Honky Ball in Bodymore Murderville

I had the chance to attend a sportsball game last night in the city of Baltimore. My Red Sox were in town to play the Orioles, so I got a chance to see the Olde Town Team in person. I don’t attend many live sporting events these days. It was a nice change of pace, even if it meant the hassle of getting into the downtown area at rush hour. Baltimore has a reputation for being gangland, but people still do work in the city and that means traffic at the predictable times. The downtown area that caters to tourists, both local and foreign is easy to navigate so it is not too bad.

Many on the alt-right are encouraging normies to boycott sportsball and I get why they say it. It used to be that a normal man could get a few hours away from the preaching of the loons by watching a baseball game or football game. That’s no longer the case in football, as they have filled the broadcasts and the games with proselytizing for the New Religion. The players protesting the anthem may be at the heart of why the NFL is suddenly having a TV ratings problem. It would be nice if that were true, but we’ll never know as the media will cover it up.

Baseball has so far been immune to the efforts of the loons to turn it into an instrument of the New Religion. The reason for that, according to one of the players, is that baseball is the white man’s game. That’s true in many respects. The players are mostly white and Latin. Just 8% of MLB players are Afro’d Americans. The NFL is 70% black and the NBA banned the pale face years ago. Further, baseball is a turn based, rules game that does not favor running and jumping. There are few opportunities for attention getting antics during the games, so it tends to appeal to honkies.

Still, the Cult of Modern Liberalism is trying hard to ruin baseball for the white man. ESPN has destroyed their Sunday night broadcast by having a screeching powerskirt as part of the announcing team. She pretends to have played the game and have the same depth of knowledge as a former player, but does so in a way that reminds every man of his first ex-wife. A TV series has been created featuring a female baseball player making it to the majors. Of course, she’s black, because, well magic. Taken together, it is a warning that the crazies are coming for honky-ball.

Then again, the Cult has been at war with baseball for a long time. When I was a kid, they tried to make us play soccer, instead of baseball. That flopped as bad as the metric system. Soccer became the sport for effeminate white kids, who lacked the athletic ability to do anything else. Then they tried to force boys and girls to play together, but girls, and their parents, liked softball much more and that effort failed. Finally, the last two decades have seen a PR campaign to tell us that baseball is dying and basketball is the future, despite the the facts on the ground.

Even so, baseball has held up pretty well. In the 70’s, when the culture war began, even the most popular clubs struggled to attract fans to games. Today, even bad teams can get 15,000 to a weeknight game. Some clubs do better than others, but overall, baseball remains well attended compared to the past. A lot of it has to do with the excellent ballparks and the family friendly atmosphere at the games. A bigger reason, I suspect, is the ballpark is one of the last places where old weird America still exists.

The players look like us, the crowd looks like us and the customs are the same as they were when we were kids. The game starts with everyone standing for the anthem. There is the seventh inning stretch. The players embrace the customs and unwritten rules that have defined the game for generations. I walked in the park and I remembered my dad taking me to my first game. I could remember my grandfather, as if it were yesterday. That’s not something that happens at football or the human flea circus that is the NBA.

One example last night was the response to a rookie the Orioles just brought up from the minors. The crowd was mostly Oriole fans, naturally, but there were many Red Sox fans too. Everyone cheered loudly, knowing that the kid was getting his first at-bat as a major leaguer. When he hit a home-run in his second at bat, the whole place stood until he came out to tip his cap to the crowd. Even the Sox fans stood as that is the way it is done. The cycle of life has always been a part of the game, so you cheer the rookies and honor the veterans, as they pass out of the game.

If you want to understand what went wrong in America, walk around Baltimore, where you see what it is, what it should be and why it is not what it could be. It is a city where the people that know better are vastly outnumbered by those largely incapable of maintaining modernity. There are pockets of beauty and excellence, but they exist in a sea of degradation. Baltimore is what is happening in South Africa. Civilization has retreated into pockets the tourists see, hoping to hold out until the world comes to its senses.

