Baseball to recognize gay player from the past

This was news to me.

Glenn Burke was 27 when he walked out on Major League Baseball, his promising career as an outfielder undone mostly by the burden of being a semicloseted gay man. It was 1980, and it was more important, Burke later explained, to be himself than to be a professional baseball player.

Here's a link to the NYT story, which is both sad and uplifting. I look forward to hearing more about him. It's great that Major League Baseball is remembering him. They couldn't handle it when he played but at least they're talking about him as a gay athlete today. If he was still alive, I think he'd be very happy about this.

And Billy Martin was a big old pig. Read the story to find out why I say this. And then hiss at Martin's memory. SSSSsssssssssss!

Steroids, baseball and players who can't hit the ball

During a Mets telecast last week, Keith Hernandez brought something up. The strike-out rate for baseball players in the last nine months of play has been higher than at any time in baseball's history. Not in the last five or ten years -- in the entire history of Major League Baseball. This is a stark statistic.

A more basic way of putting it is that no professional baseball player can hit a baseball these days. That's the thing everyone's been noticing. You see guys this season who have incredibly low hitting averages. And these aren't minor players; many are traditionally good hitters. Yet this year, they can't get above the "Mendoza Line", which is .200. If you're not a fan and don't understand hitting averages, a .200 batting average means you hit the ball safely once in every five at-bats. That's not good -- and guys are hitting below that.

Hernandez rightly attributes this to steroids, or rather the current lack of steroids in baseball. He said it was highly suspicious that everyone's batting average dropped right after baseball honed in on steroid use among players. But there's more to the story.

I suspect Keith hasn't done steroids himself, so his knowledge of their use is superficial. I took tons of steroids when I was a bodybuilder, so I know all about this stuff. The thing people don't grasp is that there's more to steroids than a bigger, more muscular body. There are after-effects.

Once you stop using steroids -- as the MLB players are now finding out -- you're much weaker than you were before using them. I don't know why this isn't talked about. It's true, take it from me. I went from super-powerful on steroids to very, very weak when I got off them. And this post-steroid weakness lasts. My strength never recovered, no matter how much I worked out. My strong days were over.

So to me, it's understandable that no one can hit now. Without the additional punch that steroids provide, the players can't even muster the strength they had before they used steroids. And as a result of this catastrophic loss of strength, some can't even make it to the Mendoza line.

It's the lack of steroids and the lasting effect of having been on them that is plaguing baseball players now. And I've got news for these downtrodden players: it won't get better. The effect is permanent. Teams will have to be replace these guys with players who are steroid virgins. Mark my words.

What'd I tell ya?

It's official. Bryce Harper is the NL Rookie of the Year. I love this kid -- and no, not that way. He is baseball personified. The kid put in a full, great year at the age of 19! He didn't turn 20 until the season ended.

Bryce Harper is the new Babe Ruth. He is going to enliven baseball for the next 20 years. Congrats, kid. You deserved it.

Here's a link to the Nats page about the award. Very cool. And if you wonder why they chose him, check out my early-season post about Harper. The kid is a live wire. You literally can't keep your eyes off him during a game. I can't wait to see what he does next year.

The All-Star Game. Sigh.

I guess I'll watch the All-Star Game. I figure I have to, what with my guys being in it, and all. But it's a waste of time, particularly because it's on Fox. That means major idiots as announcers. Yes, I'm talkin' Buck and Bozo. Anyway, I'll put the game on, push Mute, and put on some Jeff Buckley or Nick Drake. I hope my guys do well tonight, but really it doesn't matter at all. And that's the problem.

The weird voting system for the All-Star game

My fave: R.A. Dickey.

This "vote for your favorite player for the All-Star Game" thing is meaningless. How can this vote matter in any way when the rules say you can vote as many times as you want?

What are they tallying, exactly? The OCD quotient of certain baseball fans? The stupidity of baseball fans? To do your favorite player any good you'd have to be manic, dimwitted and willing to sit at your computer for days, clicking on the same button.

And these jokers at MLB require your email address to register your vote! Do you think Major League Baseball will misuse your email address? Duh. These guys sell everything they can get their mitts on.

It's just aggravating, as is the All-Star Game itself. MLB ruins baseball every year. They did it big-time this year with all that idiotic interleague play. The season was so good before the very long period of interleague play. And now it's lost its mojo. Thanks, MLB, for everything!

The training of a young baseball player

There are three strenuous early training programs that every young baseball player must make his way through. This is where the lads learn the skills of the trade and become (drum roll) Major League Baseball players.

In order of importance, these programs are:

1. Spitting School
2. Eating Sunflower Seeds School
3. Blowing Your Nose Without a Handkerchief School

If a rookie fails to be certified in any one of these areas he is dismissed forever from Major League Baseball.

No one reports on this stuff, so I have to.

The Finger of Thank You

Baseball has traditions. Some are longstanding but others appear in an instant and are magically adopted by all the players. One tradition in the latter group is the Finger of Thank You.

You see it there on the left. A guy in the outfield (where this tradition proudly reigns) catches a ball. The fans cheer. And the player acknowledges the applause with the Finger of Thank you.

Me, I don't like the Finger. And I don't like the other variation, either -- the Gang (or Phone) Finger of Thank You. That's it on the left. I say meh to these Fingers.

