Starpower Nostalgia

Slumps happen in baseball, one cannot get a hit every single game, much less a home run.  However, when one of the biggest stars in baseball, Albert Pujols, fails to make an extreme impact for his team, slumps look to be going on something much worse.

Albert Pujols current predicament is much like that of the baseball in Underworld.  It is only the beginning of the season so all of this may change, but Nick's infatuation with the past is what we as fans are experiencing when the best players fall below their mean.  We hold onto these players because they mean something to us, whether it is intangible or otherwise, players that are great mean something to the fans.

I would assume Pujols would pick up his play and start hitting in home runs, but the baseball as a solid history and a past that we can have nostalgia over because it is past.  The problem with looking at Pujols as if he has failed his team, is that people compare him to to his past self when he played for the cardinals.  He still has many years on a good contract, it is not like these at bats are the last we will see of Pujols, but the nostalgia of looking back makes it seem that way.

This bring in another example of the effect nostalgia has on fans.  It has been reiterated a good amount in discussions, but it just shows that nostalgia has a large place in the game of baseball, and it is what makes the story in baseball so interesting.  Without this nostalgia, these stories would be baseless, with no basis for comparison.  But nostalgia provides an avenue to discuss these starts future potential.

Nostalgia is what Nick has for the ball, it may be a bad memory, but it is nostalgic nevertheless.  Fans become more rapped up in the past events as proof of future events.  It is even like his use of the number 13.  Because of the random connections that are created by over analysis, it makes it look as if the past dictates the future.  But what really happens is that fans attach a signifier to the events and make it look as if we can discern anything from the smallest detail.

The first few games are not a good place to start judging his play, Pujols has gone on long droughts before, but it is the nostalgia and random associations that make connections so strong.  If this is going on at the end of the season, there may be some problems, but as of now its is still to early to tell what will happen next.

Promises of Inclusion

In Underworld, the fan plays an important part.  There is Nick Shay, who’s narration pulls us back and forth between future and present.  There is one location about his discussion of the thirty-four thousand dollar ball that is comparable to the situation the Dodgers currently find themselves in.  The Dodgers are not trying to sell off old memorabilia, but instead the team.  The team looks to go the way Chapter 11, but there seemed to be a savior, by the name of Josh Macciello.  Macciello, seemingly just an avid fan of the Dodgers had the sports world buzzing by proposing to put forward the billions needed to bring the Dodgers back from death.  This turned out to be a hoax, Macciello never attained the assets needed to help the Dodgers, but this leads to an even more important question of Money and the Fan. 

Being a fan I would say that we should spend all this money on all star players, when that is just completely unfeasible, but all I can do is purchase memorabilia to satisfy my fandom.  In Underworld, the Thirty-Four thousand dollar ball represents every fans dream, to own a part of your teams history.  Having this history gives a nostalgic connection to the teams we so feel so apart of.  But according to BBTF, the media ate Macciello’s story up, there is a fan, supposedly with the means, to help be a true part of the history of his team.  The problem was that all of these outlets, including ESPN took this at face value, and only Gene Maddaus from LA Weekly dug any further.  The question of money, media and fans all add to the mysticism that the game creates.  The nostalgic aspect of the ball, or the team is a step to try and feel involved in an organization that you were previously on the outskirts of.  The fan’s search for memorabilia, and team inclusion, is continuing the myth that we have been talking about all semester.  I think that these myths rely on minor fan inclusion, obviously, it is not wise to have fans run the organization, but by providing a partially opaque barrier into the history and inner-workings of the organization fans continue to believe that they are part of something more than the list of season ticket owners.

            In conjuncture to the need to feel inclusion, the media facilitates what truly includes a fan into the history of the organization.  In Underworld, we have Russ Hodges exciting account of the game, leading to a large price for the ball which made the excitement.  Then there are the baseball cards, why would a piece of paper be so expensive, because we say they are, because that player did something to get noticed by the media, and therefore become noticed by the fans.  Fan inclusion relies on the media painting these pictures of players and organizations that would make the item, whether it is a ball or a card, become valuable beyond the fifty cent ball or the ten cent card.

BBTF

Steroids: Not the only substance in question in the MLB

Steroids will always and forever have their place in MLB, whether legal or not, they are tempting substances that supposedly vastly enhance ones performance. 

            Recently though a different substance has started to move itself into the controversial area of baseball substance abuse, and it is not injected, but consumed.  Earlier this year Bobby Valentine made a decision to change the locker room of the Boston Red Sox, players are not the only thing being extradited from the team, alcohol is now something else that will leave the locker room of the Boston Red Sox.  There is really not much downside to the absence of alcohol from the locker rooms, one could argue that the camaraderie of the pitchers will diminishes, but in reality the absence of alcohol will potentially lead to a more focused, less controversial locker room altogether.

