(Note: This was originally posted on July 31, 2006. In light of recent developments regarding Major League Baseball, I decided to post this again, as it expresses my feelings perhaps even stronger now than when I originally wrote it. And seems to be just as pertinent. What follows is the entire body of the original post. Thank you for tolerating a bit of old prose.)

It was the definition of “love at first sight.” The first time I got involved with her, I was hooked. I loved everything about her. The excitement, the heartbreak, the little intricacies both on the surface and below it. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to be around her all the time. She only came around for a few months every summer before the seasonal change in a small town in North Dakota would take her away for me, leaving other activities and challenges that would present themselves but never proved to be quite as interesting. It was an undying love that never got old or stale.

 Things went incredibly well for a long time. I was in heaven. Until one summer day in ’81. I had feared it for several weeks, and my fear came to fruition. She left me. Baseball left me for the first time. I was crushed and no idea how to handle it. I was lost without her, but, luckily for me, she decided to come back a short time later. Obviously, I welcomed her back with open arms, and figured the relationship was going to be grand once again. It was a given it would last forever.

 It was a great time for several years. Perhaps not as memorable as the 1970s, but great nonetheless. I got to see my Dodgers beat the hated Yanks later in ‘81, a fabulous year by the Tigers in ’84-a year that also featured one of the rare Cub playoff appearances. Naturally they had a 2-1 lead in the best of five versus the Padres and lost. In ’85, the first year that the league championship series went to seven games instead of five, I got to see the Royals come back from a 3-1 deficit. Not once, but twice. First against the hard-luck Toronto Blue Jays, then over the Cardinals in the World Series. Of course everyone remembers the Red Sox-Mets series in ’86, which was preceded by an incredible ALCS in which the Red Sox prevailed over the Angels after Boston was down to their last strike and trailed three games to one. (See also my earlier posts regarding Donnie Moore, Bill Buckner, etc., from 7/02, and "Do You Remember . . ." from 5/17).

The Twins, my first favorite team growing up as a child in North Dakota, broke through and won in 1987, which amazed us all.  Of course ’88 brought Orel Herschiser’s record-breaking scoreless inning streak, and later Kirk Gibson’s home run (“I do not believe what I just saw!”) against the A’s. I remember it like it was yesterday.

 She left me again in 1989. Naturally, as any man would with his first love, I again took her back. She got what she had coming to her that same year, though. Even though the A’s would rebound from their ’88 loss, sweeping the Giants in a series that was interrupted by an earthquake, it was about as anti-climactic as could be. 

 As the spring of 1990 arrived, I was over our last break-up. And to loosely paraphrase a well known quote, sports makes for strange bedfellows, which brings me to the Cincinnati Reds. They got off to a great start in ‘90, like the Tigers in ’84, and wound up sweeping the A’s in the World Series. Being a Dodger fan, I didn’t care too much for the Reds’ success, so I was rooting for the A’s in the Series, the same team I had rooted against the previous two years. Naturally, since the A’s had won handily the year before, I figured the Reds were doomed. And of course the Reds won four straight. Ah, her beauty shone through once again. I both loved her and hated her (not really) at the same time. Oh well. I guess you must take the bad with the good. But even though the Reds won the World Series, life was, and had been, very good. I had seen some of the best baseball of my life in the years following the ’81 strike. I couldn’t have been happier, all things considered. The relationship between she and I was absolutely wonderful. The Twins won again in ’91, followed by the Blue Jays winning back-to-back titles.

