Sunday, November 09, 2003
I wasn't going to write about the US Olympic team's defeat. Any system that selects baseball teams on the merit of a one-game series really isn't worth discussing.
But then I read the following quote from Tommy Lasorda: "Baseball is America's game. It doesn't belong to the Japanese or the Cubans or Koreans or the Italians. This is sad, very sad."
Tommy can go to Hell. I've seen well over five hundred ballgames in my time. Only twice have my ears hurt. I mean really hurt. I mean stood too close to the speakers at the front of the mosh pit and make a deal with God to make the ringing stop hurt. Once was at a game at the Tokyodome where my fellow fans in the bleachers screamed the entire nine innings. The other was in the Dominican Republic during the Caribbean Series a few years back. The fans there certainly certainly had spirit, are you telling me that they can't claim any kind of ownership in the game?
I've sat in ancient stadiums just across the Mexican border. In one, the scoreboard had ceased to work many years ago. Yet all the fans knew the score, the outs and the count. Take away the scoreboard at an American game, how many people would know what was going on after an inning or two? These Mexican fans can't claim baseball the same as American fans?
Who is Esteban Bellan? He was a member of the Troy Haymakers in 1871, and a Cuban. Cubans have been part of the big leagues since the very first season. In 1878 the first pro league was formed in Cuba. The game had been introduced in Japan in 1873. Those two dates make nice bookends on the founding of the National League in 1876.
The worst part of this is that Tommy really should know better. He managed 3000+ games. He played many winters in Cuba, and has toured Japan. He was a key part of Fernandomania. Tommy is an old-timer who sees the world in a certain way (witness his reaction to his dead son's homosexuality). But being raised in an older belief system is no reason to cling to it. Contrast his view with an old-timer like his former employer Peter O'Malley. O'Malley was always an advocate of the international aspects of the game. Heck, our sister publication International Baseball Rundown went to the presses many times because O'Malley helped to make it possible. What's really sad that Tommy doesn't see things in the same light.
posted by David 9:46 AM
