Braves for Chipper Jones, who is in his 17th season with the club, a true rarity in modern baseball and Bobby Cox, who holds the major league record for being tossed as a manager, that my friends is a record!
My blind love for baseball started to fade during the 1981 strike, even at 10 years old I recognized that something was rotten in the game that I loved. Slightly wounded, I kept up my adoration for the game – you don’t throw out a true love for one little indiscretion. Or two. Or three. But finally, sometime in the last decade, I tired of being a cuckold. Sure, I hung around for a while. Kept my eye on the standings, watched a game on TV if the Braves were playing, even made it to the ballpark once in a while – but the passion was gone. And when I left the country and keeping up with American sports became a bit tougher, baseball was one of the first to slip away. As I write this post today, I couldn’t tell you where my beloved Braves are in the NL East.
It was a lot of things that made me finally give up - the strikes, the money, interleague play, epidemic free agency – but the final straw was the cheating. The steroids. The first cases hurt a bit, but were forgivable. But as player after player came up dirty, in ‘98 when Sosa and McGwire were chasing Maris’s record while juiced, when Bonds broke Aaron’s record – each of those incidents . Ironically, it was Alex Rodriguez this year who made me just stop caring, a player I don’t really care about. But I remember seeing A.Rod playing for the Mariners in the Kingdome back in 1995. This was the year that the Mariners made the playoffs for the first time in ages and featured such stars as Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson and A.Rod. All of whom jumped ship for greener pastures shortly after that season and certainly before they tore down the Kingdome for whatever insurance company sponsored field they put up on the south side of Seattle.
And now, the skinny kid who was playing backup to Luis Sojo is getting paid $50,000 an at bat to play for the evil Yankees and he’s juiced. I don’t care what he or any of them do off the field, but the cheating – I just can’t deal with the cheating. So, baseball? It’s over. It’s not you, it’s me. I just think it’s time to move on. Sure, we can stay friends.
My love affair with Major League Baseball is over, but not my love of the game. There are other places to find baseball in a purer form – on dusty little league fields, college campuses and small minor league parks all over the U.S. One of my favorite movies, and the best baseball movie ever, is “Bull Durham”. This film paints a romantic and hilarious picture of minor league baseball and is probably the only Kevin Costner movie that is ever worth seeing. There are 246 minor league teams spread all over the country, thus you are probably not far from a minor league club. Admission is dirt cheap, parking is not usually a problem and in most parks you can sit close enough to smell the players sweat if that’s your kind of things. A lot of these guys make it to the bigs, so you may get a chance to see a player before he becomes a greedy, drug ridden freak.
When I go to visit my parents in Florida, my Dad and I usually catch a game. The Daytona Cubs are a Class A affiliate of Chicago playing in the Florida State League against such perennial powerhouses as the Brevard County Manatees and the Lakeland Flying Tigers. The Cubs play at Jackie Robinson Ballpark which sits on the Intercoastal Waterway. It’s so named because, according to the club website in 1946, Robinson came to town for spring training with the Montreal Royals. He was banned from playing in Jacksonville and Sanford, but not in Daytona.. His first plate appearance came in an exhibition game against their parent club, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson then became the first African-American player in the Major Leagues.
Dad and I go to to watch the Cubs, fill up on bad hot dogs and pretzels, I keep score, we try to catch foul balls and usually come away with some kind of free promotion. We enjoy the Florida summer twilight and do the things that fathers’ and sons’ have been doing in America for over a century.
During my last trip to see my parents we got to take Boy Z to a game and I’m grateful for that. He’s not likely to grow up a baseball fan here in Oz (though there’s talk of establishing a professional league Down Under) and will be more like to be a fan of the Adelaide Crows or South Australia Redbacks than the Braves or the Dodgers. But when we visit the States, I want him to get a glimpse of the joy I got from the American pasttime when I was a kid. I want us to enjoy a game of baseball and the best place for us to do that is not going to be at Turner Field or Dodger Stadium or, god forbid, Tropicana Field but at Jackie Robinson Ballpark or one of the hundreds of minor league parks scattered around my homeland. Those are the places where real baseball gets played today.
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I’ve dumped MLB, however I do still love music about the game. Here, in no particular order, are my five favorite songs about baseball:
- Billy Bragg & Wilco – “Joe DiMaggio” from “Mermaid Avenue Vol. II” (Buy from
) - The Felice Brothers – “Cooperstown” from “Yonder is the Clock” (Buy from )
- John Fogerty – “Centerfield” from “The Long Road Home – The Ultimate John Fogerty & Creedance Collection” (Buy from )
- Whiskeytown – “Empty Baseball Parks” the source of today’s title is from the unreleased “Those Weren’t the Days”. You can get part of that album here for free.