 For some reason when I was a kid, maybe it was the cool uniforms and the outstanding batting helmet, or the underrated talent they had like Tim Raines and Andre Dawson in the early ‘80s, I had taken a serious liking to the Expos. Or maybe it was because I was one of the few baseball fans who got to see a lot of them. With the advent of cable TV in the late 1970s, we had a whopping 13 channels, including two Canadian channels. I became familiar with Raines and Dawson as well as Tim Wallach, Steve Rodgers, Gary Carter, and so many other Expos who didn’t get their due because fans just simply didn’t get to see them very often. Granted, the ’94 Expos didn’t have the same team I had watched growing up, but the soft spot for them was still there. I thought of how great it would be for the franchise and the city of Montreal to finally realize a championship. And how great it would be for major league baseball. And as a baseball fan first and foremost, how great it would be for me to see it. Or perhaps the Cleveland Indians or the Chicago White Sox, neither of whom had won a World Series since well before I was born. At any rate, the ’94 post-season would no doubt prove to be interesting, since MLB had broken each league into three divisions for that season, and with a wild-card team now qualifying, the playoffs would take on a whole new look. I anticipated it greatly, even though she told me she might not stick around to see it through. I didn't want to believe it. Couldn't believe it. But she ultimately left me again, one last time. Before I got to see the Expos, Indians, White Sox, or anybody else compete in that ’94 post-season. After much thought and reflection, I came to the conclusion that I was not going to go through the pain of her leaving any more. I told her not to bother coming back. Sure, she tried, but I held firm. With a stiff upper lip, I said no. No more. 

 Major League Baseball has brought a lot of problems on itself in recent history. A. Bartlett Giamatti, a true baseball man, was hired as commissioner in September of 1988. He died just under a year later. Giamatti wrote in “The Green Fields of the Mind,” regarding baseball:

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

  The owners wanted Faye Vincent, another baseball man who replaced Bart Giamatti after his sudden death, out as commissioner in favor of one of their own. They got it. Under pressure-one might even say duress-Vincent resigned in September of 1992. (Looking back, many of the owners at the time wouldn’t have had a clue on how to deal with Bowie Kuhn, who made decisions, usually prudent ones, based on the ‘best interests of baseball,’ and was seldom questioned. But then, times change. Boy, do times change.) In the Selig regime we have had rampant steroid use, a tied All-Star Game, the ingenious decision that the All-Star game winner would decide home-field advantage in the World Series, (a poor attempt to make the All-Star game mean more than it should, and an even poorer attempt to divert the attention away from Selig’s major snafu to call the game after nine innings when it was tied), and a major labor roadblock during the 1994 season. Which, of course, meant that I didn’t get to see it to fruition. Not that the owners were the only ones at fault. There was and is more than enough blame to go around for the debacle of the 1994 Major League Baseball season. Both the owners and the players had serious delusions of grandeur in thinking they were bigger than the game. They weren’t. But they did prove they were too big for me.

 Without looking it up, and aside from 2001, I couldn’t tell you who won the World Series in any given year since then, though I do know a lot was made of the Yankees playing the Mets one year. I did watch most of the 2001 Series, in part because of the emotions of 9/11 being fresh in everyone’s mind and in part because the local Diamondbacks were involved, and who knows if or when I’ll ever see that again. Other than that, I have not watched one major league game. I still watch baseball and love the game. But now it’s the Arizona State Sun Devils or an occasional minor league game. And every game I do watch, without fail, the song from “A League of Their Own” goes through my mind. This used to be my playground. Because for me, as a kid, it really was. And I can’t help but get choked up. The pain that she caused by leaving me three times is great. But nothing in comparison to the pain I would experience if I allowed it to happen again.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

 “This Used To Be My Playground,” from the movie “A League Of Their Own.”  Sung by Madonna. Written by Madonna and Shep Pettibone. Sire Records

It was the definition of “love at first sight.” The first time I got involved with her, I was hooked. I loved everything about her. The excitement, the heartbreak, the little intricacies both on the surface and below it. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to be around her all the time. She only came around for a few months every summer before the seasonal change in a small town in North Dakota would take her away for me, leaving other activities and challenges that would present themselves but never proved to be quite as interesting. It was an undying love that never got old or stale.

 Things went incredibly well for a long time. I was in heaven. Until one summer day in ’81. I had feared it for several weeks, and my fear came to fruition. She left me. Baseball left me for the first time. I was crushed and no idea how to handle it. I was lost without her, but, luckily for me, she decided to come back a short time later. Obviously, I welcomed her back with open arms, and figured the relationship was going to be grand once again. It was a given it would last forever.