            This of course is last week’s news, Valentine’s decision has already been discussed to the death, but recently alcohol has again made the headlines, this time coming from Chicago.  This time it is the new president of the Cubs Theo Epstein.  Not to be outdone by Valentine, Epstein has taken alcohol regulations a step further, From The Chicago Tribune as seen from Rob Neyer’s post, Epstein stated that “organization would no longer tolerate players who enjoy the nightlife at the expense of getting a good night’s sleep”.  He goes on to even say that alcohol use by players is one of the factors that impede the Cubs Winning. Again though it seems like a reasonable enough request from their president, to focus on the game and their job.

            These recent stories shed light on a potential underground problem that is circulating throughout the MLB.  Steroids is mostly the substance that gets recognized due to it enhancing players abilities, but on the other side of the argument, unrecognized by society is the deteriorating effects that alcohol has on players careers.  Because alcohol is a legal substance, it is not normally cast as a total bad guy.  There are always players, who are caught with a DUI, but there is a small slap on the wrist and then people move past this.  This perhaps could show a larger problem all together.

For a second consider how it was when Jackie Robinson was introduced to the Dodgers. Granted there are a lot of factors that differ, but a foreign player introduced to the league took away from what was important, baseball and the game.  What should have been important took a back seat to something completely separate from baseball, the fact that Jackie Robinson was a black player. This is what it looks as if the managers have realized. That in the eyes of their players the game of baseball is taking a back seat to personal indulgence and pleasure.  With the way, the higher ups are treating alcohol it seems as if this substance is starting to destroy parts of their organizations and put the team in jeopardy.  It is by no means a necessary object for these players to be indulging in, instead it becomes a detractor from their true goals of their jobs, which is to win and support their team and club.

            Perhaps it is the idealized fans view, but the presence of alcohol in baseball never seemed like a problem.  Of course, the DUI’s are more public, but I never considered alcohol to be a problem for these teams.  With the Cubs and Red Sox doing what they have done though, it looks as if the underground culture of alcohol in baseball is strong.  If the trend continues alcohol could start going the way of steroids in baseball, and become the players enemy when they are discovered by the fans to be indulging in this behavior.

Theo Epstein - No Partying Valentine says no alcohol

Rules and Myth

As an expanding and prosperous business, MLB represents the epitome of what baseball is.  It is a game with a familiar atmosphere and with familiar numbers.  The myth of baseball is created through these facets of the game, each individual player and coach add to this, but what happens when parts of the game are manipulated and changed.  One of the proposed changes to the upcoming MLB season is the addition of one more wild card spot.

            A new wild card spot represents a chance, a chance for teams to get into the playoffs when a game or so would normally leave them out.  But, this extra game means so much more to baseball then just having an extra chance to move into the world series.  It would seemingly create a more mythologized situation in the mind of the patrons.  The myth would undoubtedly be fantastical if the team were to be the winning underdog, but it would not mean as much if the original post league were to remain the same. 

            Although the rules often take a backseat, they are the basis of any baseball myth.  Without the rules there to dictate what could happen, nothing would happen.  But, with the addition of more and more rules, it leaves room for more and more things to happen, and therefore more to be mythologized. 

            Baseball is about the myth, it is what makes it different and unique, when we can speculate and dissect every aspect of the game, and then have anomalies to make us excited to tune in everyday, it is a constant story.  But the addition of some rules and regulations detract from the myth of baseball, by either enabling it, such as this, or destroying it.  Myth will always be apart of the game, it is difficult then to determine when enough is enough, and when the game as evolved enough to keep the myth alive during every season.

             

Chew On This

Hardballtalk's post on the facial surgery that Hall of Famer, Tony Gwynn went under can seem like an incident more isolated to baseballs view on harmful substances, but it is in fact much more, this has a direct relation to the change in views (or lack thereof) on baseball statistics.

There was a time when tobacco products were believed to have little adverse effects on a human’s well-being.  Sure, you may get some coughs or do some nerve damage but no one really thought much of it.  That was back in the day, before advances in modern science had revealed just how harmful they are, but we still seem to use these substances.

Now I am not the biggest fan of trying to make myself sick, and I am not the biggest fan of losing either.  So then, why do scouts not listen to times and change their technique.  They have their job because they need to find the player that wins, not because they do well at following what is normal.  This is synonymous with the old-timer scouts in Moneyball; it is something that has been done in the past in baseball, so it is obviously right. Obviously not. The scouts inability to change to the times and conform to a more accurate and efficient way of scouting is just as cancerous to the prosperity of baseball.

When a pretty face and potential mean more than a solid OPS clearly there is a problem either in the talent pool or in the office.  Since there is potentially a limitless talent pool, the fault is on the scouts. There is surely talent left untouched, talent left to rot and never allowed to flower, it is an epidemic that is stopping baseball from becoming more.

The current scouting method from statistics is becoming more and more popular; the appeal has spread through more and more organizations.  However, certain we may be about tobacco having its health problems, we are also certain about the positive effects real statistics can have on showing a players talent. Unfortunately, the malignant cancer that the Tony Gwynn had has the potential to spread to more places. However, thankfully, his operation went well and it was stopped.  Hopefully baseball associations and scouts can do the same and continue to eradicate this less effective way of scouting players, so that baseball does not solely become about potential and a pretty face.

Tony Gwynn had facial nerve removed in 14-hour surgery for cancerous tumor

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