Remember when baseball was fun

We are now a few weeks into the Major League Baseball season, with the same, predictable steroid-laden lack of baseball, which is supposed to be a team sport, but has become a race for individual statistics, above all else.

With so much money at stake, the game, itself, takes a back seat to the marketing of new records and new "superstars," and new products, designed to take more money out of your pockets and put it into the pockets of the billionaire owners and the millionaire players.

The club owners were finally forced, by the players' association, to share with the players a little of the hundreds of millions of dollars they were making. Television began paying the bills and dictating the presentation, which you watch, or not. You could no longer watch "the game." The camera focused on the individual play, watching only where the ball went. And the perception of the game changed.

Norman Bernstein

The average American family can't afford to go to a major league ballgame anymore, having to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for tickets in the nose bleed sections, and maybe a box of popcorn and a soda, not even including a hot dog. Now, ain't that fun. Take me out to the ballgame.

Personally, I haven't watched a major league ballgame since the owners canceled the 1994 World Series, and said the players and the fans be damned. Baseball used to be America's game. It used to be a wonderful thing to hear, to watch, to play. As a kid, how many quiet summer nights were spent under the covers, listening to a faraway major league baseball game on the transistor radio, when everyone was supposed to be asleep? And, a little bit older, who could wait for those glorious three months of summer, when we played Little League, or American Legion ball, a game almost every day, and sometimes a double header thrown in, from Memorial Day to Labor Day?

Baseball was, and still is, except in the big leagues, an elegant and beautifully choreographed game of teamwork and skill, complicated and simple, and ever-changing. It's the responsibility of the coach to make it look easy, to make sure that the players know what to do in any given situation. It's the responsibility of the players to do it; to develop the muscle memories and the skills that come only after long and hard and productive practice sessions. Kids invariably know that; superstars seem to no longer remember what the game is all about.

Kids who play Little League or American Legion ball, with just a little good coaching, know how complicated and how simple and how much fun the game is. And, if properly coached, they can bring those skills into high school or college baseball. One simple play can illustrate the game's elegance. For example, what happens on a single hit to center field, with a runner on first base? The team on defense needs to know how the play should develop, and each player needs to instinctively know how to execute the play. The pitcher must move immediately to cover third base deep and back up a possible throw from center. The catcher moves about 15 feet into fair territory to back up a possible throw to second base from center field, while still being in a position to cover home. The first baseman watches to make sure the runner touches first base and then stays close to first to cover a possible run back. The second baseman covers second base from the infield side and if the ball gets by the center fielder he will go out to be front man on a tandem relay. The shortstop takes a cut-off position in a direct line from center field to third base. The third baseman covers third and is set to decoy the runner coming into third. The left fielder moves to back up the center fielder and, if the ball is fielded, he then moves toward the infield area to back up the shortstop. The center fielder fields the ball and throws to the cutoff position — the shortstop — for a play at third base, unless the ball is hit hard and the runner is not going to third; he then looks for the second baseman coming in from the inside of second base. The right fielder moves to back up the center fielder and, if the ball is fielded, he moves to back up a possible throw from shortstop to second base. Simple, isn't it? Just a single hit to center.

What this play represents is the hours and hours of practice it takes to make it look simple, to make it automatic. It is this end result of a coaching and team effort that makes the game look easy, with everybody out there in the open, exposed, no place to hide, unlike football or basketball, which can be finessed.

I've watch hundreds of youth and college baseball games, and quite a few minor league games, and have rarely been disappointed with the hustle, the enthusiasm, the fun of the game. Maybe a few major league owners and players ought to do the same. So they can see how the game should be played.

(Norman Bernstein is a roving correspondent for the Havre Daily News.)