Volume 2, Number 3 -- March, 1997
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Volume 2, Number 3 -- March, 1997 |
In the Spring...
It has begun again. Spring Training has gotten underway as
players, non-roster invitees and general hangers-on have reported
to various sites around Florida and Arizona. They are caretakers
of one of the most hallowed traditions in all of sport, the
annual rebirth of hope that is baseball's spring training.
Baseball is unique among the major sports leagues in that
it's version of preseason is practically part of the season
itself. Nobody makes a pilgrimage to see the Lions work out
twice a day in July or the Nuggets run passing drills in
September. In football, basketball, and hockey, the exhibition
season is nothing more than a way for the fans to mark time until
the regular season. Not baseball, though. For baseball fans, the
season begins the minute the first catcher's mitt pops in
February.
Like no other sport, baseball has managed to create and
maintain an almost spiritual atmosphere around it's pre-season
festivities that has, thus far, remained virtually unspoiled by
the greed and glitz that has nearly brought the game to its
knees. Spring training camp is still a place where a fan can go
sit in the stands with a beer and a dog, take in a double-header,
and even mingle with a few ballplayers without it rupturing his
bank account. It's a place to go where winning and losing comes
secondary to appreciating a diving catch, a well-executed bunt,
or a crisp double-play. A place where little if any interest is
paid to whether San Diego is beating Colorado and more is given
to whether or not the kid has learned to hit a curve or the old
guy can still leg out the double.
In other words, it's still a place for baseball fans. Fans
of baseball, not fans of winning or fans of superstars. If
baseball is ever going to truly heal the deep wounds that were
inflicted by the (now thankfully ended) labor strife, this is
where it needs to turn. Like any troubled franchise, baseball
needs to go back to the basics, back to where the fans are still
the fans. Baseball's true core of fans aren't the ones who were
upset that the World Series was canceled in 1994, they're the
ones who were upset that spring training was pushed back in 1995.
Baseball is entering a critical phase in its recovery. The
fans are starting to come back, grudgingly. But the game is
still troubled by the tirades of Albert Belle and Barry Bonds,
the ever-rising player salaries and corresponding increase in
ticket prices, the juiced-ball theory, and the diluted pitching
problem which will only get worse as the league expands by two
more teams next season. Right now is a time that baseball can
either right itself and reclaim its place atop the sporting world
or falter and set back its recover by five years or more.
The place to start, the number one area to try to focus the
attention of the fans is at the spring training sites in Arizona
and Florida. If Major League Baseball can win back the fans in
March, it will certainly spill over into April, May, and beyond.
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