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| Bryce Harper takes a swing at Baseball's unwritten rules. |
Dear Mr. Bench & Mr. Gossage...
... Please shut up!
Oh no he didn't?
Oh... yes, I did.
I continue to laugh at the old school continuing to defend their
unwritten MLB rules by making comments that just come off as childish. I do respect how these two Hall of Fame players have played the game -- I get it, that's the way the game
used to be when they played, it's built into them.
Hence, used to be..
The thing is the game has changed a plenty since their days, and it will only continue to change, the game goes through phases... good and bad. We were introduced to the Designated Hitter, we have witnessed expansion, we have seen inter-league play... The All-Star Game has become more than just some exhibition highlighting MLB's stars, it now affects the post-season... Speaking of post-season, since 1969, we have seen the addition of league championship series, league division series, and we had the addition of wild card teams (starting in 1995) to now go along with a extra wild card team in each league for a "Wild Card Game" -- for all of you that want to go
GRRRRR!! on that last part, you can thank the NFL for that one.
We have watched the mound get lower, we have watched the strike zone get smaller, and we watched in horror as the pitcher got punished more & more as MLB's hunger for (even more) offense in the late 90's got bigger & bigger; We watched
Greg Maddux and
Tom Glavine suddenly not getting that corner strike, while steroid heads like
Mark McGwire and
Barry Bonds disgraced the game without even thinking twice about it.
The thing is this...
If you love the game, truly love it, you have stuck around through all of this, and you will continue to do so as well, by continuing to love the game. But let's also acknowledge the facts that this game (that we love so much) is one hypocritical son of a
beach.
Personally, I believe if it wasn't the fact that
Bryce Harper called Baseball out as being "tired", we would not have heard as much hoopla about the whole ordeal -- If it came from
Cal Ripken, Jr, we would not hear the end of how brilliant and classy he is... but the comments did not come from Baseball's Golden boy... but it came from MLB's bad boy, Bryce Harper.
I get it, Harper's brash, he carries himself a certain way that is off-putting to the fans that treasure the old-school style -- but maybe people are getting their panties in a bunch, because they truly know what Bryce Harper said is true.
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| Ty Cobb added plenty of excitement back in the day. |
Harper is not the first athlete in the history of the game to ruffle feathers.. Heck, if
Ty Cobb was around today, he would probably back Bryce 100% -- Cobb was never one to be quiet. Baseball has had its colorful characters from the good to the bad --
Babe Ruth,
Bill Veeck,
Bill "Spaceman" Lee,
Mark Fidrych,
Manny Ramirez,
Rube Waddell &
Pedro Martinez... just to name a few.
In recent years we have seen more antics from the pitchers, from
Fernando Rodney shooting an invisible arrow into the sky,
Jonathan Papelbon's WWE wrestler muscle flexes, fist pumps, and over-the-top yelling -- To relievers running like a crazed man to the mound or even ridiculous "not dyed" beards on relievers (cough cough...
Brian Wilson).
Yet, batters must completely respect the game by not expressing themselves, whatsoever! Heaven forbid! There was last year's outcry in the post-season when
Jose Bautista flipped his bat, but do we ever hear of
Carlton Fisk's ball-directing (75' World Series HR) or about the enthusiastic
Joe Carter homer off
Mitch Williams? No...
Are they the same?
Not exactly ... Are they different? No.
Say what? They are the same thing to a degree, from
Kirk Gibson's doing his double-jab fist pump around 2nd base in 1988 or his really excited reaction off of
Goose Gossage in 1984... Seriously, I thought he was going to slap third base coach
Dick Tracewski's hand right off.
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| Kirk Gibson's reaction off of Goose in 84'. |
Maybe that's part of Goose Gossage's beef with Bryce? Maybe Bryce kind of reminds him of that feisty, out-spoken player in 1984 that made him look like a fool.
Now onto
Goose Gossage and
Johnny Bench, obviously they are a pitcher and catcher, which forms the battery -- obviously they are going to be a bit biased and in support of the pitcher. What gets me, is that these guys, especially Johnny Bench have benefited from the accolades of their careers. Bench was spokesmen for
Scott's & Ace Hardware, to Miller's beer... Not only he was a celebrated Baseball celebrity of sorts, he had one hell of a career -- So he is never going to go away, he is forever in Baseball lore and will continue to be for the next millennium or as long as Baseball exists -- it's sealed.
So when players like himself come out and make these statements, it comes off to me as "Hey, don't forget about me, I still have something to say." No offense, Mr. Bench we couldn't forget about you if we even tried. But your day in the sun is over, time to let today's stars shape today's game. Maybe don't attack a player because he's Bryce Harper, but maybe accept that its one of today's stars with something that has been on all of our minds....
Baseball is tired, Baseball needs excitement, and I couldn't agree more with what I heard on the radio the other day, but a talk show host mentioned that with these comments by Bryce Harper (being over-analysed and ridiculed), to now go along with the
Adam LaRoche drama with the Chicago White Sox (separate issue) -- Baseball is finally leading the headlines!
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| Landis: Evidence of Baseball's Two-Face. |
Baseball that is not good news, if the most excitement you have had in months is two dramas that have been over-analysed. Yes, you can say that I am sitting here, analyzing it myself -- but I want to point out the hypocracy of baseball. It always has been hypocritical from keeping
Negro Leaguers out of Baseball for generations, while turning around and awarding the man
Kenesaw Mountain Landis (who kept them out, due to his obvious bigotry), a place in
Cooperstown -- and to think he was a judge for the Supreme Court (disgusting). Landis, of course, was best known for the his role in banning the eight players from the
1919 Chicago White Sox; Those players may have not made their ill-fated decisions if it was not for their money-pinching owner
Charles Commiskey (another sorry excuse of a human being) -- he was
also rewarded a place in Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Baseball has always contradicted itself from the beginning of time, and we will continue to see that as the game continues. Baseball has always changed its game on an attempt to bring in more fans, if that means allowing juicers to hit juiced-balls over shallow fences or if it means adding more playoff teams in trying to keep up with other professional sports -- they do it in away from avoiding some of the obvious fixes needed to be made.
The game doesn't market itself anywhere as well as the
NFL or
NBA, and that's sad really... because the MLB definitely has better marketable stars than today's NFL (a league that had a huge image problem & ordeals of its own). The NFL still strikes big with its commercials, from
United Way to
NFL.Com &
Fantasy Football -- they are always marketing & growing, and the commercials are clever, funny. MLB has done better with this of late -- The big improvement has been due mainly to the MLB Network; I believe the
MLB Network has done many great things for the game of Baseball, bringing more light, with the draft, prospects, how ownership goes about things, seeing players drop by the studios to give you a feel for that player as a person.
I could go all day on what's wrong with baseball.
The game itself, though, needs to kick it into overdrive -- earlier post-season game start times will pay dividends in bundles. More baseball on the radio, I'm sorry but its sad that I have to tune into my wife's smart phone and make sure I'm on a ESPN satellite radio to listen to a World Series game! Back in the old days, you can turn on radio, and listen to some regular season game at free will -- meanwhile sports radio is polluted with NFL talk (speaking of Try-outs, and camp -- over Baseball), just another troubling side of Baseball, and where we fell out with the masses as America's past time...
We are indeed that... past time.
