Baseball, once considered the National Pastime, is still most definitely America’s game. Football has surpassed it in overall popularity. Basketball may nip at its heels. Even so, no other sport provides us with a clearer reflection of modern day “Americana”.  Bear with me. That's not a good thing. 

I love baseball. The rest of the word may call soccer, “The Beautiful Game”, but here in the states nothing rivals baseball’s aesthetic appeal. It starts young, often with Little League. You can’t compare playing catch with children using a hardball and glove to tossing a football. It’s just not the same. From sun-filled summer days at your favorite stadium, to graceful athletes roaming the vast field, to majestic flights of homeruns hit over 400 feet; the sport is pleasing and easy on the eye. Even the unique symbolism of baseball uniforms signifies camaraderie. It reminds us that anyone, despite any limitation, can in some way belong (just like our country).

How then has such a wonderful game become so damn corrupt?

Baseball currently finds itself in a very foul condition. If something is rotten in the state of Denmark, then it’s absolutely rancid in the world of baseball. Everyone involved, from management to players, shares the blame. They need to own this fact, provide the public with the truth, clean up the game and move on. Take a stance on steroids and enforce it (for better or worse). The future is what needs to be protected. What’s been done is done.  This is the only way to repair baseball’s image. Bringing down Bonds as some type of sacrificial lamb, and thus avoid tarnishing the hallowed homerun record, is not the cure all.  Statistics are symbolic but impossible to compare across eras. Although they certainly have meaning and importance, they are hollow in essence.  Besides, it’s Baseball Inc. that needs fixing, not the record books. 

The fact that baseball has been unwilling to come forward with the truth should surprise none of us. It has long sought separate and unequal status in comparison to its peers.  We can trace this back to baseball’s antitrust exemption, established in 1922.  In essence baseball once held somewhat of a “monopoly” status. It was able to hold franchises and players hostage based on personal interests. For example, free agency was a hard fought battle and a long time coming for players. Ironically the owners claimed it would ruin the game. This is now an all too common criticism by fans today, since large market teams can sign all the best players away from their less affluent competitors.

Not all double standards come from management. The player’s association continues to  oppose any type of salary cap. Growth in wages may have slowed slightly, but an absurd amount of money is made. The other major sports annually tweak their collective bargaining agreements, yet baseball can’t even create one. I’ve always wondered how a group of people can belong to a “union” as baseball players do, but refuse to a uniformly established pay scale. I understand that players are the employees and the product. However, they are not entrepreneurs nor do they even work in the private sector. As I said, they belong to a union and union workers are supposed to have standards of compensation that are negotiated and set for a specific period of time.

Whereas other sports have instituted age minimums before young athletes can declare themselves eligible for the draft, baseball has no such standard. In fact baseball has gone so far as to set up “academies” in impoverished countries such as the Dominican Republic, where they literally try and cultivate children into the next great star. Some may argue that baseball is giving these people a chance to do something with their lives. I would respond by saying, "How arrogant"!  These are no more than boys being exploited and it’s immoral. What will baseball do for them after it becomes apparent that not everyone is major league material? Pay for them to go to college and get an education I suppose? Find them a job? Taking children from their families to play baseball would never fly in our country. Why is it okay somewhere else? If the motives were altruistic, then we’d see similar academies all across America, especially in urban areas.

Speaking of urban, have you ever noticed that many in society have the perception that there are more uneducated and violent athletes playing football and basketball, whereas baseball players are viewed more favorably? Could it be due to the ethnic make-up of professional rosters? Obviously the majority of athletes in the NFL and NBA are African-American and the majority of baseball players are white. The likes of Ryan Howard of the Phillies is becoming increasingly uncommon. Due to the nature of how players become professionals, more athletes in baseball have less education than in any other game. The vast majorities go straight to the minor leagues from high school and/or have been imported from Latin America. At least players in other sports have some higher-level education, even if just a year or two in some cases. How productively each individual spent his time at a university is a personal matter. We can’t deny that at least they were there.

Clearly, much has changed since 1922, but baseball continues to follow a different set of “rules” in comparison to other sports. Some of these are immoral, some hypocritical and all are self-serving.

Utopian ideals alongside materialistic practices? Simple purity contaminated by scandalous behavior? Age-old values shattered by hypocrisy and lies? Persistent double standards in the land of equality? It’s the good, the bad, the right and the wrong all rolled into one. That’s what life and greatness is all about. Yup…sounds like America’s, “The Beautiful Game” to me.