But, the Olde Town Team carried the day, with the legendary Big Papi hitting a three run blast to seal the game. The Red Sox are headed for the post-season for the first time in a few years, and they have a good shot of winning another title. I get why the alt-right kids reject sportsball, but for old guys like me, who still remember when normal people had hope that this craziness would pass, it is a nice reminder of how things used to be. Perhaps the kids sitting there with their fathers and grandfathers will carry with them the seeds to restore the world long after I’m gone.

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Guest
Guest
8 years ago

Anyone still watching NFL football after the league failed to respond to the player protests on September 11, 2016 is a traitor to America. Americans learn to stand for the Anthem as a sign of respect and honor to those people of all races colors and creeds who have made personal sacrifices in service to the country, whether their sacrifices are life, limb, time in the military, serving as a first responder, or being a victim of a terrorist attack targeting Americans. Standing for the Anthem is the ultimate–and only remaining–act of solidarity in this deeply divided country. To fail… Read more »

joe
joe
Reply to  Guest
8 years ago

When our Ohole leader objected to wearing an American flag pin, we should have known what he was- scum.

Lorenzo
Lorenzo
8 years ago

I like baseball, but still make old man grumbling noises when a designated hitter comes up to bat. I miss the days when it was stylish to tie an onion on your belt.

Severian
Reply to  Lorenzo
8 years ago

Wear your onion proud, Lorenzo. We old timers (of all ages) know that the designated hitter is an abomination unto the Lord. Hitler himself pushed for the adoption of the DH, and I’m pretty sure it was Karl Marx’s idea originally.

ganderson
ganderson
Reply to  Severian
8 years ago

I like the DH. I get no pleasure out of watching pitchers hit, Madison Baumgarner notwithstanding. I’d say I adds strategy. Mst of the “strategy revolving around the pitcher’s spot in the lineup is of the no brainer variety. An extra bat lets you do something!

ErikEssig
ErikEssig
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

I’m OK with it at the professional level and do like that the senior circuit hasn’t adopted it. I’m not a fan of the DH at the amateur level.

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

Ditto

Member
8 years ago

the human flea circus that in the NBA

Civilization has retreated into pockets the tourists see, hoping to hold out until the world comes to its senses..

The first line is hilarious, and the second makes you want to cry. One of those Democritus vs. Heraclitus things, I guess.

Reply to  Saurons_Lazy_Eye
8 years ago

Oh, I only just noticed the typo in the original of the first line, which is harder to correct in isolation. Should be “that is the NBA”, of course.

Dr. Mabuse
Dr. Mabuse
8 years ago

The players look like us, the crowd looks like us and the customs are the same as they were when we were kids. The game starts with everyone standing for the anthem. There is the seventh inning stretch. The players embrace the customs and unwritten rules that have defined the game for generations. That’s why I gravitated to watching golf, despite its status as a game for the elites. No anthem, but there is a ritual introduction of each player. People are expected to be silent when a player is hitting, and they are. Imagine that! An activity where people… Read more »

Emeritus
Emeritus
Member
8 years ago

I recall bragging to my farm family at Thanksgiving that I had made the Fencing Team at school.
My Grandfather deadpanned “Barbed or Woven Wire”.

A.T. Tapman
A.T. Tapman
Member
Reply to  Emeritus
8 years ago

Hi Em, I really wish I had said that. My complements on your Grandfather.

Tdurden
Tdurden
8 years ago

I do find sportball useful in one regard: it helps identify the sheep and dullards. Yeah yeah…this is where I get the rotten fruit thrown at me, but I’m sick of my pocket getting picked to subsidize playtime for other peoples’ kids and assorted roid addled morons.

Notsothoreau
Notsothoreau
8 years ago

I just despise the push for soccer. Baseball is indeed from a different time.

