The Baseball Diaries

For more writing by Max go to http://www.realisticrecords.net/themillions

The last time I went to a baseball game was, I think, on Friday May 30th when the Dodgers lost to the Brewers 5-3. The Brewers managed to push ahead late and hold on for the win. Hideo Nomo pitched masterfully for 5 innings before getting knocked around by Richie Sexon and company. It seems that my baseball watching schedule coincides with Hideo Nomo's pitching schedule because he has started most of the games I've been to this year. I've grown accustomed to his acrobatic windup and his quiet on field demeanor. Nomo is just one example of how America's pastime has become an international game. A couple of days after I saw Nomo lose to the Brewers, I interrupted my summer of baseball with a trip to Europe. First I was in Spain, where American newspapers weren't available, and I kept track of baseball during my brief, morning visits to a smoky internet cafe. The internet, thank God, has made this travelling a lot easier. After that I was in Southwestern Ireland where the Internet was a little tougher to get a hold of. Each day I tracked down a copy of the Irish Times, where I could find one day old, one line results of the games. Los Angeles 4 San Francisco 1, for example. Clearly, baseball doesn't have much of a foothold in most of the world. Meanwhile the big news, the front page of the Irish Times news, was the qualifying rounds of the Euro 2004 tournament, which is sort of a mini World Cup for Europe only. It's hard to overestimate the level of excitement that was generated by Ireland's 2-0 defeat of Georgia on June 11th, and this is for a qualifying match. Some will say that European soccer fans are far more rabid than, say, American football or baseball fans. This is clearly an impossible argument to really resolve, and anyway, I don't think that the genetic predilection of the Irish for sports enthusiasm is the only thing at play here. A big part of it is the joy of rooting for one's country, a sort of latent nationalism expressed through sports fanatacism. In America we rarely get to experince this in the same way that an Irishman might because when it comes to international competion there are really only two types. First, the Americans, when they field their best players, are so dominant that the games are not exciting enough to keep our attention (this is true of basketball). Secondly, Americans are competing in sports in which we are not dominant, and in which the fans have little interest (soccer, or any number of Olympic sports that fail to capture the imagination of the American public). The point is, wouldn't it be great if there were a regular international competion in a sport that is of great interest of American sports fans, and wouldn't it be great if this sport were sufficiently international that the American teams would face some decent competition. Which is all just another way of saying wouldn't it be great if there were a World Cup of Baseball.

At first this does not seem like a compelling idea. After all, nothing could be more American than baseball. But then you remeber that Sammy Sosa, Vladimir Guerrero, Albert Pujols, and Pedro Martinez are all from the Dominican Republic; Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, and Bernie Williams are all from Puerto Rico; and Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, and of course, Hideo Nomo are all from Japan. This is to say nothing of strong teams that could be fielded by Mexico, Venezuela, and other Latin American baseball strongholds. Korea and Canada would no doubt field respectable teams as well. Once you see all the names out there, doing this once every four years with a 16 team tournament seems like a great idea. As always, the major hurdle with this sort of thing is convincing multimillionaire athletes to drop everything and do it for their countries. But hey, it could happen, right? Here's hoping it does.

If you're still interested in a World Cup of baseball, here's an article on the subject that I pulled at random from the web. I include it because it contains sample rosters from various countries at the bottom.

This diary entry was inspired by two games: May 12, 2003 Dodgers v. Braves & May 17, 2003 Dodgers v. Marlins

For those who fret about the ever rising cost of attending professional sporting events, the Fan Cost Index (FCI) quantifies the concerns. The FCI has been calculated by various newspapers since it was first devised in 1991 by the Dayton Daily News in an effort perhaps to bully the league into keeping prices down. Every year since then, the FCI has been wielded on sports pages across the nation as they decry the transformation of the National Pastime into a luxury, members only club. To clarify: the Fan Cost Index represents the price a family of four would pay for four average price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs, and two twill baseball caps. As has been pointed out by some, including the fellows over at www.baseballprospectus.com, the dollar values derived from the FCI are unnecessarily inflated in order to prove a point. To see the Dodgers during the 2001 season (the most recent year that numbers are available), a family of four could expect to pay $141.72 for the tickets and all the extras. It’s the extras that blow the whole thing out of proportion. The baseball caps and the programs are not a standard purchase by any means, and plenty of folks do just fine with food, either by eating and drinking beforehand or by bringing in their own provisions. Adding in the price of these extras pushes the final values well past the psychological barrier of one hundred dollars and in the case of the Boston Red Sox, who lead the Major Leagues in costliness, two hundred (they come in at $214.32 to be exact.) Now, I don’t have a “family of four” to attend to, but when myself and three friends attend a Dodgers game I would guess that we don’t ever spend much more than $80.

