The Goose Is Flying High

Recently, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred intimated that the COVID-19 changes to the game—seven-inning doubleheader games and the placement of a man on second base in extra-inning games—will not be permanent. That’s a start, I guess, but it’s not about to resurrect professional baseball to its former glory as America’s pastime. Unfortunately, the sport has gone the way of so many things today—down the tubes with no turning back. Played by mega-millionaires in ballparks that double as shopping malls and arcades, the game almost seems secondary. With owners who eagerly embrace partisan politics on top of all that, it’s quite easy to breakaway and never look back. I once believed that my bond with baseball was inviolable—until death do us part. I couldn’t conceive of life without it. That was then and this is now.

The first ballgames that I experienced in the flesh were at the old Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built with its wooden seats painted blue and concrete poles holding the place together and, too, obstructing views. I recall intensely feeling the history there with its three monuments out in dead center field—in play approximately 461 feet away from home plate—memorializing the team’s deceased greats: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and diminutive manager of “Murderer’s Row” Miller Huggins. From my little kid’s perspective, Yankee Stadium maintained a downright ghostly feel. During the must-see Old Timer’s games—which don’t exist anymore due to the decreasing attention spans of the fan base—the on-field master of ceremonies introduced the widows of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, which further added to the spectral ambiance.

Shortly after my introduction to baseball at the only game in town in the Bronx, I chose the Mets as my team for better or for worse for a quarter of a century. Although growing up in a sprawling sea of Yankee fans, with a father who lived and died with the Yankees for over seventy years, their cross-town rivals in Queens were a better fit for me. While I loved the game’s storied past—and peculiarly appreciated getting spooked by the widows of Ruth and Gehrig—the Mets were fresh and on TV a whole lot more than the Yankees in those days.

Cheesiness notwithstanding, I considered Shea Stadium a baseball palace. I see the hot dog price at Citi Field, where the Mets now play their crazy game, is $6.75. Parking is $25 and cash is not accepted. Once upon a time, downing two, three, or four hot dogs was par for the course at a ballgame. And the beer sold at the ballpark was exclusively the team’s beer company sponsor’s product. Nowadays, Citi Field has an extensive selection of “Big Apple Brews,” including Goose Island Honker’s Ale, Johnny Appleseed Hard Cider, and Shock Top Lemon Shandy. You can still sample a Budweiser on tap, but also Bud Light Straw-Ber-Rita and Bud Light Platinum. It’ll cost you $9.50 for the watered-down privilege of any of the above. Ballpark peanuts and sunflower seeds, which were not something I ever purchased at games, will set you back $5.00/bag. This can add up to an expensive night out for the family.

Oh, the memories: peanut shells everywhere, spilled beer and soda on the concrete grounds, and the wafting aromas of suds and frankfurters. Not having attended a baseball game in more than twenty years, I can’t say with certainty if the residue of spilled craft beers sticks like the flat Budweiser of my youth did. Ditto: I don’t know if the hot dog bouquets still permeate the stands and runways of contemporary ballparks. There’s just so much food competition there for the pricey wieners, including restaurant rows—something for everyone—on the premises.

So, I say: Play ball—all nine innings. And who’s on second? The guy who earns his way there. Not that it really matters anymore…and that’s profoundly sad.

No Can Do

I just came across a rather sobering statistic concerning America’s former pastime. In baseball’s heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, the World Series commanded a total audience of almost twenty percent of the population. Conversely, the 2020 World Series garnered three percent. For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out...at the old ballgame. Actually, it’s mind boggling that this once mighty sport has fallen so far and so fast—yet the franchises still rake in the big bucks. One hundred and sixty-two regular season games that last on average over three hours a pop is—even with the diminished interest—a major money maker. Today, the average age of the devoted baseball fan is fifty-seven. The Millennials and the previous generation just aren’t interested in the once storied game.

Exhibit A: I see this young kid walking his dog every single day. And every single time—for the whole time—he is staring intently into his phone. I don’t suspect baseball is on his GPS. But, come on, it’s the summer for crying out loud! Check it out! You might like what you see. Or maybe not. It is 2021 after all.

While on the subject of 2021: The New York City mayoral race to succeed Bill de Blasio is finally set in stone. Honestly, if it’s going to take weeks to I declare a winner—as it did in the recent Democratic primary—perhaps ranked-choice voting isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Exactly three years ago, for what it's worth, I received this repeated Facebook message: “Tag Mayor de Blasio in your post so they’ll be more likely to see it.” I didn’t know then why I was seeing that, and I was baffled by they’ll when, I thought, it should have been he’ll. In 2018, ignorant me was blissfully unaware that it was intentional—the jettisoning of he and she so as not to offend who? I Don’t Know…third base!

Anyway, I’ll be happy to see the back of them—Mayor de Blasio—come January. Democratic nominee Eric Adams is likely to be the next mayor. Someone described him as a “bomb thrower.” He was, nevertheless, among my four choices. Alas, if Andrew Yang had done a little homework in preparation for “the second toughest job in America,” he could have made us proud. Or they could have made us proud.

Meanwhile, Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for mayor, is a New York City character and radio talk show personality from way back. Nowadays, not too many New Yorkers sound like the loquacious Sliwa, who is prone to malaprop. It would be the upset of the century if he pulled it off, but I suspect he’ll get a considerably larger share of the vote than the last two Republican candidates who ran against them. I like Curtis. I can’t help but like him despite his somewhat buffoonish, blowhard personality. His Guardian Angels with their trademark red berets and red satin jackets have been around for decades. I remember feeling a little less anxious when riding with Guardian Angels in the same subway car during anxious times, which, by the way, have returned with a vengeance in 2021. In 1992, John Gotti Jr.—son of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti—put a hit out on Sliwa, who was shot at point-blank range and seriously wounded in an attempted kidnapping. And the guy rescues feral cats. That’s an interesting blend of strange New York pedigree. At the end of the day, we will be better off when the 6’5” they man has packed his bags and vacated Gracie Mansion.

So, should I feel optimistic about the future? It’s not so easy to with all the record-breaking temperatures, wildfires, and droughts, Major League Baseball’s meltdown, and diversity trainers preaching—among countless nutty utterances—that the can-do spirit is a white supremacist thing. More madness: Brandeis University cautioning teachers and students to avoid using words and phrases that “link to violence” like “rule of thumb,” “picnic,” “policeman,” and even “trigger warning,” a woke creation. Roy Rogers had a horse named Trigger. And despite it sometimes having a metallic green hue to it, I liked the man's roast beef. They were simpler times for sure when the rule of thumb was to enjoy the great outdoors and employ the can-do spirit in building a go-cart with the wheels of your mother’s—or, should I say, birthing person’s—shopping cart. I certainly was optimistic then and had reason to be—not so much anymore.