Member
Reply to  Notsothoreau
8 years ago

To my recollection, as a kid in the 70’s, it seemed as if the push for soccer “then” was right there with the push for metric system. It was a coordinated effort to de-frock the US culture of US-centric sport and weights and measures…. to be more like Europe/everyone else. Of course, it got down right indoctrinistic in the 80’s and 90’s with soccer and kids, especially with the girls. See Title IX. My neighbors put 3 of their girls through college on full-ride soccer scholarships; exactly as our social engineers planned it. One of the three uses her degree… Read more »

Severian
8 years ago

There’s a minor league team near where I live, and my summer is always a little brighter when the team is in town. I don’t have sons, but I got a chance to take a friend’s nephew down onto the field for his first autograph from a real ballplayer, just like my Dad did for me back in the Jurassic. Now, this is the low minors – most of these kids are just there so that the big club’s hot prospect can have some other guys to play catch with, and they know it. But they still follow all the… Read more »

Member
8 years ago

I am supposed to get excited watching a game played by orangutans in their underwear?
Baseball also involves certain specific skills, such as hitting a small ball while it is moving at high speed, or catching that ball once hit into a distant field. It is a game of dueling skills, not simple brute muscular force.

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  Rurik
8 years ago

But of course Rurik, you went to Roosevelt where hockey was king. Not anymore though.

Chad
Chad
8 years ago

You forgot to mention that magic black woman baseball player is also all-star caliber. Because when magic is involved it might as well be plentiful.

FaCubeItches
FaCubeItches
Reply to  Chad
8 years ago

She’s also fairly slender and feminine, not a bulked-up hoss. As you said….magic.

Karl Horst (Germany)
Karl Horst (Germany)
8 years ago

I wish we had an Aussie in this forum as I am sure he would be quick to explain that any sport, American or European, which requires helmets and pads is for little girls. Aussie rules football is a weird combination of several sports (football, rugby and basketball…because you have to run and bounce the ball). The ball is rugby shaped, and there are four goal posts at each end of an oval shaped field. I had the pleasure to cheer for the Brisbane Lions when I was in Australia some years ago. If you’ve never seen an AFL game,… Read more »

Severian
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

I dunno, Z Man… I need indisputable visual evidence of the greatness of women’s beach volleyball. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of visual evidence.

thor47
thor47
Reply to  Severian
8 years ago

Take my word for it. But go ahead and examine the evidence. I don’t think you will be allowed to examine anything other than the visual evidence.

UKer
UKer
Reply to  Karl Horst (Germany)
8 years ago

I was once told that Aussie rules football allows players to commit mayhem on the filed and not get ‘sent off’ or sin-binned or thrown out or whatever the language is. Maybe that’s changed, but in any event it is a brutal game. By the way, efforts to plant another nation’s sport in various places doesn’t always work. There are lots of Aussies in London who would appreciate seeing their Aussie rules game but not enough to make it viable. And yes, bouncing an oval ball on its point and catching it again as the player runs is an amazing… Read more »

Karl Horst (Germany)
Karl Horst (Germany)
Reply to  UKer
8 years ago

The Irish game of Hurling is highly under rated. A Hurley stick makes a hockey stick look quite tame by comparison! – it looks more like a weapon than a sports accessory. I guess if the Irish had been better at colonization than the Brits, they’d be playing Hurley in India and Australia instead of Cricket.

Jtbird
Jtbird
Reply to  Karl Horst (Germany)
8 years ago

Amen. Footy is the best sport on Earth!

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

What hurts the professional brand in the US is that there is simply no place to insert commercials. In baseball all the constant yammering at the league office level about the increased length of baseball games one factor is never ever mentioned. In the bad old days the teams passed half innings in one minute. Now they are waiting for the umpire get the play ball signal from tv. Football games are worse. My son loves watching the NFL but he won’t watch one game at a time for that reason.

Wayne Parker
Wayne Parker
Reply to  Karl Horst (Germany)
8 years ago

I took a professional Australian Rules footballer and a professional rugby player from the UK to a NFL game last season. We had great seats in the executive box (my company’s executive box, I’m nowhere near that wealth) and then got to hang out on the sidelines during the last part of the game as a friend of mine with the press got us passes to the field. Both men remarked repeatedly that they were shocked how big AND fast the American footballers were and how hard they were hitting because they tackled differently than in rugby or Aussie football.… Read more »

james wilson
james wilson
8 years ago

I watch all the Red Sox games on mlb.com. The Boston SJW sportwriters have noted, as have the tv and radio announcers, that the attendance is shockingly low for an Oriole team in a pennant race at a custom built baseball park. The Crankies and the Red Sox sold the place out for years. Now they are one-third filled. What could it be! It’s a mystery!. Not a hint, no, we won’t go there. Here’s my theory. The only game in major league history to be played without fans started a trend. The fans are giving the natives their safe… Read more »

