seekingferret: Two warning signs one above the other. 1) Falling Rocks. 2) Falling Rocs. (Default)
seekingferret ([personal profile] seekingferret) wrote2012-04-11 09:52 am
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I'm trying to persuade myself that it's a good idea to commit to at least one baseball post a week here. My relationship with baseball has been a little awkward and strained for a couple of seasons, for no particularly good reason, and I should try to work on that.

I still love baseball passionately. Anytime I get to go to a game, I have a great time. Anytime I play hot stove league I have a good time. The cool-brewed mixture of physical competition and deep, complicated analysis that is baseball is perfectly suited to my temperament.

And I've never been the sort of hypocrite who decries modern baseball for being all about the money, the players too selfish and not respectful enough of the fans. I've never been offended by players taking steroids. It's preposterous to be a pro baseball fan and have thoughts like that. In high school I wrote an extended essay on the way 19th century baseball professionalized [Here, read it. It won an award from the Society for American Baseball Research and marked one of my earliest footprints on the internet] and studied the corruptions that are deep-rooted in the game's heritage. To love pro baseball truly is to love it flaws and all.

No, the deterioriation of my relationship with the game is much more mundane. Since the Yankees moved to YES, it's a lot more annoying to watch the games, and my love-hate relationship with John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman has swung more toward hate. As I watch less and less games, it becomes harder to maintain a connection to the team. I no longer have the Yankee roster memorized. I no longer have the ability to spout batting averages.

So I'm leaning toward buying a MLB.TV subscription so I can watch all the games, and toward committing to writing about baseball here at least once a week. And probably re-establishing my membership with SABR. Because baseball is an important part of my emotional and intellectual life and I miss having that relationship with a team.
allandaros: (Default)

[personal profile] allandaros 2012-04-11 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I've never been offended by players taking steroids. It's preposterous to be a pro baseball fan and have thoughts like that.

I am (as you know, Bob) not a pro baseball fan. Or a sports fan in general.

Can you elaborate on why players taking steroids is not something that one should be offended about? It seems like it would be - if A takes steroids and B does not, is A not deriving a disproportionate advantage in the game?
allandaros: (Default)

[personal profile] allandaros 2012-04-11 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
It seems to me like the examples you are giving can be distinguished from steroids.

* Contact lenses or eye surgery are things which the individual could reasonably get outside of baseball. They are something being used to get the individual (who happens to be a baseball player) up to a vaguely defined "baseline." (If someone with healthy eyes were getting contacts to improve their vision beyond the norm, that would seem dubious to me.)
* Cortisone shots, similarly, seem like they are bringing an individual back to the baseline, rather than increasing beyond the baseline. They are being given to fix the injuries caused by playing.
* I'm willing to cede the "steroids are dangerous" argument, partially since I never brought it up in the first place. Sure, if individuals go ahead and damage their own health knowing the risks then that seems fair. (There are, of course, issues that crop up around individuals being pressured to damage their health by their associates, teammates, and bosses.)

The things that you're mentioning, like framing, seem completely alien to me. I understand what you're saying, but the idea that the culture and community of baseball not only sees these, but encourages them, just doesn't make any sense to me. It seems like it's going against cardinal rules of sportsmanship.
allandaros: (Default)

[personal profile] allandaros 2012-04-11 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Quick response: you are starting to make me shift from "professional sports are this thing that some folks like, that I don't" to "professional sports set up terrible incentives and wind up hurting people." :P