The Church of Baseball

Like any good lapsed Catholic that now practices in the Church of baseball, the topic of morality in professional sports has been on my brain since they didn't let those beefcakes party at Cooperstown last month.

Juiced up monsters blasting homers aren't what Abner Doubleday intended when he might have been sitting in a cow pasture inventing baseball in 1839. Hoop-and-stick can only be so fun. Running down baseballs after every over-muscled man hits 'em into no man's land would have been less fun.

Every era is embedded in a specific cultural time that plays by and makes its own rules. Spitballs were legal until "the owners greedily sold out to home runs." That's according to Ty Cobb, anyway - you know, that guy with the highest career batting average of all time that should be in the Hall of Fame for violent, racist sociopaths. Instead, he lives on in Cooperstown alongside some of the greatest assholes to pick up a bat. But, man, could they hit!

Is integrity to the game more important than integrity itself? Mind you, that's a game that banned black athletes from playing until 1947. (Here's to you, Mr. Robinson. Happy Belated!) Still, potentially changing the game via gambling or betting seems to rank highest among baseball's mortal sins. Throwing illegal pitches fall into the venial because while a tossing a gooball's still a no-no, it doesn't kill the buzz of a good home run derby or Roger Clemens's comeback (No, I'm not talking the Sugar Land Skeeters). Doesn't it make you wonder how the Ten Commandments of baseball would read?


That brings me to Chooch whose penance is the first 25 games of the season after testing positive for Adderall. I know! Not our Chooch! I don't want to think about it either. I want to think about Game 3 of the 2008 World Series and Roy Halladay falling asleep next to his Chooch pillow in the off-season and Chooch catching R.A. Dickey in a mitt half his size in last year's All-Star game. Let's tune out the fact that he tested positive for an amphetamine the same year that he led the MLB in hitting. Is the only redeeming thing about the 2012 Phillies a sham?

Relax. Put on a Phil Collins record and reread that SI article "Brotherly Glove". It'll make you feel better.

While Adderall's no Andro and Chooch's no juicer, the incident raises a number of interesting questions for baseball's future. What's worse, bulking up or improving focus, if the improvement in performance is the result of a drug? Will cognitive stimulants be the next generation of drugs that keep players out of the Hall of Fame? Is performance enhancement a part of modern day baseball culture that society just needs to accept? The fact that close to 10% of MLB players have ADHD diagnoses must be hinting at something. They can't all be chasing their shadows in the outfield.

Still, the bigger question remains. Why do crimes against sports seem like they're worse than crimes against society?

My brain hurts. Maybe I'm still hungover from eating a stadium made out of deli meats and Cheetos on Super Bowl Sunday. I've heard that Ray Lewis may have murdered some people, but the Ravens won the Super Bowl, so I guess we should let him pass. I mean, tackle. But what do I know? I'm a woman! We're underrepresented when it comes to Hall of Fame votes, and until Betty Spaghetti has a place in the Hall, I'm boycotting!

This February Nadine and I will be paying homage to good dudes from the Phillies past that never made it to Cooperstown. Wait, what's that? The city already has its own Hall of Fame and they even voted in Mike Piazza? Eh, fuck it. We're doing it anyway. Consistent with the standards put forth by the Baseball Hall of Fame, voting will be based on going with one's gut.

Leave all real talk about baseball's past, present, and future as well as which Phillies deserve a Billy Ray Valentine's Day card this February in the comments.

Let's Go Eat

Nadine and I wanted to make our triumphant return to blogging with a nonfiction novella about that awkwardly lovable right-handed bat from Texas with no first names, Hunter Pence. How could he not be an instant Phillie fan favorite? The old-fashioned socks, the wit, the appetite, the Cliff Lee hooking him up with cowboy boots. Swoon! He's pretty much the anti-Werth outside of the right-handed bat thing. That no longer rings true for Werth, as his batting average hasn't helped anything but bar prices since he took that long walk to DC. But every time I plan on writing a post about a Phillie that isn't Kyle Kendrick or go to a game that Kyle Kendrick isn't pitching at, I am a total jinx. Sure, Pence singled last night after striking out three times, but I still managed to mess up that nice statistic about the Phillies winning whenever Pence hits. So let's save that goofy gangletron for another day, talk about why I couldn't sleep after last night's loss, and then go eat.

Let us first reflect on the Great Doctor and Cy Young Collector Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III. The same question is probably on everyone's mind whenever Doc goes into the ninth. While he's especially good at getting out of jams and pitching a quick and efficient nine innings, maybe Charlie should let the relief pitchers work every now and then. While Doc has proven us all wrong before, and it's awesome when he does, last night's loss to the D-Bags was especially rough knowing that in addition to neck tattoos, the D-Bags also lead the league in comebacks. Last night marked their 35th of the season. Doc also had his first extra-base hit ever in addition to pitching a solid game which did not help my mood. Instead, it made me reminisce on that postseason no-hitter he also had a hit in. Memories. I guess losses are just tougher on nights when you feel the Roy Halladay magic.

That brings me to my second point about them late innings bats. Tuesday's bottom of the ninth was difficult to watch: one out, runner in scoring position, and Ross Gload and J-Roll strikeout. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Harry Kalas statue was also revealed last night or that I haven't been won over by Gload yet or that I had one too many beers, but before he even got up to bat, an old mantra popped into my head, "In case of emergency, use Stairs." Matt Stairs' home run was the last Harry the K called in 2009, and while Stairs was released from the Nats earlier this year, I wanted him to fly in then and there to save the day. That, or I wanted John Mayberry Jr. to be pinch hitting instead of pinch running.

You could replay Tuesday night's game a lot of different ways to make yourself feel better. At the end of the night, the next morning, and the next day, it's still just baseball — at least until the clock strikes 7:05 PM. I guess it's best to just maintain the same attitude as a fan of baseball that Hunter Pence does as a recent addition to the best team in baseball. “This is nice,” Pence said, “but I definitely don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Let's go eat.