Brooklyn
Brooklyn
8 years ago

Enjoy it while you can; the new religion won’t let us enjoy anything so its just a matter of time before baseball gets wrecked. I guess hockey will be the last stand sport but most likely they’ll suck the last bit of fun out of it too. (Chris Rock had a skit about that; the punchline being that the takeover of hockey is waiting on a heated hockey rink.)

JohnTyler
JohnTyler
8 years ago

I watched the soccer world cup and some of the Olympic soccer games in an effort to see why 99% of the planet loves this game. As much as I tried to keep an open mind, I find the game boring. Many (most?) passes are intercepted by the opposition and results in guys aimlessly running up and down the pitch. This occupies 99.9% of the game. The remaining 0.1% of the game is in fact exciting. Watching 90 minutes of aimless running is, well, boring. What is really galling is after 90 minutes PLUS penalty time, the game comes down… Read more »

Jak Black
Jak Black
Reply to  JohnTyler
8 years ago

Soccer is popular for one reason alone. All it takes is a ball and an empty lot to play. You can play (almost) as easily in the dirt lots of Ghana as the green fields of Germany. Standing nets and gloves are for the rich folk.

Old Codger
Old Codger
Reply to  Jak Black
8 years ago

Having had kids who played soccer in organized leagues and other more “American” sports in more pick-up fashion, I would add that in soccer even the best players rely on skills that most normal people can develop. Soccer stars are not freaks of nature, standing 6’5″+ and 250 to 310 lbs. with unnatural speed and agility for a human of that size. The best soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi, is a mere 5’6″ and 140 lbs. and he does not have blazing speed. Instead he is tough, gritty and highly skilled in soccer fundamentals , something any kid… Read more »

PRCD
PRCD
Reply to  JohnTyler
8 years ago

Ilkka Kokkarinen had the best take on Soccer in “The Wingnut Musings” Waiting for Goalot Sure, soccer is fun for children and amateur adults to play casually together since it doesn’t require complex equipment or fields, and the game scales smoothly to various skill levels and number of players. But as an actual professional sport, just forget it. Every time that I have tried to watch soccer on TV, I have felt deep sadness for the players trapped in this Sartrean hell for the unending frustration they must feel when everything that they try to do is inherently doomed to… Read more »

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
8 years ago

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2009/12/baseball-been-berry-berry-good-to-me.html I love baseball. Played it throughout my yute. Many good memories. Fresh cut green grass. Reddish brown dirt. Blue skies. The smell of glove leather and sweat and the feel of the baseball and it’s stitches on your fingertips. The team camaraderie and dependence on individual performance. The serendipity of a bunch of guys and coaches getting together and becoming a winning, so-so, or a losing team. You never know what you are gonna get. But when everything clicks, it is like … magic! It is beautiful. The sound of the ball cracking off the bat. That perfect peg… Read more »

ColoComment
ColoComment
Reply to  LetsPlay
8 years ago

Second all that. And, even when there appears to be nothing happening, there’s lots going on.
And, after reading the book, “As They See ‘Em,” by Bruce Weber, I have a new appreciation for the effort and knowledge that umpires bring to the game (although they seem to be universally despised, some actually have their own fans.) If you watch them closely, they have their own movements and positioning that become a highly choreographed type of dance, almost.
https://amzn.com/0743294130

Doug
Doug
8 years ago

That is a wonderful tribute all around Zman.
Really nice.
Thanks.
You made my day.

Thud
8 years ago

Visiting family in Utah this summer as I do every two years I attended the local rodeo (Spanish fork).I wasI’d imagine the only non American in there and it was for me the most American of happenings of all my many experiences in America with no leftie craziness in any aspect. As an aside football (soccer) despite the lefties here and foreign players is still an intensely English and working class sport and for many of us much more important than any nonsense our betters go on about.

