Because You Never Asked

(1994)

     For the first time since just about anyone walking the North American continent has been breathing, there will not be a World Series. If we confine this extraordinary happening to the parameters dictated by sport, there is little I can add to the polemic. But there are things here that transcend sport, concepts I’d like to bring to the reader’s attention.

     In some ways this whole experience can be looked upon as a massive sociological experiment. This experiment, just one month into its clinical life, has already given forth some interesting data. Foremost here is the fact that we don’t seem to miss baseball as much as we thought we would. We could incorrectly attribute this to baseball itself, but what we are really learning is that all forms of what-are-we-going-to-do-today entertainment, are some of the more superfluous things we pursue as human beings. As a result of the baseball strike, there will eventually be a bit more realization that any form of time filling amusement is quite expendable and another form can always be found. This is as much true for football, Disneyland, Las Vegas, Roseanne or the world of Nintendo, as it is for baseball.

      Another obvious clinical result is a great deal of anger. When there is anger there is a need to find blame, especially when there are two well defined enemies, as there are here.

     If we examine public opinion, trying to find a good guy would be more difficult than a left handed batter trying to hit an 0-2 curve ball from the “Big Unit”, Randy Johnson. The players are perceived as ungrateful, greedy snots, while the owners are tyrannical financiers with little regard for the common man. Here I am, the lunch bucket fan would say, working my butt off so I can afford to take my kids to the game once in awhile, and these young punk millionaires playing a game we played for fun, and these fat cat moguls in limousines, can’t make it on what they’ve got. Fuck’em!

     But is it really that simple? Where should the finger of blame be pointed?

     Most baseball fans are average people who believe in the cultural dictates of American society. They want to make more money, buy new cars, and be privy to a never ending barrage of consumerist-entertainment choices they are forever conned into wanting. They pay lip service to such hallowed concepts as liberty, ambition, individualism and competitive enterprise. There is nothing either side in the baseball strike is doing, be it players or owners, that remotely goes against these cultural dictates. They are competing in an excessively competitive society in an attempt to get what they can for themselves. They are protecting their interests. Very normal. The average guy sitting with his can of Bud in the bleachers at Wrigley Field (we may have just discovered the geo-demographic center of the universe for averageness) acquiesces in this way of life.

     So why is he so angry?

     There’s a lot of anger going around these days, and a lot of blame to be doled out. Such litanies as “put the crooks in jail”, “throw the politicians out”, “make the welfare slobs get jobs”, blah, blah, have almost become American mantras. Lots of anger, lots of blame, but predictably enough, it is never your fault. The venom directed at politicians is a perfect example; the fervent plea to throw them out echoes cross the land, but does anyone ever stop and ask, “who put them in?” There is no shortage of excuses; “they lie to us”, “they mislead us”. Who continues to believe them? Why do we continue to respond (or not respond) to the same crap? How many times are we going to be tricked?

     I find something analogous in the baseball stoppage. It’s time we all began to realize that greed, selfishness, ego, lack of sensitivity, just to mention a few, are integral parts of the cultural scenario we all seem quite proud of. It’s important to note that almost all ball players, except for the twist of fate that made them better hitters and fielders than the rest of us, are pretty average guys. What makes anyone think they’d act any different if they had the chance? This goes for the anger directed at owners too. Since when does anyone go into business to do anything less than earn as much money as possible? These are not radical concepts, and yet, we are angry at these owners; we are angry at these players.

     I suggest the baseball strike represents exactly what we are as a culture. We aren’t really angry at the players or owners, we are angry at ourselves and what we have become.

     It’s time to start looking in the mirror.

Relevant Material: “There’s a sucker born everyday.” P.T. Barnum.