- Belle & Sebastien – “Piazza, New York Catcher“, because this…
“San Francisco’s calling us, the Giants and Mets will play
Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?”
…is awesome. From “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” (Buy from )
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*If anyone can tell me why, there’s a prize in it. How about a copy of that unreleased Whiskeytown album for the first person who leaves a comment explaining the Soundgarden/baseball link.
** I’m plagiarizing myself a bit here. Some of the words and the sentiment in this post comes from one that I wrote when I first started blogging. But most of y’all haven’t read it, so I figured it is as good as new.
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I’m the same way, although I fell out of love with baseball for more personal and less noble reasons at a much earlier age. I, too, loved the Braves when they sucked and spent more games as a kid when they were having losing seasons than I have since the first trip to the playoffs back in the 90s.
I’m also a big fan of minor league games. While I was in college, the Macon Braves (the franchises AAA affiliate) moved to Rome. Great stadium. Seats down the first base line were $7 and behind home plate were $10. It was the year McCann, Francouer, and Scheurholz’s son came through that level. They won the league championship that season. My favorite player was Onil Joseph, a scrawny kid who was fast as hell and was noticeable for busting his ass on every play in a league full of kids busting their ass to get noticed. Part of what I love is that, but also the mistakes. They’re good enough to put on a good show, but still make enough mistakes to add excitement to a pop fly that would be a guaranteed out at the top level. It’s still probably an out, but you can’t be sure.
Since I’ve moved, I’ve gone to a Savannah Sand Gnats (same league as Rome but with the Mets). Unlike the new stadium in Rome, Savannah’s is about 100 years old and hails back to the old days of pro ball. It’s nestled in a beautiful park under old live oaks and palms.
I can’t get into baseball usually. It’s too slow for me and I didn’t enjoy playing as a kid, but there’s something about minor league ball that actually makes me enjoy going.
Jacob´s last blog ..A Poem about Beauty
Any baseball fan should read “The Great American Novel” by Philip Roth.
headbang8´s last blog ..Photo Friday: My Favorite Spot
I can’t explain the connection and I don’t like baseball, but mainly because I haven’t grown up with it. Every now and then I check it out on ESPN but I don’t last long because it’s soooo slow. Bit like cricket really – a game that I love by the way. Though I am a little tired of Ponting’s carry on. Such a whiner.
As a Victorian I’d usually badmouth the whole idea of barracking for the Crows, but given their current form I’d say Z would be well and truly justified in his support!
Agnes´s last blog ..Gravatar Widget
Jacob – That Savannah park sounds good, there are so few old fields left. All the big league fields have been made to look old – which is sort of allegory for America in the 21st Century – but excepting Wrigley, there aren’t many left. I’d love to know your personal reasons for getting jaded young – a blog post?
Headbang – I’ve never been a Philip Roth fan – he’s too dense for me – but I’ll keep my eye out for it.
Agnes – I could care less about the Crows, but I figure Zach is going to be into local sports and I’d rather he barrack for the Crows than Port. Cricket has become my baseball replacement. I’m obsessed. We get really bad SBS reception where we live and the last few weeks have been a mission to improve it so we can watch the Ashes properly.
I have my own love affair with baseball (the Red Sox) which remains largely undimmed, in spite of scandal and distance. The best and worst day of which was in 2004 – I was so overwhelmed with emotion, crying in the darkened lounge at 4am, but almost completely alone in my joy, as no one i knew in London could possibly understand what a big deal it was to me, or even knew that a lifelong dream had been fulfilled.
The other evening I was watching a game late at night on my phone from bed, and marvelling at the miracle of what was possible just 5 years later.
jen´s last blog ..forget the protocol, i stand corrected
Oh my word yes, if it’s simply the lesser of two evils, then I’d choose the Crows every time. I mean, Port wear teal, for goodness sake!
(If I’ve offended any Port supporters, please feel free to contact me. I’ve always wanted to meet a Port supporter in real life – I’m beginning to think they don’t exist.)
Agnes´s last blog ..Gravatar Widget
A couple of bones to pick with you, Chris:
1) Bad hot dogs? No such thing, at least not at a ball park.
2) Murph’ was the only star on the Braves? What about Bob Horner?