UKer
UKer
8 years ago

I have attended NFL games, some college basketball and baseball on my all too few visits to the States, but I can see why baseball works as it does. In the UK we have what you call soccer which is passionately tribal (and rough: if you have had someone flatten you from behind and land deliberately with their studs on the back of your leg it is far from effeminate whatever you say — I have tangled with players and felt I have run into barbed wire), two codes of Rugby — one working class and decent but only played… Read more »

hopp.singg
Member
8 years ago

“Socialism failing to work, as it always does, this time in Venezuela. You talk about giving everybody something free and all of a sudden, there’s no food to eat. And who do you think is the richest person in Venezuela? The daughter of Hugo Chavez. Hello! Anyway, 0-and-2.”
— Vin Scully

“I think where they’re moving and how they’re moving there is very productive and we’re going to encourage that.”
— Roger Goodell, re the anti-anthem players

notsothoreau
notsothoreau
8 years ago

Had to find this quote for you:
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. ”
Rogers Hornsby

notsothoreau
notsothoreau
8 years ago

My late husband, Jeffrey, grew up in Vallejo, CA. His folks would let him catch the bus to Candlestick Park, where he got to watch Willie Mays, among others. He said the best thing was a double-header. And yes, it was a lot more affordable then.

guest
guest
8 years ago

James LaFond, with a big F, responded: “The one thing he may not have known, is that there were only 18,000 people in attendance, 8,000 of them him and his New England friends. The stadium capacity is 45,000 and this was an even more important game for the Orioles than Boston, who has a lock on first place. This afternoon, as my mother listened to The Fan sports radio show they danced around this question without answering it, because they need to keep their jobs and cannot say the truth, that most Baltimore County and Harford County residence will no… Read more »

Ganderson
Ganderson
8 years ago

I, too, resist the call to boycott sportsball. Now granted , I generally watch the whitest of white sports- hockey, baseball and lacrosse. I think baseball might be in trouble,though, Z. It is losing lots of kids to lacrosse (my own three boys are examples) and, while American blacks are not playing, Caribbean blacks are, in large numbers, not to mention the other foreigners. I wonder if the white American sporting public will accept a sport played mostly by foreigners. And, MLB has gotten REALLY expensive! In the 70s we used to sit behind home plate at old Met Stadium-… Read more »

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  Ganderson
8 years ago

I’d add that pro hockey has a majority of foreigners, but they are Canadian, who most Americans don’ insider “real” foreigners, and Northern Europeans. As a side note, why does the media end over backward to pronounce some kinds of foreign names correctly ((Barthelona), but mangle Swedish hockey players’ names beyond recognition? Who the hell is ” Jalmerson” ?

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  Ganderson
8 years ago

My auto correct has gone crazy! Sky net is here!

Lorenzo
Lorenzo
Reply to  Ganderson
8 years ago

Regarding media folks pronouncing foreign names, it might be related to the PC status of the nationality. Remember back in the 1980s when our talking heads were swooning over Daniel Ortega? They struggled to pronounce “Nicaragua” like “Neek ah RAH wah” but still made “France” rhyme with “pants”.

FaCubeItches
FaCubeItches
Reply to  Lorenzo
8 years ago

“They struggled to pronounce “Nicaragua” like “Neek ah RAH wah” but still made “France” rhyme with “pants”.”

France got off easy. They still haven’t remotely figured out how to say “Deutschland”

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  Lorenzo
8 years ago

don’t forget Obozo and his “Pok-E-ston” when he first took office in referring to Pakistan. Tell me this guy is from anywhere in America! Oh he tried so hard to show he was erudite and worldly. Not.

