While People Were not Watching the Game . . . .


George "Sneaky" Tenet was the best coach in the league for intercepting signs. No one completely understood his talent even on the rare occasions when he tried to explain, and that wasn't often. After all, circumstances change. With modern baseball's job insecurities and jockeying for advantage, today's teammates could be next year's opponents. Everyone respected Tenet, though, and when he said the other team was going to squeeze home a run, a fast decision was necessary.

"Don't look at the third-base coach. He's been doing this too long to give away anything. Look at the first-base coach. His eyes just popped out of his head. They're going to squeeze on one of these next two pitches. There's the batter touching his nose now. That's probably the acknowledgement."

The manager of the Oil Burners was George "Alfred E. Newman" Bush, a man who batted .53 in his big league career thanks to Al Gore standing still too long in left field on one of Bush's 19 official at-bats. Gore should have caught the ball, but the official scorer that day was a friend of the family, and the fly ball became a triple. Bush spent the next decade talking about third base. Now, thanks to a gift from Ralph Nader, the family acquired a baseball team, and Bush was managing. He had some success early, thanks to some great players left behind by the former manager, Bill "Chancre" Clinton.

"Hit him, that will stop any squeeze nonsense," Bush said.

All the chatter in the dugout turned to stunned silence. Jaws dropped. Everyone turned and looked at Bush, hoping to see some indication of a joke.

"Hit him, I said. Bean him."

The batter Bush was proposing to dust off was Hussein "Mad As" Maskharah. No one liked him. Maskharah was a bully and an opportunist. He had little ability as a baseball player, but was famous for stepping on other players, slinging his bat at the opposing pitcher, and refusing to slide going into any base. The other players called him "Mad As" because of his crazy ways. Maskharah routinely swung so that his follow through hit either the catcher or the umpire. At first base, his position in the field, Maskharah rarely bothered to catch pick-off throws. He just insisted the pitcher throw at the runner instead. The rumor was that "Mad As" punched out two teammates who tried to date his daughters. People laughed at the club's press releases when one of the rookies went on the disabled list with an "eyeball strain" and the other missed four games with a "smashed groin," but no one talked to the girls ever again.

Colin Powell, the bench coach, finally broke the silence. "I don't think we should bean him yet, George. Maybe we could just fake a pick-off at third base and then have the pitcher turn around real fast to see if the runner has left first like he's trying to get a jump."

"Oh, that play never works," Bush said. "The last time that ever picked off anyone was when the German team scared France into surrendering in the last Olympics. No. Bean the big creep. He tried to run over my daddy once in a playoff game."

"But he hasn't done anything yet," Powell said. "The umpire will kick our pitcher out of the game. It's the bottom of the ninth, and we're tied. Let's give him a chance to strike out."

"All the more reason to bean him now," Bush said. "Do you want the guy running over Prince Saud over there at first base? Hit him. Hit him hard enough to take him out of the game. And don't let me hear anything from Byrdbrain over there about it being illegal either. I want to hit that guy."

Richard Byrd woke up briefly and cracked a joke about the redneck who became a patrician.

Powell wanted to know what if the guy wasn't squeezing, and Tenet wanted to know what if the pitcher missed, but the tradition says to always follow the manager's orders, so Maskharah was dutifully beaned. Fans started throwing hotdogs and beer at Bush's players. In the confusion, the runner from third stole home. Tenet apologized and left the game after he realized the third-base coach had actually been flashing the "take" sign. Clinton and Nader wrote books, and Gore said "I told you so" in such a way as to put Byrd back to sleep. Bush claimed the team was safer and ordered the trainer to ignore the injuries to the pitcher, who was beaten by Maskharah's teammates. The arguments lasted long into the evening. The reclusive team owner, Dick "No Nickname Necessary" Cheney, had friends with Haliburton sell more tickets to the fight, and generous tax laws meant the fans in the stands could no longer afford to go home.

. . . and finally, people remembered they had a choice.

Democracy Means Everyone Wins Sometimes
America's lust for excellence in a winner-take-all society threatens the basic democratic right to pursue happiness -- a right Thomas Jefferson should have defined as an afternoon in the cheap seats of a ballpark. Beer company ads on television cannot pay all the payroll costs. Fans are going to have to decide whether they like the game or like winning. Not everyone can have both.

Baseball, because the schedule is long, held out longer than football and other sports in keeping reasonable prices. Indeed, a fan can still walk up to the Cincinnati ballpark on game day and buy a ticket for $5, a reasonable price in a society that charges $10 for a roller coaster ride in Las Vegas. Describing the location of the seat is a little tricky. They're in the neighborhood of halfway between third base and the foul pole, a million rows up. If the cheap fan wants a beer, a souvenir, or a parking space, the cost goes up, but at least in theory, $5 still buys a seat in America's first baseball city.