 It was a great time for several years. Perhaps not as memorable as the 1970s, but great nonetheless. I got to see my Dodgers beat the hated Yanks later in ‘81, a fabulous year by the Tigers in ’84-a year that also featured one of the rare Cub playoff appearances. Naturally they had a 2-1 lead in the best of five versus the Padres and lost. In ’85, the first year that the league championship series went to seven games instead of five, I got to see the Royals come back from a 3-1 deficit. Not once, but twice. First against the hard-luck Toronto Blue Jays, then over the Cardinals in the World Series. Of course everyone remembers the Red Sox-Mets series in ’86, which was preceded by an incredible ALCS in which the Red Sox prevailed over the Angels after Boston was down to their last strike and trailed three games to one. (See also my earlier posts regarding Donnie Moore, Bill Buckner, etc., from 7/02, and "Do You Remember . . ." from 5/17).

The Twins, my first favorite team growing up as a child in North Dakota, broke through and won in 1987, which amazed us all.  Of course ’88 brought Orel Herschiser’s record-breaking scoreless inning streak, and later Kirk Gibson’s home run (“I do not believe what I just saw!”) against the A’s. I remember it like it was yesterday.

 She left me again in 1989. Naturally, as any man would with his first love, I again took her back. She got what she had coming to her that same year, though. Even though the A’s would rebound from their ’88 loss, sweeping the Giants in a series that was interrupted by an earthquake, it was about as anti-climactic as could be. 

 As the spring of 1990 arrived, I was over our last break-up. And to loosely paraphrase a well known quote, sports makes for strange bedfellows, which brings me to the Cincinnati Reds. They got off to a great start in ‘90, like the Tigers in ’84, and wound up sweeping the A’s in the World Series. Being a Dodger fan, I didn’t care too much for the Reds’ success, so I was rooting for the A’s in the Series, the same team I had rooted against the previous two years. Naturally, since the A’s had won handily the year before, I figured the Reds were doomed. And of course the Reds won four straight. Ah, her beauty shone through once again. I both loved her and hated her (not really) at the same time. Oh well. I guess you must take the bad with the good. But even though the Reds won the World Series, life was, and had been, very good. I had seen some of the best baseball of my life in the years following the ’81 strike. I couldn’t have been happier, all things considered. The relationship between she and I was absolutely wonderful. The Twins won again in ’91, followed by the Blue Jays winning back-to-back titles.

 For some reason when I was a kid, maybe it was the cool uniforms and the outstanding batting helmet, or the underrated talent they had like Tim Raines and Andre Dawson in the early ‘80s, I had taken a serious liking to the Expos. Or maybe it was because I was one of the few baseball fans who got to see a lot of them. With the advent of cable TV in the late 1970s, we had a whopping 13 channels, including two Canadian channels. I became familiar with Raines and Dawson as well as Tim Wallach, Steve Rodgers, Gary Carter, and so many other Expos who didn’t get their due because fans just simply didn’t get to see them very often. Granted, the ’94 Expos didn’t have the same team I had watched growing up, but the soft spot for them was still there. I thought of how great it would be for the franchise and the city of Montreal to finally realize a championship. And how great it would be for major league baseball. And as a baseball fan first and foremost, how great it would be for me to see it. Or perhaps the Cleveland Indians or the Chicago White Sox, neither of whom had won a World Series since well before I was born. At any rate, the ’94 post-season would no doubt prove to be interesting, since MLB had broken each league into three divisions for that season, and with a wild-card team now qualifying, the playoffs would take on a whole new look. I anticipated it greatly, even though she told me she might not stick around to see it through. I didn't want to believe it. Couldn't believe it. But she ultimately left me again, one last time. Before I got to see the Expos, Indians, White Sox, or anybody else compete in that ’94 post-season. After much thought and reflection, I came to the conclusion that I was not going to go through the pain of her leaving any more. I told her not to bother coming back. Sure, she tried, but I held firm. With a stiff upper lip, I said no. No more. 

