Bamboozled at the Old Ball Game (A Fan's View)

“There is but one game and that game is baseball”  John McGraw

“When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game.”  Joe DiMaggio

The cops just knocked on the door and told us to turn down the music; the bartender skipped last call and stopped serving; mom just told our friends to go home; and the lifeguard just hollered, “Everybody out of the pool.”  The party’s over. That’s how it felt for us Giants fans when it was announced that left fielder Melky Cabrera was suspended for 50 games (the remainder of the season) after he tested for excessive levels of testosterone; dirty.  What is it about left field at AT&T Park?  First it was drug cheat extraordinaire, Barry Bonds; now Cabrera.  

Okay let’s put this into perspective; its baseball.  It isn’t a national crisis, the stock market hasn’t crashed (yet), there’s an important election on the horizon and the campaigns are dirtier than an East German shot putter and the economy is still on the rocks.  And maybe, for us fans, that’s part of the perspective.  We slog through traffic to go to and from unsatisfying jobs, working for employers who don’t give a shit about us, we absorb the depressing reports of crime, war, political bickering and gridlock and then find that our outlet, our escape, a trip to the ballpark or our evening spot on the couch to watch the local nine has been a partial fraud.  A caller on a sports talk show put it succinctly; “I’m pissed!” 

I suppose that we should have seen it coming.  Cabrera was a marginal player, in and out of starting lineups for the Yankees and Braves.  He was traded to Kansas City in 2011 and seemed to be breaking out.  The Giants traded for him before this season and Cabrera was really hitting his stride; competing for the batting title and the league MVP, and a trip to the All-Star Game where he won the award for MVP.  Instead, all he was hitting was the juice.  Should’ve seen it coming.  I didn’t see it coming years ago when I jumped on the Regina Jacobs bandwagon; a middle distance runner having her best years as she was getting long in the tooth, setting a world record for the indoor 1500 at age 39.  So I guess I’m a sucker.  By the way I’m in the market for some coastal property in Oklahoma. 

Course, I’m not one of those stats guys.  I don’t really keep track of OBP, WIP, SLG or any of that baseball data.  Hell, I don’t know what some of it means.  I show up early at the park, enjoy the sights and sounds of the mostly empty stadium, take in batting practice and when the game starts I watch intently (used to keep score on a scorecard sometimes).  I’m one of those saps who clings to that whole romance of the game hokum.  I have boxes and binders filled with baseball cards, a faded worn out ball cap dotted with commemorative pins and I actually eat peanuts and Cracker Jack at the game. So of course I didn’t see it coming.

Men of Melk in happier days

Like the fan on the radio show I just feel pissed.  And it isn’t so much for the fact that the team has lost its most productive player in the midst of a tight race, with little opportunity to find a suitable replacement and the season now potentially lost.  Maybe the season is lost but for me it’s the disappointment that the air was just let out of the balloon.  It could have been just about any player on the team.  Cabrera though sparked a stadium-wide exuberance.  First there were the Melkmen, a group of fellows who dressed up as old time milk deliverymen; trooping around the stadium leading cheers.  Soon the Melkmen were joined by the Melkmaids, women dressed as the classic Dutch milkmaids.  AT&T was a fun place to be and Cabrera was in large part the catalyst.  And then the Grinch joined the lineup and reality set in. 

Maybe we need to realize that this is reality.  Interviewed on the Giants’ flagship station, KNBR, GM Brian Sabean said that he was disappointed but then he allowed that given all the athletes in various sports that have been caught doping or accused of doping he isn’t surprised anymore. 

 

The maids; traded their milk for gin

So the Melkmen have burned their caps and bowties and I guess the Meldmaids have stopped melking or whatever it is that they do (I’m not sure that I want to know) and the players have expressed their disappointment in the correct way that they’re supposed to.  Buster Posey characterized it as “a bad decision,” and left it at that.  I would be curious to know what he said about his "teammate" to his wife over the dinner table.  First baseman Brandon Belt just addressed the issue of having to carry on without a contributing player.  Of course what he didn’t mention was the fact that the player wouldn’t have been contributing as he did without having cheated.  And so that makes much of the Giants’ season a sham.  Which takes us to the All-Star Game.  Texas Rangers’ pitcher Matt Harrison’s All-Star line will always show a homerun hit by a player who probably should have been fishing during the all-star break.  Pablo Sandoval who drove in the winning run came home from Kansas City an MVP bridesmaid to Cabrera who in his postgame remarks thanked the fans for voting him in.  Yeah that would be me; the chump who sat in this very chair at this very computer and helped stuff the ballot box.  To borrow a lyric from an old 60’s song; “What kind of fool am I?”

For his part Cabrera issued the usual boilerplate bullshit; "My positive test was the result of my use of a substance I should not have used ... I am deeply sorry for my mistake.”  Let’s translate.  What he is deeply sorry for is getting caught.  As long as he was getting away with it he would have merrily continued down the performance enhancing path.  And as for making a mistake; a mistake is when you flub the lines in a song, or take the eastbound exit instead of the westbound exit you meant to take.  Juicing to get an edge in professional sports takes a conscious effort (Unless you buy the Barry Bonds baloney that he thought it was flaxseed oil that was giving him big muscles and a huge cranium).

On KNBR, host Tom Tolbert, tried to offer a weak rationale for why Cabrera juiced.  It went something like this; Cabrera, from the Dominican Republic, is only in this country long enough to play ball after which he will return to his homeland.  He was just looking for that big payday (it was rumored that the Giants had offered Cabrera a 3 year, 27 million dollar extension) so he could retire, return home and take care of his family.  I might swallow that snake oil if Cabrera’s homeland was, oh, Monte Carlo; but it isn’t.  Home is the Dominican Republic and he’s making 6 million dollars (less 50 games’ worth) this season and over this and the last two seasons has made 10 million dollars.  But then again I suppose that what defines taking care of your family is all relative (no pun intended). 

There are those who’ll read this and scoff, make fun and point out that baseball is just business.  Yeah I get that.  It is a business and just like any business it has customers and they’re called fans.  Businesses don’t do well when they treat their customers like chumps and sell them a phony product.  So while this is a business to ballplayers and owners who are just trying to earn a living and put bread on the table (and I’m gagging when I put it that way) if they don’t take care of the paying customers baseball might find itself with a customer base about the size of, well, maybe, oh; women’s professional soccer.