13 August 2013 –
In This Game We Call
Life, Numbers Matter
Yankee third baseman
Alex Rodriguez should be condemned to sports ignominy. He
violated sacred principles of competition by using and encouraging the use of
performance enhancing drugs. He deserves
the ultimate punishment: lifetime banishment from the game of
baseball. Why is this so important? Because life imitates
baseball, and not the other way around. To find truth and unerring
principles, one has to look no farther than to the game of baseball. Watch the game of baseball, feel how it flows
beautifully through an afternoon in the ball park, and you’ll recognize how it
has been the backbone of virtue and good sense for generations of
Americans. And, you’ll l know why ballplayers using performance
enhancing drugs is such obvious perfidy.
If you already have
gained ultimate insight into life through the clear lens of baseball, no
further explanation is necessary. If you have not, I shall try to
explain this crisis in American society using small words and simple
sentences. Football and soccer disciples, try to keep up.
1) As Fay Vincent,
former Commissioner of Baseball, wrote recently, baseball is athletic
competition at its purest. If teams win or lose based on the
performance of players taking steroids and other drugs, then baseball becomes
nothing more than made-for-television entertainment, nothing more than
professional wrestling without the blood and skimpily clad girls (OK, I added
that last part about the blood and girls).
Legitimate athletic
competition, however, inspires fans, players, and nations. It teaches the
vanquished that defeat on the playing field may be painful, but it is only
temporary. What is lasting are character and humility in the lessons
learned. It teaches the victors that winning may feel wonderful, but
it is only temporary. What is lasting are character and humility in
the lessons learned. For these lessons to endure, the competition
must be pure.
It is that inspiration
that sustained me as a Red Sox fan, from that Saturday in 1960 on the Game of
the Week when I first saw Ted Williams swing a bat in Fenway Park, until the
final out of the fourth game of the 2004 World Series when the BOSOX finally
became again Champeens of Da Woild. Only uncorrupted competition
sustains and inspires this way.
2) Pure competition over
the generations of the game has produced numbers that have meaning beyond the moment. Ask
a baseball fan what the numbers 60 and 61 mean, and she will immediately say
Babe Ruth’s home runs in ’27 and Roger Maris’s home runs in
’61. Their Yankee uniform numbers were 3 and 9 respectively, by the
way. Ask her what the numbers 755, 714, and 660 are, and the answer
will come before you finish speaking. Hank Aaron’s, Babe Ruth’s, and
Willie Mays’s career home run totals—all pure numbers in pure competition. Enlightened fans condemn the heresy of Barry
Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Alex Rodriguez. Their hyped numbers are
meaningless, completely irrelevant to anything of worth in
life. They inspired nothing good to nobody, nowhere, no how. And, no Hall of Fame.
What are .367, .344, and
.331? By this time, the enlightened may wonder how anyone functions
in life without knowing the answer. Those are Ty Cobb’s, Ted
Williams’s, and Stan Musial’s career batting averages. I learned how
to divide and multiply because I wanted to figure out batting
averages. Numbers tie together eras in the sport—in the history of
the USA--as nothing else can. I learned American history from 1903
to today because I studied baseball and compared it to what else was happening
in the USA at the time. Numbers hold history together. I
can compare Joe Dimaggio to Rod Carew to Rogers Hornsby to Mickey Mantle by
comparing their statistics. Without a valid comparison of the pure
numbers of the different eras of baseball, all life is condemned to relativism. Nothing
means anything.
3) Cheating is
cheating. Alex Rodriguez taught millions of kids to cheat on a grand
scale and, thereby, chase success, adulation, and riches. Many of these kids will cheat as they can and
will continue to do so through adulthood.
If they can get away with flouting the rules of baseball, they’ll
disregard rules in school, in their homes, and will ultimately snub the rule of
law in their communities. Alex
Rodriguez: You were as magnificent a
shortstop as has ever played the game. Your name was being readied
for permanent glory in the Hall of Fame; but, you cheated. Yer OUT!
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