Mostly, it's the top version that you see -- the Limp Finger of Thank You. Note how the Finger in the top photo is not fully extended, as if it's some sort of half-gesture. That's the usual way the Finger is used. In effect, it's like a pointing index finger that fainted along the way. "Meh," I say to all the Fingers.

Any other opinions out there?

You know who's a peach?

Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcaster.

Vin Scully, that's who. Do you know this guy? He does the broadcast for the Dodgers and he's just amazing.

The guy is 86 and he does the games alone. To my knowledge, he's the only lone sportscaster in the MLB. The other guys host the games in groups of two or three, a much easier set-up because no one person is responsible for keeping up the patter. They take turns.

Not Scully. He does the whole damn thing by himself. I really admire him for this. It's a huge responsibility. And he's not just dribbling out nonsense. Scully offers succinct, intelligent commentary that comes out sounding like the printed page. Most people who are 86 have trouble keeping track of the days of the week, yet Scully provides a truly heads-up, alert commentary for four- or five-hour stretches! Alone! Now that is amazing.

He always has the inside scoop and he tells his audience what each team, player and manager is trying to do, every step of the way. And the man is shrewd. He says things that make you see the game in a new light.

Plus, he's been broadcasting for 50 years. The guy was there when the greats played, and talks about those days in entertaining fashion. He is living history. And, the icing on the cake, Scully's voice and delivery bring back the sounds of old-time baseball broadcasting. When I hear him, if I close my eyes it could be 1950 or 1960. The timbre of his voice proclaims this. I love this guy.

If your TV system lets you watch a Dodgers game from their viewpoint, give Vin a listen. He is something.

The doldrum days of the All-Star break

Boy, this absence of regular baseball games during the All-Star break is hard to take. Three days without a baseball game! It's fascinating though, because it provides a peek at the desolate landscape that every baseball fan will have to face when the season ends. Without baseball, the days seem empty!

I recorded games to tide me over during the break. I'm watching one tonight. So I will survive. But whatever will I do when the season actually ends? Every year I pose this question to myself. It's scary thinking of all those months, unleavened by the joy of a baseball game. Oh, the humanity!

So here's the plan. I'm going to record four games that I'll replay throughout the winter whenever I feel too sad to go on with life. I'm going to save one great game involving each of the following teams: the Red Sox, the Mets, the Cubs and the White Sox. I've already saved the Cubs game; all I have to do is snag the other three.

It's not enough, of course. But it's something and I know I'm going to be better off once I possess these games. Still, this brings up a major peeve. Why the hell doesn't MLB show games all year round? I don't get it. They have the games but they don't show them to us! What kind of idiotic thinking is behind this? I'd watch every game that was played during the official season, if they offered them on demand during the winter. Every one! So why don't they do this?

MLB? Are you listening? Are you even there? Oh, I forgot. You're watching the All-Star Game. Guess what? We're not.

Mmmmmm, baseball!

Embiggens, if prodded.

I love to visit MLB's Probable Pitchers page. It's sheer delight. All those games, all those pitchers, all that fun!

When I get to the page, I'm like a fat person with a fabulous, new menu to peruse. It's smorgasbord time. Rich, that's how it makes me feel: rich!

Take this game. Last night the Mets came back from a 7-0 deficit to win the game 9-8. It was great! And look at this matchup. I love Niese, the Mets pitcher, and Derek Lowe is a fine opponent. And coming after that come-from-behind win, it's gotta be magic. Gotta!

I'm so glad I found baseball. Who knew it was this great?

Worst uniforms ever?

I did finally get to watch a baseball game. It was a Mets game from 1986 against the Astros. Whoa! Are these the worst uniforms you've ever seen? I mean, to paraphrase Fran Liebowitz, what did they turn down before choosing this design?

You can tell Major League Baseball has never met a gay man. Their TV shows look so bad -- like a high school kid put them together (no offense intended to high-schoolers). And the uniforms mostly suck. A few are nice, usually because they're simple, but there are tons of bad uniforms out there. However, nothing like these.

If they grabbed any gay man off the street and asked him for a design for a uniform, it would look better than what's out there today. Methinks they don't talk to gay people much. Anyway, it was fun to watch a game (but they're way more fun when you don't know who's going to win).

Only about two weeks till spring training! Woot!

The black hole that is TV

Nuthin' on.

I mentioned the other day that was excited because I recorded an old Mets game from 2000, against Atlanta. I was really looking forward to watching it. But last night I tried to watch it and found yet another example of the Great American Decline.

The game began normally and continued for about three minutes, at which point the recording screwed up and the screen went black. After a moment they went to commercial. After at least six minutes of commercials, they came back to the game, beginning at the same point where it began the last time. And it continued for about three minutes, screen went black, and they went back to another slew of commercials. And then it came back on and did the same thing again!

At this point, I realized nobody was home at the station. This was being robo-presented and they didn't even have a staff person watching to see how things were going. It probably continued that way for the entire game, with the computer seeing black screen and automatically switching to a commercial. The robot didn't know anything was wrong, and with no one monitoring the robot, it just continued along the same loop of failure. I deleted the game without going any further because of the hopeless nitwits that run the MLB station.

This is one of the reasons why TV is such a black hole: nobody's home.