 Major League Baseball has brought a lot of problems on itself in recent history. A. Bartlett Giamatti, a true baseball man, was hired as commissioner in September of 1988. He died just under a year later. Giamatti wrote in “The Green Fields of the Mind,” regarding baseball:

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

  The owners wanted Faye Vincent, another baseball man who replaced Bart Giamatti after his sudden death, out as commissioner in favor of one of their own. They got it. Under pressure-one might even say duress-Vincent resigned in September of 1992. (Looking back, many of the owners at the time wouldn’t have had a clue on how to deal with Bowie Kuhn, who made decisions, usually prudent ones, based on the ‘best interests of baseball,’ and was seldom questioned. But then, times change. Boy, do times change.) In the Selig regime we have had rampant steroid use, a tied All-Star Game, the ingenious decision that the All-Star game winner would decide home-field advantage in the World Series, (a poor attempt to make the All-Star game mean more than it should, and an even poorer attempt to divert the attention away from Selig’s major snafu to call the game after nine innings when it was tied), and a major labor roadblock during the 1994 season. Which, of course, meant that I didn’t get to see it to fruition. Not that the owners were the only ones at fault. There was and is more than enough blame to go around for the debacle of the 1994 Major League Baseball season. Both the owners and the players had serious delusions of grandeur in thinking they were bigger than the game. They weren’t. But they did prove they were too big for me.

 Without looking it up, and aside from 2001, I couldn’t tell you who won the World Series in any given year since then, though I do know a lot was made of the Yankees playing the Mets one year. I did watch most of the 2001 Series, in part because of the emotions of 9/11 being fresh in everyone’s mind and in part because the local Diamondbacks were involved, and who knows if or when I’ll ever see that again. Other than that, I have not watched one major league game. I still watch baseball and love the game. But now it’s the Arizona State Sun Devils or an occasional minor league game. And every game I do watch, without fail, the song from “A League of Their Own” goes through my mind. This used to be my playground. Because for me, as a kid, it really was. And I can’t help but get choked up. The pain that she caused by leaving me three times is great. But nothing in comparison to the pain I would experience if I allowed it to happen again.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

 “This Used To Be My Playground,” from the movie “A League Of Their Own.”  Sung by Madonna. Written by Madonna and Shep Pettibone. Sire Records. 

The Boston Red Sox recently held a reunion of their ’86 World Series team during a series with the Mets. Bill Buckner declined the invitation to return. And that’s a shame. My gut feeling is that Buckner would have been well received by the Red Sox faithful, especially since they have won a World Series in the meantime. But Buckner was not taking any chances. He’d been reminded far too many times already about his error in Game 6 of the ’86 World Series that he didn’t want to tempt the fact that anyone would bring it up if he visited Fenway for the reunion. Unfortunately, because we take our sports in America very seriously, he was probably right.

Donnie Moore, Doug Brien, Doug Sanders, Scott Norwood, and Buckner, to name a few. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when reading these names? More than likely, it’s how each was on the cusp of victory, a huge victory, only to have a cruel and unexpected twist of fate intervene and forever mark them as being associated with a loss. A big loss.  Each had admirable, in some cases stellar, careers, but each will unfortunately be remembered for the one moment in the spotlight in which glory escaped them. Avoided them like the plague. Spit in their faces, even. Each is remembered unfairly for the one play, the one moment, which erased years of guts, glory, and success. Sports have a way of working themselves into the very core of our soul, and becoming, in a figurative sense, life and death for many of us. Sometimes, for those involved, it is.

Donnie Moore with pitching coach Rene Lacheman after the ’86 ALCS loss.

 Donnie Moore was one of the best closers in baseball in the mid '80s, but he was never the same after giving up a home run to Dave Henderson in Game 5 of the AL Championship Series in 1986. Moore’s team, the California Angels, were one strike away at the time from getting to their first World Series. It’s not remembered that Moore was playing hurt at the time. He was still the Angels’ best option, which is a testament to his talent. And even though the Angels still had two games with a chance to advance after the loss, neither was close. And Moore was never allowed to get over his single-pitch mistake. (In an incredible precursor of the fate that was to follow, Bill Buckner had a base hit to ignite the rally in the ninth inning of Game 5). Any highlights or remembrance of  that ’86 ALCS focuses on Henderson’s homer off Moore, and makes little mention of the fact that the Angels still had two games after that to win the pennant. They didn’t, and Moore was vilified. He pitched two more relatively ineffective years for the Angels before being released. His battles with depression finally caught up with him on July 18, 1989, when he shot his wife Tonya three times, (she survived), and then took his own life. He was 35.

