60 YEARS OF JACKIE ROBINSON

I've had this song stuck in my head for days...thanks!

Anyone who reads "I Never Had It Made" will know that this was a man like most every other man, who was a talented ballplayer and who was chosen because he could exhibit a Gandhi-like nonviolent strength in the face of prejudice, bigotry, and idiocy on the part of spectators and even fellow players.

Of course, the man who really opened up the players' working situation from abject slavery to what it is today (for better and worse) ia another pioneer, Curt Flood. Where the hell are HIS tributes?

I think Jackie was chosen because he was well educated and had played college sports at a mostly white Uni: UCLA. He was already used to an integrated environment and to being around white boy jocks. His natural temper was tempered (as it were) by his intelligence.

I don't think the game is particularly slower than it has ever been. And I don't think it does much good to worry about the salaries of pro athletes these days. But you are spot-on about the stupid expanded playoff format. Baseball numbers.. including wins and loss records.. mean something after 162 games.. or at least they should. That and the utter shame of the steroid scandals have done the most damage to the game in my mind.

Jeffrey, the average game time is 40% longer than it was in 1980. Games of 3 1/2 hours to 4 were unheard of and now are common. It would be easy to speed games up: batters have to ask the umps to call time for them to step out of the batter's box. They used to ask rarely but now most of them do it between every pitch. The umps could just say no and knock 20 minutes off of every game.

Baseball is unwatchable for me now. There are no screwball pitchers, only one knuckleball pitcher, the games take forever, and nobody hustles. Ever since les Expos got screwed out of a playoff spot in the strike year, or since Donnie Moore...well...you know...it hasn't appealed to me.

Yeah see that kind of stuff (stepping out of the box and whatnot) doesn't really bother me. I know it's a big complaint but I can deal with it.. or I could if I didn't think everyone was cheating all the time. And if the increased emphasis on power hitting didn't work to the detriment of small-ball strategy. I also hate the DH... and I miss Harry Caray

Does anyone watch BB anymore, other than the Series? Despite that I was a huge Dodgers fan as a kid, I couldn't watch an entire 9 inning game now if you put a gun to my head. Maybe it is the ridiculously slow pace of the game, or maybe I just miss Jackie, Duke, PeeWee, Newk, Sandy, Junior, Campy, Gil, Carl and the boys of summer.

Jeffrey: The batter's box stuff literally adds 20-30 minutes to every game. You're too young to remember shorter and better paced games.

We need more Bob Gibsons on the mounds, screaming at the batters to get back in the damn box so they can be properly struck out.

As for announcers, I got the biggest kick out of Ron Swoboda the other night announcing a Zephyrs game that had turned into a Nashville blowout. I'm gonna start bringing a radio to the games.

Ahh, Bob Gibson. I grew up as a Giants fan and the Cards were my second favorite team because of Gibby. As a very small kid I saw him and Juan Marichal match up a few times. It was beisbol heaven. I'm more of a pitching and defense fan myself.

One day, remind me to do my spot-on impersonation of Harry Caray announcing the second game of a doubleheader at Wrigley. He'd be on about the 9th Budweiser by then. Holy cow.

Not a cranky old fart yet? Hmmm... Well, OK, if you really want to get technical. How about cranky middle aged fart?

As to the slowness of baseball: It was always slow for me, especially playing it, so now it must be excruciating!

Golly. Darlin', you tryin' to get my mind off of current events? I don't know where to begin. Liprap, baseball is a great radio game, perhaps the only great radio game. I can completely see baseball on the radio. And I don't mind the batter stepping out of the box. I love the face-off between batter and pitcher and the catcher's part in the whole thing. I also don't object to the longer games. I'm a little puzzled at how anyone can object to more baseball. Isn't that, by definition, good? Well, except the expanded playoff thing. I completely agree with you and Mr. GP about that. Divisional Series? Yuck.

Now, I haven't been to a MLB game yet this season, but I will. The Youngest has been to five. Tonight will make six. He's missing his own practice to go to The Ted (no worries, his "coach" knows what he can do and this first practice is more of an evaluation;). This leads me to the twenty years I've spent involved in youth baseball. I would so much rather watch my 18U boys play than the big boys who are getting paid. As far as I'm concerned, *that's* baseball.

Nice post, A. He truly was a "great American and a real hero."

"Things were better when I was kid" sure sounds fogeyish to me. Yes, the average game went from 2:03 to 2:48 over the past 30 years and 45 minutes is a fair amount of time but the playing level of baseball is incredibly high right now. Athletes make enough money that they don't have to have offseason jobs and can keep themselves in shape year-round unlike the hallowed days of the '60's when Mickey Lolich and Smokey Burgess found their ways onto the field (not taking away from the fact that Lolich had some pretty great years). I watched many games with Mr. Adrastos in the '70's and '80's and lived through some slow times then (Mike Hargrove, anyone?) Yeah, it is annoying when the likes of the thankfully-retired Chuck Knoblauch would step out, adjust his gloves and take about 5 practice swings between each pitch (why do they adjust gloves when they are taking a pitch anyway?) or when Steve Trachsel would throw over to first half a dozen times but at least for pitchers the trend is to throw quickly (see Maddux, Greg) and I see fewer Knoblauchs than I once did and frankly I think the game is better than when I was younger.

As far as the salaries, I frankly don't care, just as I don't care how much Jack Nicholson makes in any movie I see him in. If $2 million is the going rate for a utility player, more power to them.

Not to open another can o' worms, but the standing around in football (as well as the overwhelming corporate feel of it) drives me insane. Someone once timed a Monday Night Football game and found that in the 3-hour plus broadcast there was something like 35 minutes of actual football once you exclude commercials, halftime, huddling, running off the clock, etc.

Actually, Sharpie, I'm inclined to think of 1974-1994 as close to a golden age of recent baseball. The teams played varying styles. Remember Whitey Herzog's teams in KC and St Louis? Now everybody stands around and waits for a big lummox juiced on steroids to hit the long ball. There also seem to me to be more players who weigh more than 250 pounds lumbering around stadia now than before. So, while many of the players are more athletic there are also a lot of Cecil Fielder/Mo Vaughn types out there.

The thing I *really* hate are the endless pitching changes to gain a centimeter of platoon advantage. It's dull, dull, dull and one often winds up with you 11th best pitcher replacing your ace just because Mr. 11 is a southpaw.

With real steroids testing in place you're actually seeing less of the scenario you describe (though I will admit it sometimes felt that way late 90's/early '00s when Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco stalked the scene). Jose Reyes, Carl Crawford, Grady Sizemore -- all the kind of players Whitey Herzog would've loved. The Angels of a couple years ago won the World Series by hitting tons of singles. Pitching changes mid-innings, yes, that is annoying (and adds several minutes to American League games where pitchers aren't removed for pinch-hitters) but specialization is the way of all sports nowadays with short-yardage backs and placekicking specialists.