Just kidding, of course. I really like the idea of baseball and what the game has meant to the nation. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a MLB game, either live or on TV. I saw a minor league game last year.
One fun tradition in my corner of the Deep South is that once a year they dust of Rickwood Field and play a matinee game there. Truly a fun time in an old stadium with a lot of history.
Jud´s last blog ..15 Books
Chris, you are better off. This is a HORRIBLE season. My beloved Indians are in the basement without a hope in the world and the Yankees are one of the most powerful teams in the majors. Who would wish well on a team with a scumbag like A-Rod and a new stadium that’s a big F-U to fans of modest means? My only hope is that the Yanks perform their usual October belly-flop.
In the meantime, I take The Daughters to the Lakewood Blueclaws games. They’re the Phillies AA affiliate. The games are pure joy.
The Unbearable Baishment´s last blog ..around the dial and into my head
If you love baseball for the game, you should see The Emerald Diamond, the story of the Irish National Baseball team and Playing for Peanuts a 10 episode TV show about independent minor league baseball. Same filmmaker, worth watching
I just never cared for baseball…so slow. In the main, I prefer college sports to pro sports. But I know that baseball ignites true passion in many fans. I have been to a see the Nashville Sounds and the old stadium does have its own charm…especally the giant guitar-shaped score board. Only in Nashville. I love that John Fogerty song and Bull Durham though.
HereInFranklin´s last blog ..Here In Franklin’s Table
I’m not a sports person at ALL, but an nice post and I’m sure Boy Z will appreciate baseball just probably in a different way than you did.
Jill/Twipply Skwood´s last blog ..Stalking: It’s Good Work if You Can Get It
“I loved the Braves when they sucked, in the 80’s when they wore powder blue and averaged 65 wins per season”
I don’t know too much about baseball, but 65 wins in a season is bad?!? How many games to they play?
Here in England, if your football team won 65 games in a season, they would win every game!
I grew up in southern California and I remember a brand new Dodger stadium when I was in high school. A group of us went to one of the first games. My brother and I had been playing baseball with as many kids as we we could gather wherever we lived. He and I went to some Dodger games and later took our first kids with us to Angel games. Later on after kids were grown and I was living in San Diego, I had season tickets for Padre games and was in heavenly seats for my first and only Series. At that time I had a large plasma TV on the wall and watched sports like a fanatic. But over four years ago I came to see that I needed to change my lifestyle so one of the major changes was to sell the TV and quit buying season tickets. I gave up sports. My friends thought I had a stroke or something. They bugged me about it for a long time. But I was learning to become more serene and zero in on things I needed to work on within and that has been the best choice for me ever. Your post brought back childhood memories and also some good ballpark memories, but I am so much happier with my life full with other things now.
Technobabe´s last blog ..Get In On A Good Giveaway
6 and a 1/2 back.
Great post. I also still love baseball as a sport but don’t like the MLB. I have lots of great childhood memories of going to Braves games with my family while visiting Atlanta in the early 90s. I even have fond memories of going to Marlins games when they first started… went to a game last year where the attendance was around 2,000! Such a joke…
I’ve never been a big on sports. I’ve played some, I’ve watched some, but I just don’t get “fandom”.
BUT, one of my good friends in college was a HUGE baseball fan.
This post reminds me so much of him.
He unbridled enthusiasm for all things baseball was so infectious.
He’s the one who made me watch Bull Durham – still one of my favorites – and SandLot and Field of Dreams and every other “baseball” movie out there. And I made him watch A League of Their Own (shut up, it counts).
He did radio color commentary for our college team and got me listening to every game. When he visited the Baseball Hall of Fame, he came back with photos and souvenirs and infections, kid-like enthusiasm.
And yes, he could go on and on about the “state of the game today” as well as wax poetic about the history of the sport – majors and minors – and it’s greatest players and moments.
But even the “bad stuff” didn’t dim his enthusiasm for the GAME.
He would tell you, back then, that he was a Detroit Tigers fan. But, really, he was a BASEBALL fan. With all of the personal and cultural nostalgia that came with it.
I think you two could have had some great conversations.
Wow. Sorry to write so much. But thanks for the trip down memory lane.
ZenMom´s last blog ..raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
“I loved everything about the game – the slow pace and the Byzantine rules and scorekeeping”
No wonder you like cricket then. But hey listen…what exactly is wrong with Power supporters? I mean, Himself is a huge fan. (See Agnes, there is one).Alright. Don’t answer that.
