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"My Deteriorating Affection Towards the National Pasttime"

This idea for a letter started harmlessly enough.  Each of the past two years I have purchased the MLB Package through Comcast.  After growing up in New York and moving to Boston, purchasing this package has allowed me to watch most of the Mets games that I cannot get on basic cable.

For some reason, I was no longer excited to re-purchase the package this season.  When I thought about it, my taste for baseball had been waning the past few years.  I am no longer the arduous Mets fan that I used to be.  In 2000, my father and I began watching the World Series game where Roger Clemens threw the bat at Mike Piazza.  My reaction to Clemens being allowed to remain in the game, along with my insistence that Mike Hampton was a wimp for not hitting Derek Jeter the following inning when he had 2 outs and a 3-0 count, led my Dad to proclaim, “It’s no fun watching a game with you.”  He then got up and went home to watch the game by himself.

Just nine years later, I no longer care as much as I did back then.  I think that there is one standout reason for this change – The Steroid Era.

Like a lot of fans, the steroid era in baseball has had a negative effect on my once strong adoration of the sport.  To a point, I can understand the allure that performance enhancing drugs have on a player.  To many, it might be the difference between a short Minor League career and an enduring Major League career.  For a good player, it might push them into the stratosphere in terms of wealth and popularity.

It is my belief that baseball’s popularity has always relied on history and tradition.  This tradition has been dragged through the mud in recent years by outright cheating. I remember what it was like to be a kid and follow your favorite players - to think of being a kid and having to watch your favorite player admit to cheating is heartbreaking.

Complicit in this wrongfulness is those that ran the show – Commissioner Bud Selig and the Player’s Union Rep Donald Fehr.  Despite fair warning of the rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs, they stood by and watched – turning their heads and accepting short-term heightened interest in the sport at the expense of long-term history and tradition.

As Commissioner, Mr. Selig is responsible to maintain the integrity of the sport of baseball, protecting the investment of team owners.  As head of the Player’s Union, Donald Fehr is responsible for protecting the players – something he has failed miserably in doing.  In addition to the potential health issues surrounding use of PED’s, he failed all of the players who stayed clean despite the obvious motivation to do whatever it takes to compete.  The union should have been fighting for strict testing procedures and punishments, but instead they fought against them.

There were moments in baseball’s history that cannot be considered especially proud ones.   Most notably, the early eras when players of color were not allowed to participate comes to mind.  However, baseball worked hard to make that right by breaching those gaps.  While it will never be able to repay the Josh Gibson’s and Satchel Paige’s of the world, the broad international backgrounds of today’s players are a tribute to an improved sense of fairness and openness. 

Dealing with the steroid era is the next obstacle.  Baseball is truly a great game and will survive these troubled times.  But the corruptness of this era makes me feel like a sucker for being a fan these past few years. 

Baseball has meant so much to me in the past – as a Little Leaguer dreaming of becoming a Big-Leaguer and as a fan cheering on my team.  So I embarked on my largest project on this site so far.  I wrote the letter below to Mr. Selig and to Mr. Fehr.  I found the address of each MLB Stadium and sent copies of the letter to each owner.  I sent a copy to Comcast – they ought to know that the fading integrity of the sport of baseball cost them a customer this year.  The letter is cordial and to the point without being argumentative. 

This process of printing letters and envelopes took up the better part of a day.  These are not e-mails, rather actual letters that I sent via the US Postal Service.  I hope that some of them will be read, though I am sure that some of them will find the trash.  Either way, I feel better getting some of these things off my chest.  I truly hope that something is done to repair the damage that has been done and to restore my love for this game.

-----------------------

TO: Bud Selig, Donald Fehr

CC: Comcast Corporation, All MLB Owners

Mr. Selig and Mr. Fehr:

I have been a fan of Major League Baseball for as long as I can remember.  Occasionally my father will remind me how I made him sit through a rainstorm to watch the Mets play the Cubs when he took me to my first game back in 1979.  One of my first memories is how big Dave Kingman looked in his baby-blue pinstriped Cubs uniform.

For as large as Kingman seemed to a kindergarten-aged kid back then, players these days have become much larger.  I understand that fiscal incentive to get in shape has certainly increased over the years, and training methods have become more efficient.  However, the rampant use of steroids amongst baseball’s biggest stars has scarred my fond boyhood memories of the sport.

The numbers of this game are just too important – they make it possible to compare different eras, they justify awards and Hall of Fame selections, and nowadays they are the backbone to the fantasy sports craze.  The numbers of the recent era are lies, over-exaggerated by players who cheated.

What it really comes down to is a basic lesson taught by parents, teachers and coaches everywhere – cheaters never win.  But these cheaters most certainly have won.  Not only have these players asserted their names in the record books undeservedly, but they have robbed clean players of the opportunity of success.  This success includes financial reward, athletic recognition, team success and public adoration.

It is my belief that the key to baseball’s popularity and longevity lies within the younger generation of fans.  It always has.  As a game, baseball has been steadily losing popularity amongst American youth.  Many consider the game to be boring compared to other sports like basketball, football and lacrosse, which feature constant action.  As a high school football coach, I am shocked at the number of my players that prefer playing lacrosse in the fall instead of baseball – a bias that didn’t exist just 15 years ago when I graduated from school.  Baseball’s popularity as an American Institution has always relied on history and tradition – a tradition that has been severely distorted under your watch.

The message that players like Bonds, Rodriguez, Canseco, Tejada, Sosa, Caminiti, McGwire, Giambi, Palmeiro and Clemens have sent to our kids is that baseball is a sport where you need to cheat to succeed.  In fact, if you cheat you are generally rewarded with millions of dollars and incredible popularity.  Until something drastic is done to remedy that, I cannot in good conscience continue to follow the sport I once loved with the same adoration.  I also will find it more difficult to raise my children as fans of Major League Baseball, though that is certainly a decision they will eventually make on their own.

I now live in Boston and the only way I can watch my once beloved Mets is through the MLB Package offered by Comcast, our local cable operator.  Despite ordering the package each of the past two seasons, I will not be purchasing it this year.  This decision has less to do with the poor economy as it does with my deteriorating affection for the sport.  When details of Alex Rodriguez’ use of performing enhancing drugs emerged, that was the last straw for me.  It had been suggested that he would be the clean player that would erase all of Bonds’ ill begotten records.  That is no longer the case, and there is no similarly predictable savior on the horizon.

My personal opinion is that drastic measures need to be taken to restore the reputation and honor of this great sport.  These measures should include a way to downplay the records and awards won by players that used performance enhancing drugs – this must include revealing the names of all of those players who had tested positive in the past.  In addition, the current testing procedures need to be tightened even further and should include a way to preserve samples to be re-tested in the future.  I wish you good luck in that mission and I look forward to the day I can once again look upon professional baseball as a noble institution.

Sincerely,

Scott Riecke

 

If you would like to comment on this letter, Scott can be reached at info@aletteraweek.com.

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