THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140607
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
If forced to, even baseball poets, boxscore junkies and Rotisserie League wonks will get on with their lives.
This revelation comes to us courtesy of the baseball strike.
Despite media hand wringing, I have yet to meet anyone who has broken out in hives over the ruined baseball season.
Everyone from talk-radio gasbags to New York Times editorial writers tells us that it is the fans who are suffering most from this work stoppage.
Don't think so.
The players are hurting more than the fans.
Predictions of what the strike would do to America's psyche don't seem to be coming true. Millions of Americans still are able to get out of bed each day and choke down their morning cup of coffee and live active, useful lives.
Seems that the fans have adjusted very well to baseball's absence. Much to their own surprise.
There is a great big world out there. Baseball is only a small part.
Given a month to contemplate the obvious, even many of the junkies have seen the light. They have moved on to something else, anything else.
Baseball will always be important to our culture, and not just as a vehicle for George Will columns.
But everything in our up-linked, cable-ready world moves so quickly now. More quickly than in 1981, when baseball went on strike for 50 days.
Our attention span was longer in '81. Today there are simply more distractions. Baseball is meant to fill a void. But if not baseball, something else will do.
Television is making more and more sports available to more and more people. As a result, there are already too many leagues pumping too many games into our living rooms.
So many games. And so few worth watching in the first place.
College and pro football have helped soften the blow of the baseball strike. But football teams play only one day a week. What if it turns out that men have used the baseball blackout as an excuse to rediscover another national pastime?
(Memo to myself: Call around next spring. Find out if America is enjoying a baby boomlet. See how many parents have named their newborns after Donald Fehr, Richard Ravitch or Bud Selig.)
Not wanting to appear frazzled, Selig allowed himself to be seen attending a Green Bay Packers game last Sunday.
Selig's presence illustrated the arrogance of baseball ownership. As acting commissioner, Selig should have been in New York. He should have been talking with people. He should have been doing everything in his power to bring players and owners closer together. Instead, he thumbed his nose at caring baseball fans by whiling away what is left of this summer at a football game.
Selig's decision to take in a Packers game was an indication of something else, too: It was a reflection of an America that can't wait to move on to the next thing.
Don't pay attention to the gasbags and obituary writers. When baseball returns, so will the fans. This is as it should be.
The game is hurting, of course. And Selig is right when he says, ``You would have to be naive and inane to not understand there has been damage done.''
But America, it seems, has surprised itself with how easily it has coped. A nation of fans has discovered that a life without baseball does not have to be such a terrible thing. by CNB