Sammy Sosa is back, so they say.
Do you care? I don’t. Although, I guess that could be argued since I clearly cared enough to write a post about him. Quite simply, I hate what Sammy Sosa stands for. He stands for the era of home run greed. The players got greedy. The agents got greedy. The ownership got greedy. Everyone got rich.
I love the game of baseball. I hate what it has become. They say that no matter what the era, things seemed simpler when you were younger. Things seemed better. Perception wasn’t always reality. I remember a different game during the 1980s. I remember a game dominated by little men like Vince Coleman and Ricky Hendrson (although, he was far from the stereotypical little man). The entire goal was to get one of these men on the bases. It’s an automatic double and possible triple. I miss the day of the bunt. Hitting behind the runner. Choking up. Putting the bat on the ball. Keeping it in play.
The home run was something to behold. It may not have been a rarity, but it was appreciated when it happened. It wasn’t expected. You didn’t wait for it. You didn’t rely on your middle-of-the-lineup hitters to hit one out. The focus was on fundamentals. On contact. On strategy. On defense. Now — or so it seems — the focus is on sitting back and letting your juiced up, overpaid clean-up hitter smack one out. You know — all eight of them in your lineup.
I remember the days when the minimum salary was $52,000. That wasn’t all that long ago. I remember the days when Bobby Bonilla’s $3 Million salary was ground breaking. When the Brewers couldn’t sign Paul Molitor because he wanted to play in Bobby Bo’s neighborhood. That was the start of something bad for the game. Production meant money — both for the player and the team. More players were being scouted from impoverished Latin countries. Getting that payday was becoming a bigger and bigger deal. Making the team was important.
Then the strike of ‘94 happened. Fans left. We had had enough. Tired of the greed on both sides. Shut up and play. I’m going home and never coming back.
The true fans never left. Sammy and Mark McGwire brought the casual fans back. These fans needed instant gratification. They needed runs. They couldn’t appreciate the bunt. They didn’t notice the strategy. They preferred the three-run home run to the two-run triple. The game was dumbed down, and it profited from it. People came in droves, and everyone wanted to see the next home run.
The teams sold out stadiums. The players demanded more money. Everyone became rich. The snowball followed. Player A became rich, so I need to get mine, too. Team A has a 250-home run lineup, so Team B needs one, too. Everyone forgot.
The casualties of greed. Roger Maris. Hank Aaron. Willie Mays. Babe Ruth. The 80s Cardinals. The light-hitting, sure-handed utility man. The true game as it was meant to be played.
This has been coming. We introduced free agency. We started building new stadiums to accomodate more fans. We started moving fences in to encourage home runs and draw more fans. We looked the other way when our hitters started looking less like Bruce Banner and more like Lou Ferrigno.
There really is no going back. We can’t right the wrongs. We can test for steroids, but there will always be a new way around the system. We can’t move back the fences in every park. We can’t alter the new game that it has become.
Instead, we have to welcome Sammy Sosa back. Not the Bruce Banner, but the Lou Ferrigno. He is a reminder of what we’ve created. Unless we accept the new game, we will always be reminiscing like 80-year-old grumpy old men.
