10 Great Things About Major League Baseball
Positive News and Feel-Good Stories on Our National Pastime
Apr 7, 2009
Every spring it happens: the baseball media tries to kill the sport they follow. Every spring. For the past four or five years, it's been the annual scapegoating of the latest player who's gotten in trouble for allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs. Or it's the focus on the love life or personal issues of one superstar or another.
While these stories may or may not be necessary news items, they aren't all of the news about our National Pastime. There are plenty of great, feel good baseball stories out there. Unfortunately, sensation-seeking crappy gossip networks like ESPN and FOX too often choose to play down the good while blowing the bad way out of proportion.
So, despite the fact that we all have to endure yet another year of having to listen to that grating team of Buck and McCarver for just about every meaningful big league game, try to keep in mind that there are at least ten reasons to feel good about baseball. Here they are.
1. Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
At 18, Hamilton was the country’s best high school player and the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. A year later, he fell into a life of drugs and alcohol that drove him out of the game before he was 21 years old. For three years, Hamilton was lost in a wilderness of depression and addiction. But then he pulled his life together, somehow fought his way back to the game, and in just two full seasons, Hamilton established himself as one of the best hitters in the game.
2. Jon Lester, Boston Red Sox
This guy got cancer when he was 23. He beat it, came back in late 2007, and last year, he won 16 games. Now he may be the ace of a very, very good Boston Red Sox pitching staff. That’s gotta make you feel good; even if you are a Yankee fan.
3. Rick Ankiel, St. Louis Cardinals
Ankiel had a brilliant rookie season as a starting pitcher in 2000, and seemed poised to become one of the best hurlers in the game. Then he lost his control, walked something like 100 guys in a row in a playoff game, and spent most of the next six years in the minors, trying to make it back. Finally, he gave up pitching and became a centerfielder.
Everyone laughed. Everyone now has egg on their face. In 2008, Ankiel played 120 games and hit 25 home runs with 71 RBI. A full season in 2009 could see him break the 30 homer/100 RBI marks.
4. Rocco Baldelli, Boston Red Sox
Baldelli was a former Rookie of the Year candidate with the Tampa Bay Rays. A couple years later, injuries and a strange illness that sapped him of all of his energy almost ended his career. But he came back towards the end of the 2008 season, and played well enough in the postseason to land a free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox.
5. The MLB Network
Now that Major League Baseball has its own network, fans can't bet that in a few years, they won't have to watch playoff games on Fox, nor will they have to put up the smug Joe Buck and the most verbose baseball man in the world, Tim McCarver.
6. The Rise of the Tampa Bay Rays
After a decade in the cellar, the Rays finally kicked it into gear in 2008 and won the American League pennant.
7. The World Champion Philadelphia Phillies
Last year, they became the first major professional Philadelphia sports team to win a championship in a quarter of a century. More than a million fans mobbed their victory parade, Chase Utley dropped his famous "F Bomb" on TV, and in the offseason, new GM Ruben Amaro was able to keep most of the core players together for the next three seasons. Can anyone smell a dynasty?
8. Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles Dodgers
Sure, at times he can be a distraction. Those times, however, are much rarer than many in the baseball press would have you believe. Regardless of his personality or whatever issues that he may cause with coaches and teammates, one thing is for sure. Manny Ramirez is a great hitter. He may be the best all-around batter since Ted Williams.
So, when you hear ESPN's latest attempt to assassinate Manny, tune it out, and turn on a Dodgers game. Because to watch Manny is to see something special, and potentially very funny, every day.
9. Jamie Moyer, Philadelphia Phillies
The guy is 46. He won 16 games and won a World Series last year. He's also one of the most charitable players in pro sports.
10. The New Stadiums
From the late 1960s until the mid-1990s, most baseball stadiums were big, cold, ugly structures that lacked charm, amenities and beer cup holders. All that began to change when the Baltimore Orioles opened Camden Yards in 1992. Architects described it as a "retro" stadium, an attempt to recapture the features found in classic ballparks but doing so in a modern way. Since then, just about every team has built (or had built for them) a new stadium. Parks from Philadelphia to St. Louis to Detroit to the Pacific Coast are all new, and all pretty damn gorgeous. Go to one of them and watch a game live and in person.
Because for all of its problems, baseball is still the best thing going.
