With due respect to the new Mr. October, Frank Caliendo, the game can stand on its own. So can the games. They’ve been flawed, they’ve been long, and they’ve been late.
But, as a lifelong fan who is admittedly under the influence of baseball, I am now pleading for amnesty from Commissioner Bud Selig, whom we have criticized on occasion. Being as correct as he has been on a variety of topics means he never has to say he’s sorry.
In fact, I would even go so far as to gush that, despite pockets of turbulence during his reign, baseball has regained its proper designation as our national pastime. I realize this notion will be mocked in chic modern markets — and also Green Bay — where pro football has been crowned king in perpetuity.
Still, I would like to see just one year when the NFL is deprived of its key component, the morning line, and I’ll take baseball’s chances of being anointed as America’s most popular sport.
I was in the first wave of self-nominated experts who blasted Selig and his sidekicks for placing postseason contests on multiple networks during the wee hours. We’re going to lose the next generation of fans, I warned and whined. There will be a day of reckoning, or what’s worse, a day when our children grow up loving soccer.
Well, the numbers are in, and Major League Baseball has for the fourth straight season broken an attendance record. More than 79.5 million people bought tickets in 2007, an increase of 4.5 percent over 2006. Only seven of 30 teams failed to exceed previous franchise highs.
I ask you, can they all be senior citizens? I think not. Moreover, I see more kids at ballparks, more 20- and 30-somethings hooked on the game than I can ever remember. They read box scores, they talk strategy, they flock to watering holes for telecasts that might not be available in their living rooms. These are not signs of dangerous demographics, but a clear indication that baseball is vibrant.
I thought, too, that Selig’s posture on revenue sharing was bogus, that competitive balance sounds better than it works.
But here we are — in professional athletics’ purest playoff format — and seven of the eight participating teams are different from last year’s.
Is baseball tarnished by its drug culture? Absolutely, but apparently not to the point of public disapproval. Fans will remain loyal to the uniform, if not those in uniform, the same way Olympic devotees will pardon a smarmy spectacle such as Marion Jones admitting her five medals in 2000 were built on something beyond blood, sweat and tears.
Mind you, in a perfect world, an old goat would be able to enjoy playoffs on radio, the way it used to be. But, to my dismay, I discovered that selected games have been farmed out from WMVP-AM 1000 in Chicago to WRDZ, 1300 on the dial if you can find it. When I tried, I got the Seven Dwarfs, which is fine unless you want the Phillies.
I learned WRDZ is the Disney affiliate and the former WTAQ that once was part of a White Sox network composed of several suburban blowtorches, prompting Harry Caray to caution listeners that, if they were driving 10 miles, they might have to change frequencies 10 times.
As Harry often rued, the Sox really are on portable radio.
Otherwise, Bud, no complaints. Baseball is No. 1 again. If only Ted Lilly had thrown that 3-2 pitch, instead of his glove, into the dirt with Chris Young at the plate.
Alas, the Cubs disappointed. But they had to know they couldn’t hope to stop Augie Ojeda, only contain him.
