The Essays of Dominic Martia
"Big League Baseball Strikes Out"
Competitive sports can promote values--discipline, courage, teamwork, fair-play. In the days of Joe DiMaggio and, later, Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle, it was easy to perceive these values in big league baseball. This must have been when the myth of baseball arose.
Check out Dominic's Light Verse SamplerThe myth of baseball is simply that it transcends sport to become a metaphor for life and a reflection of the noblest aspirations of American manhood. This myth makes attending a big league game as much a quasi-religious experience as an afternoon of entertaining sport.
Before the era of muti-million dollar contracts, this myth may have deserved respect. But can anyone say with a straight face that big league baseball is anything other than big-time, commercial entertainment, like casinos? Are players who earn millions to exhibit highly specialized talents, utterly useless off the playing fields, worthy of anything but cynicism from fans? Aren't players nothing more than the most visible beneficiaries of a system permeated with greed that infects everyone in it, players, coaches, owners, agents? In the past, baseball heroes might have been conceited or vulgar, but their performance on the field easily compensated for their character flaws. Can any performance compensate for greed? I doubt it.
But this is no diatribe against major league baseball or the economic assumptions that underlie it. If owners feel compelled to heap piles of money on callow athletes, well, it's their money. As long as politicians refrain from asking me to subsidize their facilities, I have no complaint against the business of baseball.
My complaint is against writers, commentators and even historians and philosophers who persist in fostering the old myth of baseball as a metaphor for life. Big league baseball today is as much a metaphor for life as a date with a Las Vegas call girl is a metaphor for marriage. To continue to mythicise big league baseball is to become grossly sentimental. And invariably at the core of sentimental thinking there's a lie.
If you haven't used the Inditer.com 'Response Section', get started! Send in your comments and critique on This Dominic Martia Essay Inditer.com is a community of like minded writers. Each wants and deserves the help of the other. Do it! It won't cost a dime! You'll be glad you helped!
Dominic Martia's Main Page - - Email Dominic Martia - - Inditer dot Com Index - - Inditer dot Com Main Page