On the other hand eighty dollars is a lot of money, and it’s especially frustrating when you shell out a lot of money, and your experience does not equal your financial outlay. The two games I attended this homestand neatly illustrate the rising costs of attending baseball games and the widening gap between the corporate box seats and the row Z nose bleeds. At Chavez Ravine the Dodgers have done a particularly good job of segregating the fans in the cheap seats from those in the luxury areas. Separate entrances for each level are possible because Dodger Stadium is built into a hillside. If you pay for the six dollar top deck seats which situate you well into the stratosphere behind home plate, you enter via a separate gate, and you have no access to any other part of the stadium. Likewise both the loge and the field level sections have distinct entrances. Segregating the fans by ticket cost is by no means a novel tactic for purveyors of entertainment, be it sporting event, rock concert, or opera. Baseball teams have often used the bleachers as a way to provide a low cost ticket, while at the same time keeping the “bleacher creatures” separate from the rest of the paying customers. I have sat in every section in Dodger Stadium and it is remarkable to me how much one experience varies from another according to how much you pay for your seat. At Dodger Stadium, at least, these differences are marked not just between the most expensive tickets and the least. Instead, for each extra dollar spent, there seems to be a marked improvement in the experience. On Monday, May 12th I saw the Dodgers lose to the Braves while sitting in the six dollar top deck seats. Often times I prefer the cheap seats. Mostly it is because they are easy on my wallet, but I also enjoy the candid displays of fandom that seem only to occur up on that top deck. On the other hand, attending a game up there can be a trial as well. The concessions are just as overpriced as everywhere else in the stadium, but they are much harder to come by. If the top deck is full or nearly full, the several thousand fans on that level have only two concession stands to chose from. If the game is more sparsely attended, as most Dodgers games tend to be, only one concession stand is open. Accordingly, the line to get a hot dog and a beer, or a snack for the kids, tends to be interminably long. I have stood in line for two full innings waiting to buy my Dodger dog. A similar effort down below, and you will likely only miss an out or two. The quality of the food is another issue. Those who know me know I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, but I have noticed that the food on the top deck is of far lower quality. The same $3.25 Dodger dog comes in a mashed and often wet bun up top while down below it never fails to be fresh and delicious. The ushers, too, are sub par up top. While attending the Dodgers v. Braves game last week, a dozen young men delighted themselves by tossing inflated condoms toward the children nearby, and by loudly discussing every female fan that appeared on the Jumbotron in graphic terms. I’m no prude, and I found the whole thing pretty amusing, if a bit tiresome after a while. There were however many families of four who were pretty unhappy about the whole thing. Our usher, Darrell, could be bothered only to warn them jokingly a few times before finally, begrudgingly kicking them out after this had been going on for several innings. Compare this to the team of ushers on the field level (I was there thanks to my friendly neighborhood scalpers) who promptly went into crisis mode in order to prevent a few stray peanut shells descending from above from landing on, yes, a family of four. These discrepancies are pretty minor to someone like me, a guy in his twenties attending games solo or with a couple of friends. I also firmly believe that you get what you pay for and up top you get a six dollar experience. On the other hand, there are many families of four for whom attending a game is a bigger deal, and it is really a shame to have that experience tainted by the ball club’s neglect of the fans in the cheap seats. Especially when, as I’m sure is often the case, a family sits in the cheap seats because it’s all they can afford. And if the FCI folks are right, that group will only get larger. In this case, you get what you pay for should refer only to your proximity to the field, not to the quality of service.

