THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090247
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
The fans will cave. The newspapers will cave. Television will cave.
Forget what was said before or felt before. Soon, we all will cave.
If we haven't already.
We will cave because, even after the strike and the countless charges of player and owner betrayal, people understand that there is only one product labeled ``Major League Baseball.''
It's true that we long ago stopped cluttering our minds with details of labor strife. But with baseball back, we will watch. We will care. We won't be able to help ourselves.
If there are holdouts among us, they will come from a group that tries to make baseball something it is not.
To most fans, the game is a television show. As long as baseball is on TV - every day and night, four or five channels a day, highlights at 11 - it will be in our thoughts, and on our minds, what's left of them.
But what about the scene at the stadiums? Will the strike result in significant fan fallout in some cities? Perhaps, at first, in some places.
But not in Baltimore, where there are 47,000 fans ready, willing and able to trade places, if need be, with the 47,000 who usually overflow Camden Yards.
Not in Boston, which is nuts about the Red Sox, and wants to see Jose Canseco demolish the Green Monster.
And do you think New Yorkers will stay away from Yankee Stadium if Steinbrenner's mercenaries are as good as advertised?
And what of Denver? There, fans would flock to new Coors Field to watch the grass grow.
Despite what you may have heard, the residue of resentment left over from the strike will not result in wholesale fan defections.
For one thing, the resentment is overrated. It has been given voice by squawk radio and countless editorials, but most people learned to live quite comfortably without worrying about the game or its problems. In truth, there was always more apathy than anger.
A sure way to misinterpret the public's mood is to mistake the mythology of baseball for the current relevancy of the actual product.
Often, when people discuss baseball today, they are really talking about two different games.
One is identified by the quaint notion of the national pastime. In this context, baseball is a metaphor for life. It is the fabric of society, a link to generations, an enduring institution.
This is the game as poetry. As religion. As a Ken Burns documentary. It belongs in a museum, in the George Will wing. It's a game most fans don't relate to.
Actually, it is television, not any sport, that is our national pastime. As a result, the tube increases baseball's popularity. But, at the same time, it diminishes the game by reducing it to just another line in the TV listings, no better or worse than Larry King or ``Home Improvement.''
If baseball's emotional appeal actually depended on our believing in its enduring qualities, its unchanging nature, fans would be turned off by free agency.
Long ago, free agency took something from the baseball fan. It robbed him of the intimacy between player and city. Loyalty meant nothing anymore.
So what happened? Attendance skyrocketed.
It skyrocketed because, for most people, baseball is not religion but idle entertainment. Fathers enjoy the game because it is the only major sports attraction they still can afford. Kids love the idea of a night at the ballpark because of the hot dogs and because they are given a hat or water bottle at the gate.
In general, baseball's appeal is really no more complicated, or mystical, than this. Most fans are not poets or pundits. They are consumers. Or they are viewers who are trained to watch.
How quickly will people return to major league baseball?
How fast can you push the button on your remote control? by CNB