I turn 25 today. It’s an arbitrary birthday at this point; it’s a quarter of a century, sure, but it’s not like any of us are surviving until 100. The only thing that changes is the cost to rent a car. But it feels important. When I was young, I thought I’d have it all figured out by 25, or at least well on my way. Instead, I rarely know what day of the week it is. I don’t have anything figured out.
Through 25 years, baseball has always been there for me. I’ve deserted it more than it’s deserted me, when I had too much homework to eat dinner, let alone spend three hours in front of the TV, or when I worked nights at Publix for six years and the WiFi was only barely good enough to get ESPN alerts. No matter what, for seven months a year, there was always baseball. A lot of bad baseball, to be clear, but there was always baseball. It was the one thing in my life I could count on. For a while, I didn’t even care if the Mets won (and nor did they), as long as there was a game.
I’m older now, and I’ve realized that baseball is better when it’s good. Yoenis Cespedes is considerably more fun to watch than Jason Bay. Noah Syndergaard is preferable to Shaun Marcum. I like winning, it turns out.
This isn’t about that. This is about everything else.
When we talk about fixing baseball, we talk about pace of play. Or, at least, Rob Manfred does. Pace of play doesn’t matter, not in the grand scheme of things. Eliminating the four-pitch intentional walk won’t fix baseball. In fact, fixing baseball is barely about baseball at all.
Baseball is a game played by men, coached by men, run by men, written about (mostly) by men and judged by men (robot umpires aren’t happening, folks). It’s a game of ego and brute strength and, at times, toxic masculinity. It also happens to be a game that can’t get out of its own way, that allows steroids and domestic violence and sexism and racism and homophobia to desecrate what is, at its core, pure entertainment.
Because this is supposed to be entertainment. It’s a children’s game played by grown men in an industry worth billions of dollars. It’s supposed to be an escape from the real world, not a reminder of everything bad. Yet I find myself fighting more than cheering.
I fight against the idea that Jose Reyes deserves a hero’s welcome to Flushing because he allegedly shoved his wife into a sliding glass balcony door at the Maui Four Seasons. I fight against the idea that I don’t belong in a press box because I’m a woman. I fight against the idea that I don’t belong in a front office because I can’t afford to take unpaid internships. I fight against the idea that minor league players don’t deserve a living wage.
I don’t want to fight. I just want to watch some home runs.
And then there are the injuries. So many injuries. Constant, relentless, heartbreaking injuries. Lat tears and hamstring strains and Tommy John surgeries. So many injuries. Neverending injuries. Some are flukes, pranks from the baseball gods. Others are…not. But there’s always something. There’s never peace in Flushing; someone’s always broken. And when they’re broken, I’m broken. That beautiful baseball that’s always been there for me just hurts now.
Last fall, my coworkers decided to pick a football team for me. I don’t have any rooting interests (my dad’s a Cowboys fan and the Buccaneers were my local team for most of my life, but I’d disavowed both for various reasons), but I had two rules: 1) I didn’t want a bad team, or, worse, one mired in perennial mediocrity, and 2) I wanted a good team. Good human beings. No domestic violence or sexual assault or whatever other despicable “mistakes were made” actions that athletes get away with by virtue of being athletes.
My coworkers couldn’t find me a team. I continue not to care about football.
It’s too late to save me from baseball. This stupid game has already got me hooked. But it doesn’t care what I think. Baseball doesn’t care about my feelings.
Photo credit: Robert Deutsch – USA Today Sports