BASEBALL HAS CHANGED!

BASEBALL HAS CHANGED!

(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Detroit Free Press, ESPN)

(James Strick, Yahoo, Thomas Barrabi, USA Today, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Here I am, sitting in my easy chair, channel changer in hand, ready to watch another Detroit Tiger ball game when I start hearing about another drug scandal over on ESPN. What the hell is going on, are these players that insulated from reality that some actually figure that they can game the game.

 

I understand that a baseball player’s career isn’t very long, although longer than a football players, but far shorter then a golfers, or some hockey players who somehow play into their early forties. So there is an emphasis on making as much money as you can in the shortest possible time…..because you never know when the skill level will desert you.

 

Most professional athletes can make a decent living during their productive years, and if they’re smart, they can salt away enough to live comfortably after retirement. Endorsements public speaking engagements, business or coaching opportunities are the usual after career possibilities that tend to keep a players post major league career a pretty busy time as well as lucrative.

 

Being a professional baseball player, on any level, is an exciting proposition…..at first. But the daily grind, and the constant pressure to succeed I’m sure can be overwhelming, and probably take much of the fun out of the game.

 

The money that can be made from playing at an elite level can instigate all sorts of efforts to achieve the ultimate goal. In the old days, players needed spring training to regain their physical edge lost over the winter of inactivity and self indulgence. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that baseball players realized that their body was the workshop, and that they’d better start taking care of it or careers would be short.

 

TODAY EVERYTHING’S A PHOTO OPP

I have watched every Detroit Tiger’s baseball game that has been on television, I watch the players, listen to the announcer and his side-kick color guy, and sometimes cringe at how they chop up the analogy, how umpire calls can be blown, and how some of the simplest attributes of playing the game can be mystifyingly almost impossible for some of the players to accomplish.

 

The camera goes into the dug-outs, into the locker rooms, onto the field for pre and post game interviews, catching players every move, attitude and mannerism right down to scratching their butts, adjusting their cups, and picking their noses, talk about being under the (looking glass).

 

In many instances what a player makes isn’t enough, when you consider how a player is dissected into small pieces and examined by the media who in turn write about what they’ve gleaned from an interview, and sports fans who read the newspaper, figure it makes them experts, and they question the players at length from the bleachers, or in a restaurant or at a chance meeting on the street.

 

Today pitchers make stress pitches, or pivotal at bats, according to announcers and their color experts. Hell I played amateur baseball for years, and for me, every pitch was a stress pitch, because I struggled with control, and didn’t have much of an arsenal of  pitches,  and every at bat was a pivotal at bat because I couldn’t hit…..a lick.

 

 

 

Today’s baseball players are better equipped, are in better physical shape, have a clearer picture of what they want to accomplish on the field as well as off, watch what they eat as well as drink, and actually are better players than ever. However that said, there is usually one ingredient that many lack today that wasn’t lacking years ago…..a true love of the game…..an us against them attitude, at least that’s my opinion.

 

Today you really need a program to know which player is playing what position, and for which team, today is the age of free agency, player agents, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. The MLBPA, the player agents and Marvin Miller are responsible for the average player salary of $3,213,479 a season.

 

The minimum salary of a Major League Baseball player, a rookie, or lower tier player is $490,000 a season, up from $480,000 in 2012. Since 2004 the minimum salary has jumped from $300,000 to the present $490,000, this on the heels of the biggest percentage jump in the history of professional sports, from $414,000 in 2011 to $490,000 in 2012…..a .16% raise in wages!

 

There is almost no ceiling for a player’s salary; it depends on his ability, his demeanor, his attitude and his performance on the field as well as off. Some of the top salaries illustrate the (no ceiling) opinion that I have:

Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankee, 3^rd baseman, $29,000,000 annually, and he’s been injured all season

Cliff Lee, Philadelphia Phillies, pitcher, $25,000,000

Johan Santana, New York Mets, pitcher, $24,644,708, injured all season

Vernon Wells, New York Yankees, outfield, $24,643,857, .240 Ba. 10 home runs, 24 RBI’s

C.C. Sabathia, New York Yankees, pitcher, $24,285,714

 

There you have the top money makers for the 2013 regular season, there are several criteria that each of these players share, each is either at their middle 30’s or are fast approach it, four of the five listed players play in the Big Apple, and Cliff Lee might become a Yankee.

 

ONE MIGHT WONDER

The average guy…..like me, sitting in his easy chair, preparing to watch a baseball game, would think of a baseball player cheating in my game. Well to be perfectly frank, I don’t really care that much, will Berry Bonds ever make the Hall of Fame, probably not, will Mark McGwire, or Sammy Sosa make it…..doubtful, has Pete Rose got a chance….not really, at least not in the 21^st century.

 

All of these guys are accused of cheating, and Roger Clemens mis-remembered, they all belong to the fraternity of baseball, not the best, and actually not the worst. Probably each in his own way cheated through the use of performance enhancing drugs, or a quick recovery elixir from an injury.

 

The thing that I don’t get is how much is enough, how many cars can you drive, how many ladies can you be with at the same time…..and why would you want to make as much money as some small emerging countries do?

 

The answer probably lies somewhere between I don’t have a clue, and because I can, how else could you explain Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewer left fielder being in the cross hairs of the commissioner’s office with regards to a possible 100 game suspension. Braun has one of the sweetest swings in all of baseball, and would appear not to need an additive…..however!

 

First it was the BALCO scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was a San Francisco Bay area business founded by Victor and Aubry Conte, created to keep food on the table for the Conte’s but evolved into a supplement company that catered to professional athletes and made millions.

 

We now move forward from the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s to a little weasel looking fellow by the name of Tony Bosch, founder of Biogenesis, some sort of anti-aging clinic, a place that I intend to visit just as soon as I can refill all of the medication that I’ve been prescribed to keep me above ground.

 

Bosch and his bag of happy pills are really nothing more than the traveling Medicine-Man that would come around to frontier towns peddling his elixirs that would cure everything from a hang-nail, to Lumbago, to a broken arm.

 

Very little has changed from those early days of frontier life in America, the Medicine-man was trying to make a living from a concoction of water, whisky with a dash of Tabasco sauce, and a little salt and pepper. Today’s modern Medicine-man has just added ingredients that can actually alter all sorts of bodily functions.

 

Of course the wild-west medicine-man didn’t have the ability to use today’s mixtures of wonder drugs; he was confined to water, whisky, and some other roots and seeds.

 

The use of these either legal or banned substances for some has sullied the game, making the statistics cheapened, worthy of an asterisk next to the record. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, those people that keep Major League Baseball records will be commissioned to create a whole new category to define which era hitting and pitching records should fall under.

 

One could be pre-enhancement, the other enhancement, the two categories might at least placate the baseball purists. Personally I blame the owners and their attitudes about a dollar bill, and its value for allowing doping and juicing to have been allowed for so long. It’s going to take decades before fans will get over the silly antics of both the players and the owners.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!