Scott Norwood will forever be remembered as the kicker who missed a field goal that would have won his team, the Buffalo Bills, the Super Bowl. It’s forgotten that it was a 47-yarder, not a chip shot by any means, especially with the pressure of the moment. (If you ever make it onto a football field, look at the uprights from 47 yards away). It’s also forgotten that just before his missed field goal, the Bills had gotten inside the New York Giants’ 20 yard line, only to have the play called back because of a holding penalty. How many fans that watched the game even remember that? It’s not talked about much. What is talked about, and shown front and center in Super Bowl highlights, is the fact that he missed and the Bills lost. The game winning field goal would have been in the 30-yard range were it not for that penalty. Who was the culprit? And to be fair, did the holding penalty allow Thurman Thomas the room to get inside the 20 in the first place? Doesn’t matter. History cannot be changed. And history will show that Norwood missed the field goal that would have won the Super Bowl for the Bills. And if the Bills had won that game, there’s no telling how many Super Bowls the Bills would have won, even though there’s obviously no guarantee the Bills would have even gotten to the Super Bowl the next year, since history has shown us how difficult it is to repeat. I’m pretty sure that most Bills fans would take that one championship over four straight losses in the big game, though.

Doug Sanders had the 1970 British Open in his grasp. All that was standing in his way was a three foot putt on the final hole, and the Championship was his. Any amateur can knock in a three footer when it doesn’t mean anything. Well, this one meant something. A lot, in fact. Sanders had been pretty good since turning pro in the mid 50s, winning 17 tournaments, but no majors. And this putt was important. By making it, he would turn back Jack Nicklaus and win his first major championship. No one knows, or even cares, how many tournaments he won before or after that British Open. He lost decisively in a playoff to Jack the next day, and the missed putt is what is remembered. Sanders never reached the same level of play after that British Open that he had achieved before it. And everywhere he went, he was asked about the putt . . .

Doug Brien had two chances late in the game to push the New York Jets over the favored Pittsburgh Steelers in their playoff game following the 2004 season. He missed both field goals. Either would have won the game for the Jets and propelled them to the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots. Never mind that Brien had hit numerous clutch kicks for the Jets during the season that had helped the Jets get to the playoffs. Brien had also hit several clutch kicks for the 49ers during his rookie year and had won a Super Bowl with them. He had hit kicks under pressure before, but they weren’t talked about nearly as much. After all, that’s what kickers are supposed to do, right? Deliver. Yet even on a field that was cold, muddy, and torn up, we don’t want to hear excuses. He choked, we say. And “How could you possibly miss that kick,” says Joe Sixpack. “You freaking piece of ####!” Oh well, Joe. Have another beer and tell everyone how even you could have made that kick. We have very little margin of error for our athletes. After all, they're making all this money and should be expected to come through. Perhaps, but the bad when they don't is not worth the good for many of them.

 Bill Buckner broke into major league baseball in 1970 with the Los Angeles Dodgers, after having one at-bat in the 1969 season. He could hit line drives to any field, and had a swashbuckling style, sort of a fan favorite. What an irony that would prove to be. He didn’t have the greatest speed, but didn’t hesitate trying to stretch a single into a double if the opportunity arose. He was never one to jog to first base. In fact, players who did didn’t sit very well with Buckner. He finished with stats that would surprise a lot of fans-Wally Joyner, Dale Murphy, Fred Lynn, and Hall of Famers Willie Stargell, Dave Winfield, and the great Nellie Fox had lower career batting averages than Buckner. Granted some of those were power hitters, and had many more HRs than Buckner had. But Buckner also had a career fielding percentage of .991. That’s right, .991. Not bad for a player who shifted between the outfield and first base most of his career. But, unfortunately, that is not what he is remembered for. All of us, as sports fans, are guilty of holding players to the highest expectations. And we expect those expectations to be met. It's unfortunate, and sometimes excruciating for the fan, but more so for the athelete, when they aren't.

Thanks for taking the time to read.