Baseball is no longer the king of American sports.
Once upon a time, the Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season was equated to a rebirth. Spring, warmer weather is coming and hopes spring eternal for a good season for a fan’s favorite team. Today, there is this question. Are MLB owners intentionally trying to destroy their business with owners talking about finances, a salary cap and a lockout? Is baseball significant anymore? At one time in baseball’s distant past, there was the Americana of baseball and apple pie. Casey At The Bat, or Take Me Out to the Ballgame, as Katie Casey told her boyfriend I want to go to the ball game in the song. There was the Babe and the great DiMaggio who was lionized in the Old Man and the Sea classic book by Hemingway and Who’s on First. Joe DiMaggio would be revisited in song in Paul Simon’s classic Mrs. Robinson. Baseball players were in vaudeville, burlesque, in movies, and on radio and on TV. In 1954, the French social commentator Jacques Barzun noted. “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”
There was the Fall Classic and the Hot Stove League. Opening Day was an event and it was the Boys of Summer. Baseball was omnipresent. Now sports seasons clash. Opening Day takes a back seat to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, the NFL Draft, the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals, along with women’s sports, all competitors, and July NFL training camps. Yes, there was horse racing, summer golf and tennis tournaments but baseball until the 1960s was always at the top followed by boxing and horse racing. Barzun rejected baseball by 2008, because it was over commercialized. Opening Night is just another day.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
