Just waiting for the rest of the season to start

Yesterday's post prompted a discussion about the state of the game with an old friend.  He told me, despite my profound respect, my coolness felt toward Ichiro, reflected his general feeling about today's players... that he just doesn't care about Harper, Machado or Trout.  He went on to contend "the business" of baseball had removed the "human element" from the game.

Whenever I hear that argument I'm not sure it comes from a change in the game itself or the eyes through which we view it.  Probably both.  I do know many of us, myself included, see a different game than the one we fell in love with 50 or 60 years ago.

I think the attraction and beauty of the game are still there, the flash of the green, the sound of the ball on bat.  I think the tactics have changed, the shift, the DH.  I know it has always been a business, but the craveness of the O'Malleys and such was less evident than the greed of today's owners.  My friend may be right.  The players are different... free agency has converted them into entrepreneurs, business men in their own right, whose allegiance and, quite honestly, fealty are no longer to a team and its city, but to their own craven greed.

But if I think about it, the majority of players today are still pretty regular folk and I can still relate to them as people who love to play the game I love to watch.  Certainly observing the outpouring of emotion his teammates expressed as Ichiro left the field yesterday touched a common chord in all of us.

And then there are other reminders.  Don't miss Emily Waldon's excellent and eye-opening piece in the Athletic exposing the financial realities of playing in the minor leagues: 

https://theathletic.com/830452/2019/03/15/i-cant-afford-to-play-this-game-minor-leaguers-open-up-about-the-realities-of-their-pay-and-its-impact-on-their-lives/

Her article reminds us that just below the surface of baseball, for the average player, are wives, kids, mortgages and college debt to pay off, not to mention a lifetime of occupational insecurity to think about when the game is done.

Or I think about Dee Gordon, his eyes full of tears as he hugged Ichiro.  The story of his childhood couldn't be more human:  

https://theathletic.com/466350/2018/08/13/the-joy-and-pain-of-dee-gordon/

More outstanding reporting from the Athletic this time from Jayson Jenks.

I think what used to be there is still there, but there's an awful lot of bs to cut through to find it.