Thomas Paine and Jayson Stark

If the revolutionary era in America was a time which "tried men's souls," then early 2009 is a time which at least tugs at the soul of anyone with a love for the national pastime of the country founded, in part, by men like Thomas Paine.

Simply put, It's hard out here for a baseball fan.

Wanna know how the back half of your favorite team's starting rotation is likely to hold up this season? Don't read any national columnists. Wanna hear about the Phillies' chances for a repeat? or about the re-loaded Yankees? Stay away from big-time news sources.

The sensationalism and hyperbole in alot of recent online and tv reporting is enough to make even the yellow journalists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries turn green with envy. Jayson Stark's most recent addition to the conflagration is exactly the kind of over-hyped incendiary writing that started the Spanish-American War. The United States picked up Guam in that splendid little war. I'm not sure what Mr. Stark hopes to accomplish by unleashing a storm of sorrow and woe upon his readers.

The A-Rod P.E.D. admission coupled with the ongoing Clemens, Tejada, and Bonds sagas is certainly disheartening. The A-Rod scandal, if we can call it a scandal, should give any baseball fan pause, but, contrary to claims put forth my Mr. Stark, the sky is not falling.

The Meaning of Numbers

According to Stark,

"Once, the numbers of baseball used to mean something special and magical. And the men who compiled those numbers were transcendent figures in American life. But not now. Not anymore"

Following the death in 1920 of Ray Chapman resulting from an errant Carl Mays fastball, the powers that ruled baseball decreed significant changes to the rules of the game. Doctored baseballs, a staple of pitching to that point were banned. Umpires were instructed to remove from play any ball which became darkened, scuffed, or misshapen. The result was a cataclysmic shift in the game's balance of power. Hitters gained the upper hand. An era of high batting averages, soaring home runs, and inflated run totals was ushered in. In the new "live ball era," Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby shattered slugging records. In the brave new world of high octane offense, Ruth slugged 714 home runs and became the game's greatest historical icon. The era of dominant pitchers prior to 1920 was relegated to distant memory.

Do we place an asterisk next to Cy Young's 511 wins because he pitched using a tattered and scuffed baseball? Do we question the legitimacy of Ruth's 714 home runs because he benefitted from rule changes which transferred power from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box?

Babe Ruth's 714 home runs, Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak, Williams' .406 batting average, Cy Young's 511 wins, and every other statistic accumulated prior to 1947 were achieved in a tragically segregated game. Because of collusion among the baseball magnates, african american players were systematically excluded from Major League Baseball. Dimaggio never had to face a black pitcher. Never had to loop a single into center field which could have dropped in front of the likes of Cool Papa Bell. Ruth never had to face the Satchel Paiges of the world. Williams only faced the white-skinned competition of the American League in 1941.

Do we dismiss Dimaggio's achievement as an irrelevant relic of a bygone exclusionary era? Do we put an asterisk for segragation next to Williams' 1941 batting average? Next to Ruth's home run total?

Following the 1920 edict on clean baseballs, deliberately doctoring the ball became an offense punishable by ejection and suspension. That did not, however, completely rid the game of ball-defiling moundsmen. Gaylord Perry was a notorious spitballer. You can find his plaque on the wall in Cooperstown. He even wrote an autobiography titled The Spiiter and Me. Perry was cheating. He was breaking rules to win games and gain a competitive advantage. Its proven. And yet he has received no historical sanction. In fact, baseball people often laugh about it.
Do we differentiate between Perry’s cheating and Alex Rodriguez’s cheating?

After the offensive explosion of 1961, the comissioner's office ordered the strike zone and the height of the pitcher's mound raised. Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson, in turn, dominanted baseball until baseball realized its error and lowered the mound.

Do we mock Koufax as a fluke from a pitching-happy era? Do we dismiss Gibson's 1.12 ERA in 1968?

I'd like to think that we will treat the numbers accumulated during the "Steroids Era" with the same mixture of admiration and reservation with which we view all other "deviant" eras in baseball's past. If we really look at pretty much every baseball statistic in the game's long history, we can find a reason to question the validity of the number. 50 years from now, the 1990s and early part of this decade will be thought of as "oh, that was the era of big hitting and juiced players." Its no different from any of the myriad of historical "shocks" to the system of baseball records.

This Scandal Relative to Other Times of Trial

According to Stark,
"Can anyone recall any other sport that has ever committed such an insane act of self-destruction?
What compares to it? The Black Sox? This is worse. Game-fixing in college basketball? This is worse. Nominate any scandal in the history of sports. My vote is that this is worse."

Comparing the P.E.D. crisis to the 1919 World Series and game-fixing in other sports is absurd. When I sit down and watch a sporting event, I do so with the expectation that the players competing in the event are trying their best to win the game. I assume that everyone involved is putting forth a real, unscripted effort. This is what makes real sports different from "show" events such as WWF. Everyone involved is trying to achieve to their fullest. If we allow ourselves to root for one participant or another, we can know that they are trying to win with a will which exceeds or matches our desire for their success.

The steroid era did not rob baseball of this competitive legitimacy. Everyone was still trying. The games were not scripted or thrown. Players still wanted to win/succeed as badly as they ever did. We as fans could count on players matching our desire for their success.

After 1919 there was cause to worry that gamblers, and not the players, were determining the outcome of games. College Basketball was so worried about that reality of gambling influence that in the wake of scandals they cancelled the 3rd place game in the Final Four.

Steroids have given us no such reason to doubt the integirty of players' efforts.


A-Rod's Place in History

According to Stark,
"But those homers are now tarnished. And that's the crime here. That's the tragedy. That's what we've lost.
We've lost the opportunity for Alex Rodriguez to restore that: the meaning. The relevance. The power. The romance.He held that opportunity in his hands. And now it's gone.
He was the one man on the planet with the chance to resuscitate the greatest record in sports. He was the one man on the planet with the chance to rebuild his sport's sacred bridge to the glory days.
He was a special player, with a special gift -- and an even more special opportunity: He was the man with the opportunity to reconnect baseball's once-indelible dotted line between past and present, between great-grandsons and great-grandfathers, between his home plate and your hometown.
And now he's squandered that gift, squandered that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
So weep not for what A-Rod has done to himself.
Weep for what he's done to his sport."

Hogwash. It is a shame to think that this player who i have seen play in person many times may not be worthy to ascend the Mt. Olympus of baseball. But, contrary to Mr. Stark's reasoning, Alex Rodriguez is not our last hope to rise to baseball's pantheon of heroes. The game will live on long after Alex Rodriguez has hung up his spikes. The game does not have a finite supply of potential heroes, nor a clear time limit to its existance.

There is no law which decrees that the young phenom on our favorite team may not become the greatest hitter or pitcher or defender of all time. There is always the possibility that a new superstar is just about to emerge. Buck O'Neil said it well, baseball may hit a rough patch, but "you can't kill it." There is always a new hero uniquely prepared to lift the game to new heights.
You can't kill it.

Might Evan Longoria become the greatest player of all time? Could David Price become the next Warren Spahn? What about Tim Lincecum? Is Dustin Pedroia going to be one of the alltime hit kings?

For each of our own petty partisan reasons we may not want them to. We may pray every night that they don't. But they might. And therein lies the optimism which is tragically lacking from Mr. Stark's piece. Every time we sit down and watch a game the possibility still exists that we will see something or someone who is going to be quite memorable. Baseball has not lost that magic.

To paraphrase Bill Veeck, Baseball must be a great game because the owners, scandal, and player stupidity have not been able to kill it.