Baseball has another advantage over other sports. The worst team will occasionally beat the best team. Any team can go on a hot streak. Even the 2003 Detroit Tigers won 43 times. A reasonably optimistic fan can always hope for the best.

Americans like winners, though, and success feeds an addiction that requires more talent and more money. Payrolls expand, and the money has to come from somewhere. The cheapest seats in Saint Louis, where the team wins most of its games in most of its seasons, start at $9, but the cheap seats are not available for every date. The New York Yankees have game day seats for $10, but the Yankees make some of their extra money from selling caps all over the world.

The fashion among curmudgeonly fans is to compare Derek Jeter's salary to that of a teacher or a medical research assistant and bemoan misplaced values. That's probably fair, but even the quickest and strongest teacher won't be able to sell $10 tickets to watch a math lecture from the bleachers. Who has the most value to society doesn't dictate economic policy; supply and demand do.

The better comparison is between the superstars and their teammates.
Alex Rodriguez is a great infielder, one of the best. He makes the best salary. Hector Luna was acquired by Saint Louis on a Rule Five draft from Cleveland. He made the team as a backup shortstop thanks to a good performance in spring training -- and because the Cardinals didn't want to give him back to Cleveland, as baseball's rules would have required if Luna had gone to the minor leagues. In a home run hitting contest with Luna, Rodriguez would win--by plenty. He will have a better fielding percentage, a better hitting average, a better slugging percentage and better commercials. Rodriguez is a better shortstop, but he isn't 90 times better, which is approximately the difference in salaries.

The shining moment of baseball's democratic possibilities for justice came with Alex Rodriguez's first play as a Texas Ranger, right after he signed the contract for $26 million a year. He tripped over his shoelace.

From the cheap seats Luna and Rodriguez are going to look about the same turning a double play. One of them might be slightly quicker or have a slightly stronger throw to first, but have them swap uniforms, and many fans won't know the difference, a theory Houston stars Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio proved in an exhibition game in Tuscon a few years back.

Luna is obviously the much better value in terms of batting average points per dollar; he is hitting in the middle-200s. Rodriguez is more likely to hit the game winning home run.

The solution is for fans to look deeper into baseball, beyond the won-loss record into the individual opportunity. That's where baseball excels. In every baseball matchup, one player wins and one loses. Either the batter hits safely or he doesn't. He steals a base or the catcher throws him out. He makes the bunt or the pitcher jams him. Moreover, in baseball, the underdog wins a large percentage of the time.

Luna filled in at third base for Scott Rolen, a superstar of Rodriguez caliber but struggling along at about $17 million a year less. Luna had a couple of errors and a couple of hits. He didn't embarrass himself, and the team won. That is human accomplishment in the major leagues. It's worth celebrating -- and it is affordable.

The alternative is more luxury suites, fewer cheap seats anywhere, more television commercials between innings, and more logo marketing. The owners cannot help the fans keep prices down. They face supply and demand issues of their own. Asking the players to turn down inflated contracts is silly if not communist. The fans have the means to control baseball's excesses -- by enjoying the success of the individual, if necessary the individual on the losing team in the small market.

A million Cubs fans can't all be wrong.

Bartman and Starr Foul Out
According to Homer Simpson, baseball is boring without beer. He should stick to what he knows, running a cartoon nuclear power plant.

Nevertheless, a friend's marriage to a non-baseball-fan bride was easier to take when he made her realize that while she watches a game, people will bring her beer. He converted her in two games.

Unfortunately, Valerie is on the latest no-carb fad to lose weight. As a result, she has been watching baseball games without the benefit of hops. I should say Valerie spent the week of her 40th birthday in Las Vegas, announcing periodically, "I'm starting to feel a little sober." Valerie will undoubtedly lose weight just by giving up the beer. She drank plenty, and a well-known rule of physics is that each 12-ounce beer will add two pounds to a person's mass.

The good news is that Valerie has discovered baseball is a good game even without the beer, Homer Simpson jokes notwithstanding. The bad news is that she may never catch a foul ball.

That's just speculation, but drunkenness seems to be the most obvious explanation for why people embarrass themselves diving into steel and concrete stadiums in search of a leather covered ball retailing for less than $5.

Just as Steve Bartman was fading back into obscurity, along comes Matt Starr to display no sense at all about what a fan should be paying attention to in the stands.

Bartman was the Cubs fan who stabbed at the fly ball that was within reach of Cubs outfielder Moises Alou, doing his part to keep Florida alive in the 2003 National League Championship Series. Generously polite statements by Alou and others claim the team should have won anyway, but most fans think Bartman's out would have snuffed any momentum for the Marlins.

