For the love/ambivalence of the game

October 3, 2013

The New York Times published two pieces recently about baseball (outside the usual stuff) about aspects of love and ambivalence.

The first, by Karen Crouse, considers the marriage between Oakland As rookie Nate Freiman and golfer Amanda Blumenherst and how their athletic careers were keeping them apart. So Blumenherst, has been playing her sport since the age of six, decided to give it up.

Between Blumenherst’s 16 starts on the L.P.G.A. Tour this year and Freiman’s first major league season, the couple have been like two planes passing in the night sky. She and Freiman have spent less than a month in the same city since January, Blumenherst estimated.

There’s the love. The ambivalence comes from this front page commentary in the Sunday Week in Review by Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning.

The fall is always a melancholy time for baseball fans, especially those who’s teams are not involved in the post season. Football has taken hold, moving into Week 5, and even hockey has just begun its season, soon to be followed by basketball.

Mahler writes:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL is doing just fine. Unlike the N.F.L. and the N.B.A., it has been free of labor strife for nearly 20 years. It has more exciting young stars than I can ever remember. It has even achieved that elusive “competitive balance,” with seven different champions over the last decade. Teams across the country are playing in brand-new ballparks that they somehow persuaded local governments to help pay for. Over the last 20 years, baseball profits have grown from roughly $1 billion to nearly $8 billion.

The game, in other words, has never been healthier. So why does it feel so irrelevant?

Frankly, I’m tired of the argument. Maybe it’s a time thing (although football games are routinely three-hour affairs; it’s just the action, when it does occur, is fast and furious while baseball is spread out). You can’t compare the sports so why try to convert those who aren’t in the know? I don’t even have the energy to counter Mahler, but there are those who will gladly take up the challenge, such as Rob Neyer at Baseball Nation.

Both Neyer and Mahler participated in a panel on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook to discuss “Major League Baseball’s Wobbly Future.”

 

 

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