BASEBALL, THE LATE GREAT GAME! (Frazer Chronicles)
The Los Angles Dodgers are declaring bankruptcy, "say it ain't so," one of the most fabled franchises in professional sports is in financial trouble. The team that integrated baseball with Jackie Robinson, the team that moved west to Los Angles, abandoning Brooklyn after the 1957 season, the "Daffiness Boys, Dem Bums," the team with Pee Wee and the Duke, "SAY IT AIN'T SO."
But it is so, as baseball moves doggedly slow into the 21st. century, "oh wait, it's already 2011," few changes have been made to the sport that is called "America's pastime." In fact there seems to be a retro thing going on as Davy Johnson, aged 67 has been brought out of moth balls to manage the Washington Nats, and Jack McKeon, aged 80, "way past the moth ball stage," to manage the Florida Marlins.
2011 so far has been a strange season, not only for weather patterns, but for professional baseball going-ons. Barry Bonds is doing his best two step to stay away from the law, Roger Clemens is off in la la land somewhere, still telling people that those who testified against him "miss-remembered." Of course there was also Manny Ramirez retiring in April rather then serve a 100 game suspension for failing a drug test, comforted with the knowledge that the Los Angles Dodgers still owed him $21 million dollars.
The Dodgers have been a proud franchise throughout their history which began in 1890 when the club joined the National League. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, "their nick-name" merged with the Baltimore Orioles in 1899 and many of the star Orioles players play for the Bridegrooms. In 1912, Charles Ebbets takes on 2 partners, the McKeever brothers who operate a construction company, who in turn took on the project of building one of the most unique baseball stadiums in the history of baseball, Ebbets Field.
Of course the Brooklyn Dodgers, "who got their name from fans dodging trolley cars coming to or leaving games," were the first team to use a colored ballplayer, the first team to announce that they would move to the west coast, and also the first "modern" baseball team to use an exclusive football stadium for professional baseball games.
We now are being entertained by the foolish activity of the Dodger owner, Frank McCourt and his soon to be x wife, Jamie. There very public divorce proceedings has overshadowed the clubs baseball operations for the past couple of years, and is just another black eye for professional baseball.
Mercy, mercy, what a soap opera, these people throw around dollar amounts that define their sheer stupidity towards a common baseball fan. How can anybody relate to a guy, dressed in pajama's, running around with a leather glove on one hand, chasing a white ball that another guy in P.J.s has just hit and is running to. Then after all the running is done, everybody seems to stop, spit, adjust their equipment, both externally and internally, walk around, get into either a defensive, or offensive stance, and do it all over again.
The ownership of the McCourt's and the Dodgers seems to be somewhat like a marriage made in hell. Since 2004, Frank and Jamie McCourt have owned the ball club, one of the more successful professional franchises. The figures that are being thrown around, "like I said" are huge, $20 million here, $19 million there. Bankruptcy fillings listed $1 billion in assets and around $500 million in debt.
Much finger pointing is going on between Frank McCourt and baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, it's like a "he said, she said deal," which doesn't help the matter at all. As sports are driven more and more by money, it seems to ring the enjoyment right out of the game. Color commentators, announcers, ball, strike, outs, pitch numbers are in boxes across the top of my T.V. screen, a pitch locator box at the right side of the screen, and continuous game updates rolling across the bottom of the screen.
Commentators talk about "shoulders flying up," about hips opening to quickly," how and where a pitch is delivered. Please stop, all of this crap is ruining the game, at least for me. I guess I'll have to start going to games to escape all the verbiage so that I can enjoy the game, maybe that's what Major League Baseball is tyring to do, "get baseball fans to get so bored with watching baseball on their televisions that they actually would rather go to the game at a stadium." If that's their intent, for me it's working.
I used to play baseball, I have coached and I have managed adult teams, high school teams and college baseball teams. I have worked for armature teams, professional teams, and collegiate teams, and through it all I enjoyed what I did. I knew that I wasn't a good ball player, knew I was a better manager then a coach. My one strong point was assessing baseball talent and where to put that talent on a baseball field.
Major League Baseball has been referred to "as the show," and that "show," in my opinion is hurting the game. The first rule of baseball is to "hit the ball and run like hell," everything else is secondary and fans don't care.
That's why amateur baseball, or independent minor league baseball is so interesting to me. Those that play amateur ball do it because they love the game, it's not for the money. Independent league professional baseball comes in a close second for me, because those players still have the dream, play hard and always give a good accounting of themselves.
I remember an old armature league in Michigan that it was my great honor to participate in many years ago. There were natural rivalries, heated battles and a hell-of-alot
The league ran from somewhere in the 1920's to the 1990's and was chuck full of characters, the original week-end worriers. Member villages included Cedar, Lake Leelanau, Leland, Northport, Suttons Bay, Elmwood, Empire, Maple City and Traverse City.
Everything late in the season was scheduled around the cherry pack, almost everybody in Leelanau County worked in some segment of the cherry harvesting industry, so at least for three Sundays in August, it was tough to get 9 players to a game.
That was the real game and still is, to bad most of the younger players no longer play, they don't know what they are missing. I remember a time when a player threw a beer bottle out his car window right when a cop was passing him. The cop pulled him over, wrote him up, and made him come out one Saturday to pick up bottles on the side of a road for some 20 miles, but only on one side of the road. Now those were the days
I was involved with baseball for 29 years and during that time, not one player lost his life driving home after a game. Maybe God really was a baseball player when he was young. Baseball is still alive and well.....in Little League, Babe Ruth, Legion, High School, College and Independent Professional ball. I guess the professionals have their game, and the rest of us have our game.
