War
on the diamond
Nick
Genisauski
This
past weekend was a wild one for Major League
Baseball. If you weren't able to catch
the madness allow me to briefly recap. Saturday's
game pitting the Yankees against the Red
Sox looked more like a creation of Vince
McMahon than the prelude to the Fall Classic.
In the fourth inning, the notion of sportsmanship
unraveled at the seam when Yankee ace, Roger
Clemens, threw a pitch high, but not inside.
The result was that batter, Manny Ramirez
(or common street thug), took offense to
the 95 mph innocent toss, in effect, charging
the mound and resulting in a mild riot.
However, the real action took place not
on the mound or at the plate.
The
Fox network was kind enough to train their
cameras on Yankee pitching coach, Don Zimmer.
Zimmer charged Red Sox pitcher, Pedro Martinez,
like a gerbil on fire. Without thinking
twice, Martinez flipped Zimmer over his
shoulder, as a rowdy teen would a glowing
Jack-o-lantern on Halloween. The next day,
fines were given and baseball was said to
have taken a step backward. For myself,
the worst part of the day wasn't the thousands
of dollars coughed up by those involved
or the shame Major League Baseball felt:
it was the disgraceful apology from the
Bronx Bomber's 72-year-old gunnery sergeant,
Don Zimmer!
Yes,
I know, fighting and/or unnecessary violence
is not good for sports, especially baseball
-- I heard it all weekend. Well then, what
is good for sports? How about charging the
fans the price of a twelve pack for one
measly cup of beer. Or maybe giving the
players more money in one year than schoolteachers
or police officers will make in their entire
lifetime. Wait, I know what will give sports
the pristine reputation it deserves -- have
a star running-back brutally murder his
wife and reward him with a brain dead jury;
then repeat the outcome almost ten years
later when a certain hoopster gives new
meaning to "full-court-press"
while hanging out in the Rocky Mountains
(pending of course).
When
Zimmer made his sheepish amends with the
sporting world, it made me think of a military
commander apologizing after pillaging a
village or annihilating the enemy. Did William
the Conqueror tour the English countryside
with tidings of sorrow after he took the
island for his own? No, he probably wrote
his name in urine on a peasant's sheep!
If Patton had publicly welled up with tears
and blew his nose in his leather glove while
standing over the dead bodies of the Third
Reich, our national pastime could have been
ice-skating or poll vaulting. What if General
William Tecumseh Sherman sobbed the entire
way as he obliterated and burned the south?
It probably would have risen again!
The idea of "sport" is no doubt
an extension of war -- two opposing parties
attempting to win at all cost, but as a
progressively civilized society we now leave
the killings to the corporate sponsors that
display their logos and slogans across stadium
billboards. When Major League Baseball blushes
at the overflow of emotion by its players,
it's hard for me to digest this as genuine
embarrassment. What's good for sports, in
this case baseball, are ratings -- whichever
way the league and networks can obtain them.
I'll tell you this: my eyes did not stray
from the screen for one moment after the
melee erupted in the fourth inning. To the
fare-weather fans of Major League Baseball,
the rivalry between the Yankees and Red
Sox is more enthralling, blood thirsty and
perilous than basically any battle sports
has to offer. The tension between these
two ball clubs would rip the stuffing out
of the "rally monkey" and turn
the "Homerun Hanky" into a ball
of lint! And let's just say that the "Milwaukee
sausage" would be begging for a bat
to the knees, rather than have itself embroiled
in such an explosive playoff where even
the groundskeepers are team operatives.
We must remember that the body count and
blood that spilled onto the soil of engagement
once measured the thrill of victory and
the agony of defeat. Don Zimmer attacking
Martinez, then being lobbed to the earth
is a testament to the way wars were fought.
But, his recant the following day only pushed
the hot dog prices back up and proved that
the only red substance spilled in the ballparks
for the rest of October would be the ketchup
out of a bun. Play Ball!
Nick
Genisauski is an English major at Cal State
Long Beach.
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