O/T - All Star game

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

First off, congrats to the NL. Now, here’s my rant. Douche bags like Brian Wilson and Prince Fielder are what’s wrong with baseball today. If Wilson wants to look like an Al Qaeda terrorist, he should be treated like one. If Fielder wants to cover his body in tattoos, put him in prison like the thug he is.

Please don’t give me this crap about them just expressing themselves or marching to the beat of their own drum. That’s BS! They have absolutely no respect for the game or the history of the game. You would have never seen Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Musial, etc with a mohawk and/or scraggly beard and tattoos all over their body.

And what’s up with Wilson flashing gang signs after his save? I’ve got a hand sign for Wilson and I only have to use one finger. If you’re a Giants of Brewers fan, you should be ashamed of these two idiots. They should be removed them from the gene pool.

Loved your post, David--you sound like me when I'm at my most cantankerous best! Times have just changed quite a bit from when we grew up, I guess. The game started to become much more about "me, me, me" to the players with the advent of free agency, and the fans, without whom there is no commercial enterprise or professional sports at all, were in large part left behind, with little to nothing to say as to how players were to conduct themselves on the field. Personally I don't mind their demonstrations of individuality as much as I used to. I'd love to have Jose Reyes or Andrew McCutcheon for our Detroit Tigers, simply because these guys can really play. My wife almost fainted when I told her I really liked their dread locks!

I do agree with Brian that if I'm pitching and some hip, homerun hitting dude styled his way around the bases after hitting one off me, he'd better enjoy it just that one time, and be real loose the next time he came to bat. He'd also better expect to hit the dirt, because he would definitely be going down! The hitter has every right to conduct his own celebration, and the pitcher the right and means to insist on being treated in a respectful manner. Oftentimes who wins these confrontations comes down to matchups. I never saw Bob Gibson, tough as he was, throw at Willie Horton, though the latter would dig quite a foothold in the batters box during the '68 World Series. Horton had fought in the golden glooves when he was just 15, and earlier in his career Earl Wilson(all 6'3'' and 220+ lbs of him), then with the Red Sox threw at him in an attempt to move him off the plate. Horton walked halfway out to the mound and told Wilson, "Man, you can be moved just like a mountain," meaning broken up into little pieces and carried off. Horton had no further trouble with Wilson after that.

All the best,

Larry

[vintagetoppsguy]

Thanks, Larry. I think you’re one of the few that actually understood my post. Some wanted to make it an issue about tattoos or something else. It wasn’t meant to be about tattoos or anything else - it was only meant to be about respect (or lack of) for the game. Tattoos have been around for centuries, yet you never saw Musial with them all over his arms and/or neck. Piercings have been around for centuries, yet you never saw Mays with a ring trough his nose, lip, eyebrow, etc. Mohawks have been around for centuries, yet Aaron never sported one. Scraggly beards have been around for centuries, yet Brooks Robinson never looked like ZZ Top. Why? Because they had too much respect for themselves and the game. There is very little respect for the game nowadays and it shows in the player’s appearances.

Another thing that bothers me is these players (like Jeter) that are selected, but choose not to play. I may be wrong, but I don’t think Mays ever refused to play in an All-Star game – nor Ted Williams, Musial, Spahn, etc. Then again, those guys new something about serving, because they had all served their country – not like the douche bags of today that have lost all respect for the game.

[ErikV]

Larry,

While there may be some truth to free agency bringing about change
to baseball, I disagree that free agency was the evolution of the "me,
me, me" ballplayer.

I recently watched Ken Burns 10th Inning. In it, Burns brought up a
excellent point, one that I support. It was right after the 1994 strike
that Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played streak.
The attention and praise Ripken got was unprescented. With the
creation of ESPN and the internet, Ripken's personal achievement
was the story. Fans embraced it. If you look back, that one event
was the turning point to baseball becoming what it is today. Look
at the way Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and any pitcher who throws
a perfect game get glorified in the eyes of fans and the media. It's
a far cry from what Roger Maris got in 1961.

Today's players seem to thrive for the media attention and spotlight.
The more extravagent the look (tattoos, hairdo, beard, etc) it makes
them [B]stand out[B]. I don't like it. Not one bit. Someone mentioned
on an earlier post that baseball is no longer the great game it once
was, it's now liken to professional wrestling, just another form of
entertainment, using baseball as it's medium.

ErikV

[FourStrikes]

...Fear the beard???