Can Baseball Save America —Again?

The game has been corrupted just like all other institutions, by greed and corruption. Politics, business, justice, entertainment, law enforcement, religion, education, sports, et. al. Humans are scum. Reply

Its all for money now-so why would I even pay the price of addmission-then fior ffod and drin-and if I have young ones buy them something? Maybe if you give me free drugs aas I eneter so I can be on the same level as the baseball palyers-save us? give me a breah. Reply

I like my country like I like my sports By: Karl Frank Jr. “Let the players play!” is the old adage, and it is a good one. As a matter of fact, I like it. I like it a lot. Especially in baseball. A good game is designed like a well-written novel. The suspense and anticipation of every pitch, nod, wink, and stolen base can keep a true sport fan on the edge of their seat until the climactic final out. And while there is no one way to write a novel, or play a baseball game, there is a general set of rules and regulations that everyone agrees to play by. These rules did not appear in a magical rule book by some invisible hand overnight. The rules of the game evolved over a period of a hundred years, and even longer if you delve in to the history of any sport that involves a ball and a stick. If it was not for these rules that everyone agrees on before the first pitch is thrown, and the umpires to enforce them, the game that we have come to know and love would not exist –- the same applies to my country, the United States of America…. There are few things more sweet than the swing of Ken Griffey Jr.’s bat. In 2008, he started the season seven home runs short of 600, and his last home run, number 599, had been on May 31. The drama and anticipation of that 600th blast was on every baseball fan’s mind until finally, on June 10, 2008, this pure athlete took the Marlin’s Mark Hendrickson over the wall for his place in the history books. One has to wonder what Griffey’s numbers would look like if he had not spent all of that time on the bench with nagging injuries - but even still, 600 hundred home runs is something that only 6 of over 16,000 former Major League Baseball players had ever managed before. That moment in time was a feat of personal greatness by any athletic standard. However, Griffey’s greatness did not mystically appear out of nowhere. It was not his inborn natural talents that made him a household name in America with millions of dollars in his bank account and a place in the record books. Instead, he was a man with a passion for the game that thrived in a system that was devised for him and others to succeed within. To better illustrate this point, read what Sir Isaac Newton wrote of the French philosopher Descartes, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Griffey was a giant standing on the shoulders of the giants before him, including a man named Ken Griffey Sr. Yet, the system that Griffey has thrived in is not perfect, and it has never been perfect. Individual players and sometimes even whole teams have attempted to swipe the legs right from under the giants of Alexander Cartright and his “Knickerbocker Rules,” Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Stan “The Man” Musial, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and more. The 1919 White Sox, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Hal Chase, and the 1877 Louisville Greys, just to name a few, are black eyes on the history of baseball, and in many cases, almost brought down the game all... Reply

I've moved on. Reply