I think minor league sport is great all round. I would much rather attend an SANFL game than AFL. There is something more personal about the minor leagues.
arizaphale´s last blog ..Year 10 Commence Mensuration. Yes You Read That Right.
My jading doesn’t come with much of a story. I just never loved the game as much as I did football and during the summer between my sixth and seventh grade years, I played on a team where I sat on the bench almost the entire season and this was rec ball. You paid to play and there were only like 11 kids per team. It was pretty easy to rotate your extras on during a game. Hell, I was even better than some of the kids who did play but the kid who played ahead of me had a dad who was friends with the coach. After that, I never bothered with baseball again.
Jacob´s last blog ..A Poem about Beauty
1981, as a expos fan i was crushed.
the best book about baseball i have read is The Greatest Slump of All Time. Hilarious!
quite a few aussies playing college ball.
pro league would do well down under i would think.
great sport baseball. i always thought it was analogous to democracy as it required superior individual acomplishment within the framework of a team.
Funny, I really have no interest in the sport, but love to go to the game. There is something nostalgic about sitting in the stands with a beer in my hand, just hoping to catch a fly, even in the nosebleeds.
kelly´s last blog ..I WANT MORE
Ariza – there’s nothing wrong with Port supporters in my opinion, I’ve just never met or heard of any! Glad to hear there’s at least one out there. I think the general prejudice against Port (here in Victoria anyway) is that they’re an interstate team, and that they’re still viewed as a ‘johnny come lately’ kinda outfit. That’s just my view though, and it’s based on no evidence or legitimacy whatsoever!
Agnes´s last blog ..Gravatar Widget
I used to really love the game, and especially the St. Louis Cardinals. I was big into baseball cards as well. I still follow the MLB and even go to a game or two, but I especially like going to college games. What I like about baseball is not only the game, but the atmosphere of the park, the smell of grass, the summer air, etc… MLB parks don’t give you the same feel as the smaller parks.
Matthew´s last blog ..Just where do you think you are going?
I’ve never been a huge baseball fan, despite the fact I hail from the great city of Boston and am therefore bound by my DNA to support the Red Sox. The game is just too slow for me, which explains why I also can’t get into cricket. That being said, we would still take the kids to see the Pawtucket Red Sox several times a year back when we lived Stateside and I never minded. Something about sitting out in the stands in the sun. One memorable moment was seeing David Hasselhoff’s cousin pitch – really!!
Last time I seriously watched here was 2004 when the Sox won it all, and I was convinced they were going to blow it, just like in ‘86. Even when they won I stared, open mouthed, at the tv and wondered when someone was going to come on and say “Just kidding!”
Mooselet´s last blog ..Nurse Mooselet
Um, Cubbies. The curse of the billy goat. Harry Carey on the radio. Frosty malts at Wrigley Field.
I am not a true fan of baseball, but, I enjoy the places and memories. I honestly LOVE the knickers! It takes a man to wear knickers.
We, here: all soccer all the time.
heather´s last blog ..Too Much Tragedy
Fun. I don’t particularly enjoy baseball, but I’ve been to a couple Tigers games. It’s fun and something to do on occasion, but a fan I am not.
As a side note, I did learn something from this post. I’ve never known what a seventh inning stretch was. Reading it here reminded me that I wanted to look it up.
Joe´s last blog ..Daddy as a baby
Jen – I had one of those moments in early November 2008 – when you feel emotional connected with ‘the old country’ despite time zones and oceans.
Agnes – Oh there are plenty, a blight on SA’s visual landscape in their teal.
Jud – Horner was a stud. A big old chubber who hit, what, about .280? I liked a couple of their pitchers at the time – Mahler and Garber.
TUB _- The last time I checked the standings the Yankees were under 500, what the hell happened?
Happy Jack – Thanks for the recommendations.
HIF – These days, I pretty much dedicate most of my fan time to college football. As you know. Only a month until the season kicks off!
Jill – Nah, probably a different sport. Cricket most likely. I’ve started a little obsession with cricket, I’ll probably pass that one on to the boy.
Neil – It’s 65 out of 162, so, yeah.
Technobabe – I think you can give up TV without giving up sports. I love listening to sports on the radio, requires a bit more imagination.
Jamie – Shit. ‘Bout right though.
Kerry – Despite two series championships in a decade, the Marlins are a joke.
