At All Costs

"If there was magic in this world, it happened within sight of the three bases and home plate....It wasn't just a yard with dirt, chalk lines, bases, and a small hill in its center..[it]was a field of dreams. Dreams for the kids in the stands, all wanting to don a uniform, kiss their moms goodbye, and wield their bats as enchanted weapons destined to knock the cover off the ball...[it] made the dreams of past innocence, lost wonder, and the promise that there was something inherently good still left in the world, come true."  -Tee Morris 

Baseball.  I love baseball and everything about the game.  I love going to games.  I love listening to the vendors in the aisles, selling overpriced peanuts, popcorn and beer.  I love getting hot dogs and nachos and something that is supposed to resemble cheese fries but really looks more like a heart attack waiting to happen. I love sitting in the stands and watching fathers and sons and families and old friends file into the stands.  I love hearing the National Anthem play, standing and singing God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch.  I love watching players file onto the field in their clean uniforms and wondering whose will end up with streaks of dirt from a good slide into home.  I love the mystery of not knowing where a pitch will go or where it will land when it does get hit.  I love standing a cheering with thousands of other people when a ball sails over the outfield wall.  There is nothing in this world to compare with a baseball game.

This week, I thought a lot about baseball and the Biogenesis business and A-Rod (fun fact: he and I share a birthday) and what has happened to the game.  I think the whole PED issue in baseball is a manifestation of so much of what is wrong in society right now.  Part of me thinks that the situation A-Rod finds himself in is totally of his own doing- he's a grown man and 100% accountable for his actions.  But at the same time, he is a product of his environment- one that is driven by profits, pressure to perform and insane amounts of money for those who do.

Baseball used to be a game about family, America and innocence.  America used to be a place of family, promise and hope, but I am afraid we have developed an attitude of "at all costs".  Get ahead in business, at all costs.  Have the fanciest clothes, at all costs.  Put your kids in every kind of lesson, at all costs.  Be the best athlete, at all costs.  Live in the most exclusive neighborhood, at all costs. Get the best grades, at all costs.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

In the movie Ever After, when Drew Barrymore goes to get her servant released, she gets in a tiff with Prince Henry.  Regarding the other criminals who did not get released, she says to the prince:  "If you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."

I'm not condoning what A-Rod did.  Cheating is wrong.  But, if we let this "at all costs" society continue and we don't realize that some things aren't worth the cost, then what are we supposed to do when people act in accordance with the mentality we have allowed to exist?  Until we fix our mentality, athletes will continue to use, businessmen and women will continue to be dishonest, schoolchildren will continue to peer over their neighbor's shoulder hoping to see the answers.

There are some things that are worth every sacrifice that needs to be made.  Strengthening our families is worth every sacrifice.  Serving others is worth every sacrifice.  Standing up for others is worth every sacrifice.  Building up our communities is worth the sacrifice.  Worth the sacrifice? Yes.  Worth cheating? Not so much.

I'm always going to love baseball.  There really isn't anything like it in the world.  I believe that at its core, it is and will always be about dads and kids out in the yard.  It will be The Babe and "You're killing me Smalls!" and bleacher seats and "Play ball!" 

Take me out to the ball game.