Too Good to Be True

Watch Out -- It Could Be Contagious

By Rick Horowitz

I know my baseball, and I know my numbers, and I tell you: That thing is a misprint. There isn't any way on God's green earth -- and that goes for Astroturf, too, so don't try to confuse things -- that one man swinging one bat at a time, at one ball at a time, can hit 70 home runs in a single season. Can't happen. It's a misprint, or my name isn't Beanball Bill.

It's a misprint or else it's a fake -- some hush-hush conspiracy the big boys in the commissioner's office dreamed up and sold to the big boys in the media. Now that the season's over and the playoffs have started, I half figured they'd come clean, just admit the whole thing was a scam they were running to put more bottoms into more seats, not to mention extra ratings points. These days, it's all about ratings points.

But they're not admitting to anything, so we have to sniff this thing out for ourselves. And believe me, there's plenty of sniffing to go around, because I'm not just talking about the home runs, but also about other things that aren't home runs but are all part of the same big made-up package.

In fact, these last few weeks of baseball have been entirely too ridiculous to believe, and here's the key piece of evidence that the whole thing is bogus:

Everyone's being nice.

I know my baseball, and I know that a true major-leaguer would sooner spit tobacco juice all over your shoes, or fire a hard one right under your chin, as do anything the other team might consider "nice." Certainly not in public anyway.

But look at what's been happening: This Mark McGwire breaks the home run record (or so they tell us) and he's trotting around the bases after big No. 62, and the guys on the other team are shaking his hand as he goes by. Then he circles around to home plate again and he hugs the catcher, who hugs him right back!

There's no hugging in baseball -- not a catcher and a batter, anyway. They're supposed to be mortal enemies. Anyway, just when you're thinking it's the most bizarre thing you've ever seen on a ballfield, Sammy Sosa comes running in from right field and jumps into McGwire's arms to join the celebration!

This Sosa's been chasing McGwire for the home run record all season long. Strange enough that they've been saying nice things about each other for months and always wishing each other good luck. But here's McGwire getting to the record first and all Sosa wants to do is be happy for him! Then when McGwire hits (supposedly) No. 70, it happens again -- congratulations from the other team, I mean. You'd think they'd have gotten it out of their system.

I said it wasn't just the home run guys. How about Cal Ripken? This guy's been playing every game since dinosaurs were around, and when he finally takes himself out of the Orioles' lineup, who notices? The Yankees notice -- the other team. And what do they do? They come out of their dugout and they tip their caps to him. They're the Yankees, he's an Oriole, and they're tipping their caps to him!

Paul Molitor, too, who's probably retiring from the Twins after putting up some Hall of Fame numbers himself. If I heard right, Molitor comes to bat in the final weekend of the season, probably the final weekend of his career, and the Indians are over in the other dugout, standing and applauding like he's one of the family.

So it all has to be fake, right? I mean, this whole "good sportsmanship" routine has to be something some marketing genius dreamed up somewhere. Where's the strutting and the woofing and the show-up-the-other-guy stuff that professional sports is all about?

I know my baseball. Keep this up, and we won't even recognize it.

Posted 9/29/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

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