But it is so, as baseball moves doggedly slow into the 21st. century, "oh wait, it's already 2011," few changes have been made to the sport that is called "America's pastime." In fact there seems to be a retro thing going on as Davy Johnson, aged 67 has been brought out of moth balls to manage the Washington Nats, and Jack McKeon, aged 80, "way past the moth ball stage," to manage the Florida Marlins.
2011 so far has been a strange season, not only for weather patterns, but for professional baseball going-ons. Barry Bonds is doing his best two step to stay away from the law, Roger Clemens is off in la la land somewhere, still telling people that those who testified against him "miss-remembered." Of course there was also Manny Ramirez retiring in April rather then serve a 100 game suspension for failing a drug test, comforted with the knowledge that the Los Angles Dodgers still owed him $21 million dollars.
The Dodgers have been a proud franchise throughout their history which began in 1890 when the club joined the National League. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, "their nick-name" merged with the Baltimore Orioles in 1899 and many of the star Orioles players play for the Bridegrooms. In 1912, Charles Ebbets takes on 2 partners, the McKeever brothers who operate a construction company, who in turn took on the project of building one of the most unique baseball stadiums in the history of baseball, Ebbets Field.
Of course the Brooklyn Dodgers, "who got their name from fans dodging trolley cars coming to or leaving games," were the first team to use a colored ballplayer, the first team to announce that they would move to the west coast, and also the first "modern" baseball team to use an exclusive football stadium for professional baseball games.
We now are being entertained by the foolish activity of the Dodger owner, Frank McCourt and his soon to be x wife, Jamie. There very public divorce proceedings has overshadowed the clubs baseball operations for the past couple of years, and is just another black eye for professional baseball.
Mercy, mercy, what a soap opera, these people throw around dollar amounts that define their sheer stupidity towards a common baseball fan. How can anybody relate to a guy, dressed in pajama's, running around with a leather glove on one hand, chasing a white ball that another guy in P.J.s has just hit and is running to. Then after all the running is done, everybody seems to stop, spit, adjust their equipment, both externally and internally, walk around, get into either a defensive, or offensive stance, and do it all over again.
The ownership of the McCourt's and the Dodgers seems to be somewhat like a marriage made in hell. Since 2004, Frank and Jamie McCourt have owned the ball club, one of the more successful professional franchises. The figures that are being thrown around, "like I said" are huge, $20 million here, $19 million there. Bankruptcy fillings listed $1 billion in assets and around $500 million in debt.
Much finger pointing is going on between Frank McCourt and baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, it's like a "he said, she said deal," which doesn't help the matter at all. As sports are driven more and more by money, it seems to ring the enjoyment right out of the game. Color commentators, announcers, ball, strike, outs, pitch numbers are in boxes across the top of my T.V. screen, a pitch locator box at the right side of the screen, and continuous game updates rolling across the bottom of the screen.
Commentators talk about "shoulders flying up," about hips opening to quickly," how and where a pitch is delivered. Please stop, all of this crap is ruining the game, at least for me. I guess I'll have to start going to games to escape all the verbiage so that I can enjoy the game, maybe that's what Major League Baseball is tyring to do, "get baseball fans to get so bored with watching baseball on their televisions that they actually would rather go to the game at a stadium." If that's their intent, for me it's working.
I used to play baseball, I have coached and I have managed adult teams, high school teams and college baseball teams. I have worked for armature teams, professional teams, and collegiate teams, and through it all I enjoyed what I did. I knew that I wasn't a good ball player, knew I was a better manager then a coach. My one strong point was assessing baseball talent and where to put that talent on a baseball field.
Major League Baseball has been referred to "as the show," and that "show," in my opinion is hurting the game. The first rule of baseball is to "hit the ball and run like hell," everything else is secondary and fans don't care.
That's why amateur baseball, or independent minor league baseball is so interesting to me. Those that play amateur ball do it because they love the game, it's not for the money. Independent league professional baseball comes in a close second for me, because those players still have the dream, play hard and always give a good accounting of themselves.
I remember an old armature league in Michigan that it was my great honor to participate in many years ago. There were natural rivalries, heated battles and a hell-of-alot
The league ran from somewhere in the 1920's to the 1990's and was chuck full of characters, the original week-end worriers. Member villages included Cedar, Lake Leelanau, Leland, Northport, Suttons Bay, Elmwood, Empire, Maple City and Traverse City.
Everything late in the season was scheduled around the cherry pack, almost everybody in Leelanau County worked in some segment of the cherry harvesting industry, so at least for three Sundays in August, it was tough to get 9 players to a game.
That was the real game and still is, to bad most of the younger players no longer play, they don't know what they are missing. I remember a time when a player threw a beer bottle out his car window right when a cop was passing him. The cop pulled him over, wrote him up, and made him come out one Saturday to pick up bottles on the side of a road for some 20 miles, but only on one side of the road. Now those were the days
I was involved with baseball for 29 years and during that time, not one player lost his life driving home after a game. Maybe God really was a baseball player when he was young. Baseball is still alive and well.....in Little League, Babe Ruth, Legion, High School, College and Independent Professional ball. I guess the professionals have their game, and the rest of us have our game.
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