Starr is the guy in Texas who knocked a 4-year-old against a seat in the lunge for a foul ball during interleague play with the Cardinals.

Bartman and Starr both crafted lovely apologies, so maybe public humiliation is a good catalyst for unlocking a person's powers of communication. Not everyone was a victim, either. Bartman's Cubs had to watch the World Series for another year because of his grab, but Starr's victim received balls and bats and tickets from all over, eventually even from Starr. How 4-year-old Nick O'Brien feels is unclear, but plenty of grown men would be willing to stand on their heads and do funny tricks for the baseball signed by Nolan Ryan, which of course, in a manner of speaking, is what caused the problems in the first place.

Ron Luciano, the umpire, claimed even minor league baseballs seem to suspend fans' logic. In "The Umpire Strikes Back," Luciano claimed he distributed game balls as tips while working his way through the minors.

Even amateur baseballs seem to have an attraction. Seminole State College baseball coach Lloyd Simmons had his players handing out worn practice balls to fans at the junior college world series, making his team a fans' favorite, even if they never won.

Not every fan goes goofy for a ball from the game. I have a major league baseball somewhere in this house. "Balking" Bob Davidson, following his emergency call up to umpire in the National League, walking to his hotel room after the game, gave a ball to my then 4-year-old son. The child looked at the ball for a while, and gave it to my wife, who packed it for home, where the boy promptly lost it in his closet, where I suspect it remains 19 years later. I'm sure he never took it with the .2 percent of his belongings he actually moved out.

The solution to baseball's foul ball excesses is to put only the smart or hard-to-impress fans near the field. Bartman and Starr probably deserve second chances. After all, Bartman paid plenty, having to leave the expensive seats under police escort. However, the next time the home team fan gets in the way of an out or some would-be fullback clears the crowd to jab at a foul ball, the sobriety police are going to have to cut off the beer.

The solution to cluttered closets is to wait until the kids have jobs and houses and sneak the belongings back to them under cover of night.

The Trouble with Waiters
Americans everywhere need to adopt the pledge to patronize no more restaurants with chirpy waiters. On my last visit to the Olive Garden, a Britney/Devin/Jen/Buffy character actually volunteered what her favorite menu items were. I'm sure if I had lingered over dessert she would have started talking about dreams. She volunteered her name too, but I resolutely refuse to learn any waiter's name until the person actually becomes a friend.

Chain restaurant America appears to not understand something basic. When Britney/Devin/Jen/Buffy introduces herself, she only stresses the ephemeral nature of our relationship. At the restaurants we like, we know the waiters' names. Jorge, at Abuelita's Mexican restaurant in Shawnee, Oklahoma, doesn't recite a tape recorded instruction from corporate headquarters on how to increase tips. He really is glad to see me. I'm glad to see him, too. He has my favorite drink and salsa on my table in less time than Britney/Devin/Jen/Buffy can say "Hi, my name is . . . . "

Let me say here, that I have nothing against cute names or the people who bear them. Maybe the young, hip, overpriced restaurants have entire staffs of people named Sue and David, but that never seems to be the case, which raises the question of whether Shakespeare was right. I'm guessing a rose by the name of Britney/Devin/Jen/Buffy would be plastic. Anyway, the full routine is "Hi, my name is Britney/Devin/Jen/Buffy, and I'll be your server. Could I start you off with an appetizer. Our special today is . . . . "

I'm not just the would-be baseball commissioner. In the meantime, I'm also an English teacher, and I worry about these people. They need to quit stating the obvious. Education, however, is a difficult business, and some of the best responses are obviously ill-advised for someone preparing my food:

"Well, that certainly explains the apron."

"Do you mind if I call you Beeblewix?"

"Well, that's nice, but I'm still going to call you Waiter."

"My name is Jeff, and I'm going to be your baseball commissioner."

No, we need to educate these people, but we don't to be mean. In the best tradition of Skinnerian conditioning, we need to somehow convince them they will receive more response to the meaningful than to the trivial. The best response is a blank stare followed by a question on some completely different restaurant matter. Unfortunately, my wife is more nervous about silence than I am, and probably more polite as well. She usually is declining the appetizer while I'm still rearranging my eyebrows. When you join this crusade to make waiters think about what they're saying, don't take my wife. Baseball fans understand that results count. If the player hits .300 for a few years, we'll know his name. In the meantime, the rookies defer to the people who have the money.

"I don't care what your name is, but if the food is good, and the service is good, I'm prepared to come back often and tip well, and I might even look at the check to find your name so that I can ask for you again."