I didn't take to sports right away. I grew up listening to the St. Louis Cardinals on the radio. My dad was a diehard fan. But it wasn't until the "ripe old age" of nine that I finally got bitten by the sports bug.
I, too, became a passionate Cardinals fan. The 1968 heartbreaker World series was the first I ever payed attention to. The loss in seven games set me up for the long, depressing 70's, when the team would struggle.
Prior to that year, beginning in 1960, athletes from Communist nations began winning lots and lots of Olympic medals. East German female swimmers, who had V-shaped physiques when viewed from behind (and also a bit of 5 o'clock shadow on their faces) did particularly well.
I began buying baseball cards and watching NBC's Game of the Week every Saturday afternoon. I also learned to love the broadcast voices of Harry Caray and Jack Buck.
My friends were more into football. But I spent all of my time explaining to them why baseball was the better sport. I attempted to get across to them how you have to watch closely, look for the subtle nuances.
For example, to see a pitcher's best pitch, the one he has the most confidence in, look at what he throws with a 2-0 or 3-1 count. True hitting greatness is laying off the first pitch when you're down by three runs late in the game and the bases are empty. And a loss must be shaken off. After all, there are 162 games to be played, one loss, in most cases, won't end your season.
Circa 1994, I was probably the biggest baseball fan in the world. Then came the first blow: The Strike.
Baseball was riding high that year. ESPN was showing two different doubleheaders a week, and also a couple of single games. No matter what team you followed, the odds were good that you would see them from week to week. Sunday Night Baseball announced its intention of featuring a game in every ballpark in the league during the course of the season. Baseball, the sport, was at an all-time high.
I had weathered the strike in 1983. It was resolved in time to save the season, but Bowie Kuhn had concocted some bizarre scenario for the playoffs that shut out the two teams that had the best divisional records in the National League: Cincinnati, and my beloved Redbirds. Yet, I was still enough of a fan that I rooted for the Dodgers as they beat the Yankees in that year's World series.
But this time, the strike kept hanging on. Canceling the World Series over a dispute between millionaires and billionaires couldn't POSSIBLY happen, could it?
I skipped the game for a while. It was just as well. MLB, which must be the most horribly run "successful" sports organization in history, decided it wasn't good for ESPN to broadcast all of those games. So they were cut back to about half of what they were broadcasting. ESPN began going for the biggest audiences with their now meager supply of games, and soon every time Boston played New York on Sunday, the game was scheduled for a 7:00 PM broadcast.If you were a Minnesota, Pittsburgh, or Detroit fan, good luck ever seeing your team on national television.
There was still the occasional feel-good story like unassuming, hard-working Cal Ripken's dogged pursuit and eventual passing of Lou Gehrig's unbreakable record. But I was no longer a baseball fan.
I wasn't alone. The sport's popularity swooned after the World Series that was canceled by a labor dispute. But I believe the effect of baseball's becoming stingy with who could broadcast their games was just as great a factor.
Of course, we all know what happened in the late 90's. The (snicker) "Lively Ball Era" began. In 1977, George Foster hit 52 home runs. It would take 21 years before another NL'er would hit 50 again. Only he didn't just hit 50. He hit 70. And the second-place home run champ hit 68.
What in blazes was going on? That ball must be REALLY lively. Pitching must be going to pot.
How naive we were.
A bottle of Androstendione was spotted in McGwire's locker. Suddenly, his record was in question. "Just a minute!" I said to the questioners. "Andro is legal, it's not steroids!" I pointed out that McGwire hit 49 in his first full season. It wasn't drugs that made him hit homers, it was TALENT.
A few years later, I saw McGwire's rookie card. He looked as skinny as I do.
Despite the Cardinals' poor team performance, I had my interest in baseball rekindled. Right up until three years later.
Barry Bonds exemplified the anti-hero. Obnoxious, self-centered, didn't go anywhere without his posse, the kind of player who would draw the contempt of fans in every ball park except one: the brand-new one in San Francisco.
When the season was resumed in 2001 after the tragic September break, Bonds kept sailing homers over the right field wall in PacBell Park. When the line-drive hitter, whose largest home run total prior to 2001 was 46, reached 72, fans in San Francisco were ecstatic. The rest of us began to wake up from our coma.
Either that park had a ridiculously short right field wall (it didn't), or something had happened to the game.
The next year, Sports Illustrated interviewed Ken Camaniti. The former MVP was out of the game, and thus spoke freely. He claimed that at least half of the guys who played major league baseball, including him, were on steroids.
The world began to look at the ridiculous home run figures of the last few years in a new light.
Sure, we had new "homer-friendly" ballparks. The rise in home runs went all the way back to 1990, when Cecil Fielder broke the 50 barrier. Busch Stadium had brought its cavernous walls in, as did many other older parks.
But Camaniti had revealed the obvious truth: baseball's records had been irreversibly tainted. It was time for MLB to flex its muscles and clean up the mess.
Yeah, right.
The wussy new steroids policy that was adopted assured anonymity for cheaters. It was all that the Player's Union would allow. Anonymous testing began in 2003. If more than 5% of the steroid tests are positive in 2003 or 2004, players would be randomly tested for a two-year period. Players wouldn't be punished for testing positive.
Holy crackdown, Batman.