ZenMom – It takes a certain kind of personality and a certain kind of life experience to be a fan. I’m a Braves fan because they were the closest team to where I grew up. I’ve never been a NFL fan, because I can’t feel any loyalty. I’ll be a University of Georgia fan past the grave because they gave me a sheepskin.
Ty Cobb
and
Tin Cup
I had a big ol’ poster of Dale Murphy tacked to the wall of my bedroom throughout childhood. It was awesome. But the team sucked.
Now, I live fewer than 10min from Turner Field, even an hour before game time, thanks to my “bat cave” route around Grant Park. Yet, I only go to games when folks come from out of town or when someone has extra (free) tickets, and a lot of the reasons are the ones you list above.
Muskrat´s last blog ..a brief performance
I’ve been slowly introducing Hubbie to the joys of live baseball. We haven’t been to a game up here, yet, but I hope we can make it to one this season. The $17 hot dogs irk the shit out of me, but it really is an experience to see a game in a huge stadium. Someday, I hope to see a football/soccer game live in Europe to really get the feel for it.
NATUI´s last blog ..Just A Bad Ass In Disguise
Arizaphale – I have no AFL loyalty, but based on uniforms of the SA teams, the Crows are certainly better looking.
Jacob – Yeah Okeefenokeestan is football country. On top of all the other oddities I had to deal with, being a baseball fan was just another one.
Jim – I was crushed when the Expos moved. I hate teams moving. There are a half dozen or so Aussies in MLB as well.
Kelly – A ballgame is an event/.
Agnes – Ah, come on, don’t backpedal!
Matthew – My favorite big league stadium these days is Kaufman – it’s almost like a minor league park.
Mooselet – I don’t care one way or the other about the Sox, but I give their fans points for loyalty.
Heather – The shame of it is that a lot of that stuff is disappearing, that’s what I like about the game as well – but there’s less and less of it.
Joe – Are you some kind of communist? How do you not know what a 7th inning stretch is.
Muskrat – I actually like Turner Field, it’s own of the older of the new stadiums.
NATUI – It would have to be cheap to see the Nats wouldn’t it? I mean, they’re soooo bad.
Ok no backpeddling – it’s the teal that’s the biggest problem. And that they’re an interstate team.
That better?
Go Pies!
(ducks for cover…)
Agnes´s last blog ..Gravatar Widget
I’ve never really gotten baseball. Seems too slow to me, and Dad was always more into football. But I do love Bull Durham. I’d say Silverado is another good Costner film, but then I love a western.
Gypsy´s last blog ..Gypsy, circa 1995
Honestly? I’m more of a college American football fan than baseball. Never could get into it and when I watched the 1994 strike and heard all the sports commentators bad-mouthing the “scabs” aka common men trying out and actually playing while the pros whined? Well, I completely swore off the sport. I’ve been to three Braves games and didn’t really enjoy any of them.
I think you’re right, though. I think all professional sports, at the top tier, are all a bit soured. It’s about the farm teams and the minor leagues that get our hearts pumping again.
Coal Miner’s Granddaughter´s last blog ..About
I still love baseball, though I agree the game has been badly tainted by all the steroids and cheating. I’ve always been a big Braves fan — Dale Murphy was my childhood hero — and the ‘91 season is one of my favorite childhood memories. I can still name the entire roster from that season. Now I don’t make it to MLB games so much, mostly because they’re so expensive, but would like watching them on TV if I had a TV. I also very much enjoy minor league games.
I’m glad you referenced Bull Durham, too. Great movie. Great post.
courtney´s last blog ..Backpacking FAIL
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://onlinegamesforgirls.net
I too loved baseball growing up. “Goose” Gossage was the MAN! I also really liked that catcher for the Pirates (?) that would stick his one leg out to the side all the time. Sad that I can’t remember his name . . .
And it’s no big shock that one of my favorite movies ever is Field of Dreams. Made the pilgrimage there when my son was two and had a blast sending him scrambling into the corn for baseballs.
Ah, the memories.
It’s been a while, my friend. I’ve been on a bit of a forced blogging hiatus, and it’s good to be back for a bit . . .
tysdaddy´s last blog ..A Scout is Kind
[...] A Free Man » Strike one and strike two… I guess we're both out. By A Free Man Steve Garvey, Pete Rose, Willie Stargell, the Niekros – Phil and Joe – Ron Guidry, Don Sutton, George Brett, Dale Murphy – they were demigods battling with bat and pitched ball in the pantheon of Major League Baseball. … A Free Man – http://www.afreeman.org/ [...]