Barack Obama is the second coming of government. So how long will it be until he needs to save the soul of the national pastime? Okay, maybe baseball is a business, and therefore doesn’t have a soul. Kidding! (we love winning at any price) …but the salaries, ticket prices and conspicuous finances of the MLB look an awful lot like the former financial structures of many Wall Street institutions. Can it be, only a matter of time, until trickle-down Recessionomics catches up with the business of Scott Boras et. all?
Hockey, basketball & to a lesser extent football, are sloppy sports. The game of baseball is clear. The ball is pitched to a batter, the batter hits it to a fielder, and the crowd watches to see if the runner can beat the throw to first base. Now that’s trust and verify. The sport of hockey and basketball are back and forth, never-ending, free-for-all scrums dominated by brute athletic ability. Fouls are constantly committed, and occasionally called if only to halt the chaos. The line of scrimmage in football is a blur of first and second degree assault techniques. Yet winning is fun, so the Bruins and Celtics have the full attention of Red Sox Nation, at least until Spring Training starts.
Ebonically speaking, Jim Ed Rice was a very black man in a very white town. Still is! He was not particularly articulate, or quick with a quip, in the nuanced way that many pesky white Boston sportswriters are. But he spoke from the heart, and he played the game right, and so he was deservedly proud, and guarded. That pride caused a fifteen year big chill with most sportswriters, who finally came around and gave him his due, with an assist from Red Sox Nation. Wonderful irony that today he is a broadcaster on NESN, and now, the man who still dresses on Monday’s like its Saturday Night, circa 1978, can finally come to rest in the Hall of Fame, courtesy of 412 sportswriters.
Winning breeds a certain kind of losing. The Red Sox, Patriots and to a lesser extent the Celtics are all grapling with the insidious departure of players and coaches that try to cash in on their team’s success. For reasons largely of money and ego, many of Boston’s most cherished sports stars and coaches will depart for richer pastures. But not so fast in the case of Boston College. How refreshing it is for Hub sports fans to hear that Jeff Jagodzinski will be fired if he even interviews with the Jets. Scott Pioli and Josh McDaniels of the Patriots should take a page from Boston native Jay Leno, who recently accepted a lesser role at NBC and put his own considerable ego behind the importance of being on a “winning team”.
Mercenary heroes... The Johnny Damon affair is a sad reminder of the dishonor and bad behavior that is the flip side of big money sports teams like the Red Sox. Yes, Boston won two World Series titles, ending an 86 year curse, but perhaps without the lasting honor that even the losers of ‘86, ‘75 & ‘68 retain. The Sox won with acquired big contract players like Damon, Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling & Josh Beckett, among others-fans of their departed teams were brokenhearted-(Oakland, Cleveland, Philadelphia/Arizona & Florida). But Damon & Ramirez would eventually sell-out the Red Sox just as the Sox had out-bid their previous teams and community of fans.
Damon was booed brutally for several years at Fenway Park when he played for the Yankees. Okay, he makes a lot of money and can take it, but guess what, he’s a human being after all, and now does not want to return to a previous “home”. In fact, nice guy Damon is badly booed everywhere but New York and Detroit.
It has all the hallmarks of a financial divorce. A lasting lifelong scar driven by individual pursuits that trump the honor of the common good. (0)