The Thrill Is Gone

I’m still a baseball fan… a Yankee fan; but, I’m not anything like the baseball freak I was once upon a time. It’s no wonder I was something of a math whiz when I was a kid, the way I used to pour over the daily box scores and monitor the stats wars. By the time I was 10, I had memorized the Red Book, the encyclopedia of baseball stats and records, cover to cover. And, although my enthusiasm for the game lessened over the years, I remained a dedicated fan.

But, now, in the wake of the steroid/performance-enhancing-drug scandal, I find my interest in ye olde national pastime has fallen to new depths. The endless revelations regarding McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Clemens, Bonds, A-Rod, Giambi, Ramirez, not to mention scores of fringe players, have made me an unabashed skeptic, distrusting the performances of all players.

Now, if someone’s knocking the snot out of the ball, I know they’re on the juice. It’s obvious. Contrarily, if they are mired in a slump, like Big Papi has been thus far in the 2009 season, I automatically think that their prior success was the result of steroid use and that, now, they are off the juice. That’s just the way it is.

While I was watching a game the other day, the players suddenly appeared to me stripped of all magic, lure, and charisma. There was nothing special about them at all – they were just a bunch of pitiful old men getting paid big bucks for playing a little kids’ game.

Will baseball ever recover from this mess?

Will I?