We are now well over halfway through the “new normal” baseball season, and things appear to be pretty normal in that my team is mired in the near cellar of the division. After the spring training shutdown and subsequent wrangling over when and how the season would happen at all, I heard a phrase that I hadn’t heard since the strike of 1994, that is the struggle between the “billionaires vs. the millionaires” and how it impacts the game and the fans. In the past I have stood up for the players being rewarded for their talents and abilities and for being paid what the market would support. Maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age, but they seem to be turning into whiney little snots these days. The team I follow is the Colorado Rockies, since they are the only team within a day’s drive from where I live. I like to say I have been a Rockies fan for so long I think of fantasy sports as a hit with runners in scoring position. Before all the current craziness hit, one of the players on my team was in a public feud with his general manager because he was feeling “disrespected.” I won’t mention this player’s name, but the letters in his name could be rearranged to spell “a London arena.” Considering that he recently signed an eight-year contract for 260 million dollars that he can opt out of after three years, I have to wonder about his threshold of abuse. Add to that the fact that if I had three cents on the dollar of what he is making in any one year of that contract, it would rival what I have earned (at age 62) in my entire working lifetime. Sort of makes me think I would hate to have his nerve in a tooth.
While it looks strange to watch a game with no fans in the seats (although Marlins or Rays fans might not notice the difference on a weekday afternoon), it is worse when your ballpark is empty because there is no one to play there, at least at the level you are used to seeing. I am referring to the minor leagues of course. Here in Billings, Montana, we have a team that is part of the Pioneer League, which is on the chopping block as part of the contraction that MLB wants to implement. I have been going to games to watch this team ever since I moved here over 40 years ago. More often than not, the Rockies have all but been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention by the time this team starts playing in mid-June, so it gives me something to hang on to. I just worry that we may already have seen their last game, at least as an affiliate of a major league team, without even realizing it thanks to the current commissioner of baseball. Rob Manfred is as cool as a cucumber and about half as sharp. He strikes me as being more of a tool for the owners than the average commissioner.
Golf is the one thing that has kept my life relatively normal this year. I can get out and play, and social distancing happens all by itself, especially the way I play. Watching golf on TV, I notice it really doesn’t suffer from not having spectators present. I would think a lot of the players would appreciate that, though I notice they still wave at somebody when they pull their ball out of the hole. I even heard an announcer ask who it is they are waving at. Old habits I guess. One of the things that irks me about golf announcers is when someone pushes a putt five feet past the hole and they say, “well, he still has work to do.” Whenever I hear that it makes me want to give that person a hard hat and a shovel and take them to some of the places I’ve worked. It would give him a whole new perspective on work. The other great thing about golf is that they don’t play the national anthem before the round starts, so there isn’t as much of an opportunity for the participants to politicize it, though I’m sure that those who want to will find a way. It is hard not to be dismayed at the agenda driven activities of athletes and the disregard they show for the fans who just want to escape for a few hours and watch them play the game. It reminds me of a few years ago when Vice-president Pence attended the play “Hamilton” and the cast called him out because they could. A short time later I saw an online post of a picture of President Lincoln, and the caption read, “Why can’t Democrats just let Republicans enjoy the theater?” Yeah, it is kind of like that.
