MUDVILLE REVISITED







I love football. Especially the pro game. High school is good,too. I even enjoy youth leagues, though I wonder about the punishment little bodies take in a tough sport. Did I leave out college? It's good, but my least fave, because they stop the clock too much. The pro game is long enough, but in college, you're there for four hours plus. (I love the atmosphere of the bands and cheerleaders: I could do without the language and the imbibed, but you find that on a smaller scale at all football games, unfortunately.)





But I hate it that baseball is not America's pastime anymore. It just seems that it should be. Long, hot Summers are made better by baseball. Back yard wiffle ball games, too. It's the best sport of all to talk about. It connects generations. And, you know what? I don't know how it does it, but it does.





I also know I've given no viable reason why baseball should be America's pastime. It always had been, so I guess I just see another American tradition going down the tube. Sweep it under the rug. Say goodbye to cork ball, bottle cap ball, Indian ball, wall ball, tennis ball and a variety of other games we played as kids.








No use to look forward to TWIB (This Week in Baseball) or the Saturday Game of the Week. It doesn't really matter much until the playoffs. It's morphed into NFL and NBA. Even the NHL. They play all those regular season games, and they're meaningless. Just as long as you make the playoffs. And in all the other major sports only the worst of the worst don't make the playoffs. But in baseball, the longest schedule of all, the 162 game grind is secondary.





Oh, well. I guess I won't be seeing the baseball fanatic lined up outside the ball park or ticket window. He doesn't want to play: he doesn't want to watch. Sorry to say, baseball, we hardly know ye.