Bash Bluster

Derek Zumsteg

I think baseball needs publicity like Don King needs cameras, but I'm growing uneasy over the course of this season. Media coverage of the "Maris Chase" has brought a great deal of attention to this sport, but I fear the coverage has grown reckless and in the end could do more harm than good.

If Michael Jordan threatened (um, his own) scoring title, and the media hounded him (um, more than usual), there would still be a good story every day. He could have a terrible day, score twenty points, and the news story would be 'Jordan scores twenty points' with footage of Jordan making some junior guard look like a fool with a pivot move.

Now with the constant McGwire-Sosa coverage, there's something different, and it's bad. If they have a good game, hitting four singles but no homers, that's been a negative story. "McGwire failed to hit a homer today." It's lost that he had a great game by anyone's standards.

Also, McGwire's only going to hit a homer once in about ten at-bats, so when your home team's game is interrupted to see McGwire's plate appearances, it's pretty likely you're not going to get anything out of the deal. But you're led to believe that McGwire smashes home runs at will, and they're breaking away to show you the next one. And when they're breaking away to show both McGwire and Sosa, it's double the annoyance.

But even that annoyance isn't as bad as the constant 'always a story' machine they've got going. Witness the Cubs-Cardinals series this past weekend. Hyped in print as 'The Chase gets personal' (what does that mean? Go ask Gammons - he comes up with this stuff), when they both failed to hit homers it was a huge story - "Both Sosa, McGwire fail to homer" - and the actual game was no big deal. As the series progressed, it was like that every day. But as McGwire tries to tell people, the home run record doesn't matter - only the wins.

This skewed perspective has a weird effect on the game. Is a baseball game about winning a ballgame or trying to get McGwire more PAs (LaRussa, put your hand down)? You can't watch Griffey at the plate without seeing Joey Cora make an error; you can't see McGwire without that overpaid outfield. Baseball is a game of balance, where only the best (i.e., Houston) can put together well-balanced teams on a reasonable payroll. That's the game, not two guys who will account for only a ninth of the batters that day.

I do watch baseball games to see Alex Rodriguez play, because I think he's easily the best player in the game, but the value in baseball for me comes from watching the whole game, because if you pay close attention you can see something you've never seen before, in every single game. I fear that with the media encouraging everyone to squint at two, three, or four players, people will be disappointed in the game and not be patient enough to discover its joys.

Derek Zumsteg is on pace to set an Internet record for the most mentions of Don King in articles unrelated to boxing or lawsuits. You can interview him only on alternating Tuesdays at dmz@strikethree.com.