Severian
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

In my experience, lax is strictly an east coast thing. The few people out in flyover country who even know it exists think it’s played solely by Yalies named T. Coddington van Voorhees IV and Sack Lodge, Jr. Spot on about football – if the remaining whites pull out and it goes all black, it’s done as a major sport, as it will go the way of the XFL (all showboating, playbooks you could write on a napkin, etc.). Some enterprising marketer should eliminate the head-first scrum in rugby and pitch it to soccer moms – now there’s whiteyball worth… Read more »

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  Severian
8 years ago

That certainly WAS case about lacrosse; S Frothington Snottington was the typical lax bro. And it is a huge in the New England prep schools. The sport, though, at the youth , HS and college levels is growing a lot, particularly in places like CO, CA ,TX and the Upper Midwest. The pro league is a niche thing, it is true, the NHL is the NFL compared to Major League lacrosse. The Major league sports landscape in North America is pretty crowded, so who knows if lax can break in. it could be, as Jim Rome used to say about… Read more »

el_baboso
Member
Reply to  Ganderson
8 years ago

LAX took off in SoCal in the 2000’s. It went from a club sport to CIF sanctioned in about five years. I was doing some college recruiting in those days and from talking to a few kids got the impression that football was extraordinarily competitive and if you weren’t very big and very fast, you weren’t going to make the varsity squad and letter. So if you were small, fast, and aggressive, LAX was very appealing especially if you were trying to get into a top tier school where a varsity letter or two will make you stand out from… Read more »

Ganderson
Ganderson
Reply to  el_baboso
8 years ago

Lots of good lax players in CA, and few (one that I know of) varsity programs. My son plays at Beloit College, they are having their annual coasts against the Midwest inter- squad game on Friday. A bunch of Socals are on the Bucaneers

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

I’ve been enjoying Rugby “Sevens”. A fast paced but relatively short game. Action packed. I still need to learn the rules though. Can’t figure out why stuff is happening! Ha.

PRCD
PRCD
Reply to  Ganderson
8 years ago

The NFL and NBA need to go. An alternative to watching sports is playing them. Too many people are watching sports and not enough are playing them. After the ’70s, amateur competition died in the United States while it appears to remain alive and well in Europe. There are hardly any middle-aged rec leagues in the US besides softball because everyone is on their duff watching ungrateful yoofs on PEDs showboat for their gay/Jewish commissioners and commentators.

Audacious Epigone
8 years ago

Baseball looks like America. The correlation between the US population and baseball’s active roster population, across the four categories of (non-Hispanic) white, (non-Hispanic) black, Hispanic, and Asian, .97–it is almost perfectly representative of the general population.

The NFL, in contrast, correlates at .14 and the NBA at only .08.

Member
8 years ago

i agree with all except the soccer comment. I played baseball in the Summer, soccer in the fall and most any sport in the backyard with my friends in the spring. Because soccer is big in socialist countries (which is pretty much all but here) its reputation is murdered by association. You mention Football and especially Basketball dominated by blacks.. Why so can be argued. What can’t be argued is that you need to be a freak to play at higher levels of that sport for the. most part. This is what baseball and soccer have in common, all sizes… Read more »

antipater_1
antipater_1
8 years ago

“But, the Olde Town Team carried the day, with the legendary Big Papi hitting a three run blast to seal the game.”

Let me try and fix that for you Z-man.
But, the Olde Town Team carried the day, with the legendarily juiced Big Papi hitting a three run blast to steal the game.

Jim Gates
8 years ago

I’ll admit that soccer is a boring game if you are a casual observer. Like other sports, if you didn’t grow up playing it you will have little affinity for it. I’ve lost interest in most professional sports, especially football and basketball. As a kid I played football and baseball and i still have a fondness for the game, just not what I tend to see in an NFL game or a baseball game on TV. I still enjoy going to a baseball game occasionally. There’s still something about being at a ballpark vs being in front of a TV.… Read more »

Tim
Tim
Member
8 years ago

DH will never be adopted at the lower levels of baseball. That’s where the best athletes are both pitchers and top of the order hitters. Tim

Member
Reply to  Tim
8 years ago

In the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, they use the DH unless both teams are affiliated with National League clubs — which was the case in the PCL championship, won by the El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres) over the Oklahoma City Dodgers (um, Dodgers.) It is theoretically possible under PCL rules for a NL farm club to decline to have its pitchers bat, but this is almost unheard of; after all, they’re training players to go up to the National League, which continues to shun the DH.