This is my first official baseball diary entry (May 1, 2003 Dodgers v. Phillies):

It was your standard, typical May Day. In those European cities that never shy away from a street demonstration, defenders of the proletariat thronged to the city centers in a show of solidarity. Trafalgar Square in London and the vast boulevards of Paris filled with anarchists. Berlin, too, was especially hard hit by rioters this year. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium was as empty as I?ve ever seen it. On an average night during the regular season, the stadium is at about three quarters of its 56,000 capacity, but last Thursday there?s no way that even 10,000 fans showed up. Naturally, I assumed that the Dodger faithful were tied up at massive protests in Pershing Square and on Hollywood Blvd. The plight of the working man, I figured, trumps a diversion as bourgeois as baseball. The usher in my nearly empty section, however, disdainfully disabused me of my assumptions. This particular May 1st happened to be the day that the Lakers were to pummel the Timberwolves into oblivion. It seems no amount of trash talk from Kevin Garnett could save them from yet another first round exit. May and June, of course, are the months when everyone in Los Angeles pretends to be a Lakers fan. It?s even easier now than it?s been in years past, as the Lakers gear up for their fourth consecutive crown. The names have grown familiar: Shaq, Kobe, Phil Jackson. The average soccer mom can pick Rick Fox out of a crowd. It?s also the safest bet in town. Los Angeles reveres its heroes, and if Leo Dicaprio and Jack Nicholson are courtside every night, then what better way to salute these luminaries than by joining them in a hearty cheer for the purple and gold. But Lakers fandom is only really a necessity for those who wear their allegiance as a badge in a town where appearances matter most. But, lest I paint too broad stroke on my adopted city, there were nearly 10,000 of us for whom being a Lakers fan does not receive prime placement on our resumes.
I was joined by two friends, Matt and Jon, in my walk from Little Joy Jr., our pre-game dispenser of Budweiser longnecks, up the hill to Chavez Ravine. Jon is a Cubs fan who proudly wore his official Sammy Sosa jersey. Matt, born and raised in Boston, is of course a Red Sox fan. They breed them that way. Me? I?m an Orioles fan, but that is a sad story for another day. Matt lives just down the street from Dodger Stadium, so he has, in deference to geography, decided to root for the Dodgers at every game he attends. This stance was most evident in his lusty heckling of the Phillies starting pitcher that day: Brandon Duckworth. Duckworth of course is an especially satisfying name to shout at the top of one?s lungs in a derisive fashion. Try it; you?ll see. Matt, being from Boston, has a leg up on most in the loudness department. Jon and I, meanwhile, wavered back and forth over the course of the evening, cheering at times for the Dodgers and at others for the Phillies. In the end it was our realization that Jimmy Rollins is by far the jivest shortstop in baseball combined with the utter ineptitude and sluggishness of the Dodgers that led us to throw our weight behind the nine from Philadelphia. As if to applaud our decision, the Phillies won easily, and the Dodgers didn?t put up a fight. Saddest of all to the smattering of Dodger faithful, the team?s runaway fan favorite, Paul Lo Duca, singlehandedly blew the game with his ineptitude on the base paths. Twice he failed to score from second on deep singles to right field, both times lumbering like a tranquilized bear into third base clearly bewildered by his surroundings. This combined with Hideo Nomo?s positively languid performance on the mound made the Dodgers utterly unlikable.
In any large city that boasts a sizeable population of transplants, the local sporting events are sure to be attended by fans of the visiting team. And if they are former residents of a certain City of Brotherly Love, they are sure to be especially vocal. May Day at Dodger Stadium was no exception. The lone Phillies fan in our sparsely populated section was a heavily sideburned man who, much to the discomfort of his girlfriend, proudly insulted every member of the Dodgers at top volume, though he thoughtfully reserved most of insults for Nomo, who, it must be said, was most deserving. In typical Angeleno fashion, barring of course the bleachers and upper deck which on a normal night are thick with those who have somehow managed to avoid their third strike, the response to our lone Phillies fan was mostly muted. We strained to hear many hoarsly whispered retorts directed more at the peanut shells on the ground than toward the offending party a few rows back. Later on, taking the passive aggressive route ? or maybe this was some May Day restlessness finally boiling to the surface - a small cadre of Dodger fans spent the final innings attempting to insult Phillies third baseman David Bell from our perch high above. Though he certainly must have heard them, the stadium being as empty as it was, his play seemed unaffected, and the Phillies won easily: 4 -1.