Here we go again.  There doesn’t seem to be enough speed in the universe.  Practically the entire country is clamoring for a faster brand of baseball, and now the new commissioner of the professional league is all set to step in and accommodate.  Once again I would argue with the concept.  Baseball is about all we have left in the way of a timeless sport.  I admit the intentional walk seems like a time-waster, and one of the proposed rule changes is to get rid of it.  But man, when it goes wrong, what great entertainment.  Go ahead and tweek it here and there if you must, but let’s not get carried away.  I say keep the game just as it is.  My feeling is we should have a sport that clings to old fashioned rules, rules that exhibit, even demand, patience.  I’ll tell you why.

TD Ameritrade Park

My wife and I were at a college baseball game last week, Creighton played Xavier.  Creighton plays their home games in TD Ameritrade Park, the host facility of the annual College World Series here in Omaha.  The place can seat about 25 thousand people.  But outside of four or five games a year, only a couple thousand at best attend Creighton games.  Which is fine with my wife and me.  Better that than being beleaguered by loud-mouth drunks informing everyone inside as well as outside the stadium what a douchebag they think the umpire is.  My wife and I are thus usually surrounded not by people, but by a euphoric paradox.  We can partake in all the excitement of the game, yet blissfully immerse ourselves in the tranquil beauty of this magnificent ball park.  I should tell you we are more than biased.  It is my alma mater playing these games, but just as special, my son was the lead architect that designed the facility.  For that reason we probably get carried away with our respectful treatment of the place.  For instance, my wife scolds me for littering the ground with peanut shells.

My wife and I didn’t get to the ball park until after the National Anthem.  When we got to our seats (season tickets, ninth row right behind home plate) they were occupied.  Rather than ask people to move, we quietly accommodated by slipping into two seats in the next row up.  After all, it’s Creighton/Xavier.  Not exactly a sell out.  In our officially reserved seats, and in a dozen adjacent seats, were members of a teen-aged baseball team.  The group was adorned in game gear, wearing team T-shirts that identified them as visitors from a town somewhere in central Iowa.  I imagine the team was in town for a little league tournament, and coaches and parents wanted to treat the kids to a ball game at TD Ameritrade.  Not once during the entire game did any one of the big-leaguers-in-waiting cast an eye towards the field of play.  Eyes instead were cast upon cell phones taking selfies and group pictures as well as a teen-aged femme fatale who somehow managed to tag along and provide more compelling entertainment for the boys than the ball game.  The little bastards could not sit still.  The entire group was in constant motion, moving from seat to seat, row to row, and back again.  The stadium was 80% empty and these fidgety little fucks had to pick seats right in front of us, and our seats no less.  Is this where the youth of America is headed?  Are they all like this, with the attention span of a goldfish?  There were adults sitting in close proximity that I assume were supposed to supervise, but there was none of that going on.  I won’t be a hypocrite and tell you that when I was a teen-ager I didn’t goof off at a ball game when I was sitting in the stands with friends.  But at least we had the presence of mind to watch for foul-tips.  At a baseball game that can be, should be, a matter of instinctive survival.  If we were living in a pre-historic time, a roaming saber-toothed tiger coming across this clueless bunch would have to feel he had effortlessly stumbled upon a free all-you-can-eat buffet.  And in real time, had this hyperactive group been sitting in seats along a baseline, a screaming line drive in their direction would have easily taken out two or three of them.  I can’t say that I wouldn’t have rushed home after the game to see if I could catch it all on the evening news.

Especially to the point, if I was ever representing a team, my coaches would never put up with any pre-pubescent nonsense.  If my dad was there, he would step over and give me a knuckle-blast across the back of my head.  More knuckle-blasts and less Ritalin I say.  If you’re suited up like you actually play the game, you should understand how to play it.  It’s baseball.   It’s supposed to be slow.  Watch the fucking game.  You might learn something.