Going Going Gone: How MLB Is Destroying Our National Pastime

By Eric Marcus

CHAPTER 14 | THE FUTURE

CHAPTER 14 | THE FUTURE

GOING, GOING, GONE.

GOING, GOING, GONE.

Book

Going, going, gone. That was how many MLB broadcasters would describe home runs, which were my favorite aspect of my favorite sport, baseball. That is where the title of this book originated. Sadly, MLB has been changing over the past several years. My favorite sport has become maddening, difficult to watch, and the adoration I had for MLB players and teams has evaporated. This book describes my opinions on what has happened to MLB, which I believe is destroying its future. The book starts with my childhood experiences and favorite MLB heroes, which I believe many fans of my generation, in particular, can understand and relate to. I am hoping it sparks similar fond memories for my readers.

The book moves on to the top reasons why MLB has been diminished, and now it has a very uncertain long-term future.

These are all my opinions, and my hope is that it increases the reader's understanding of what is happening to the sport I once loved so much.

--Eric L. Marcus

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887930459

Book preview

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Going Going Gone

How MLB Is Destroying Our National Pastime

Eric Marcus

Copyright © 2022 Eric Marcus

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

Edited By:

Sue Wogatske

Graphic Design By: Matthew Marcus

ISBN 979-8-88793-040-4 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88793-045-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Childhood and Baseball

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Transplanted

Amazing Pennant Races

Three Catches and One Souvenir

The Decline Begins

Lollygaggers and Poor Attitudes

Cheaters and Liars

The Lost Art of Umpiring

Rule Changes

TV Coverage

Gambling on MLB Games

Minor League Baseball

The Future

About the Author

Prologue

The date is Tuesday afternoon, October 16, 1962. The place is Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California. That was the date of game seven of the Major League Baseball World Series between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. I was seven years old, and my father Manny was having a World Series party at our home in East Meadow, New York. Several of the street dads with their sons, my friends, arrived to watch the big game together.

My first baseball memory is of that day. I marveled at the intensity and thorough enjoyment all were having watching this game. This was the deciding game seven after all! The best of the best baseball had to offer, and a perfect culmination to our national pastime's season that had provided some of the greatest moments.

The World Series games were always played during the day, perfect for kids to be able to watch. In fact, in East Meadow, which is on Long Island, schools closed early that year for each of the weekday games. We all huddled around our five-channel black-and-white televisions.

It had been a fantastic back-and-forth World Series, one of the best in MLB history. The games feature many immortals of the game, such as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and several others. Game seven was a wickedly intense one-to-nothing game. The Yankees being able to score a run in the fifth inning as Moose Skowron scored on a hit by Clete Boyer. Ralph Terry was pitching for our hometown Yankees. His third start of the series in nine days. He had remarkably held the powerful Giants line up to one single hit from Willie McCovey as we watched the bottom of the ninth inning unfold.

Despite the incredible excitement of the last inning, the room was silent. All the men gathered with their sons, riveted to the TV. The Giants used combined hits from pinch hitter Jose Pagan and Willie Mays to place runners at second and third. They were the world championship tying and winning runners. Terry had to be running on fumes at that point, but he had pitched brilliantly. Yankee Manager Ralph Houk was not about to pull his series ace even though the left-handed young monster McCovey was coming to the plate.

The look of anticipation, excitement, and nervousness on my dad's face—I remember to this day. We all knew any base hit to the outfield at windy Candlestick would score the speedy Mays and end our dreams of another Yankees championship.

McCovey worked the count to three and two. Ralph Terry's pride and determination were on full display now. He was not going to back down by walking McCovey even though first base was open.

I had never felt that way before. My father had his hands clasped together. He couldn't bear to watch, but of course had to. A couple of foul balls on three and two only heightened the excitement of the moment. And then crack! Willie McCovey sends this missile of a line drive toward the right side of the infield. The moment of truth. I could hear my dad and his friends gasp in unison. The ball is snared by Bobby Richardson at second base to end the series in victory, and the screams of jubilation would last into the evening hours. This was the day my passion for baseball was born.

Introduction

As you might surmise from the book's title, the passion I had for Major League Baseball has evaporated. The game I adored as a kid and young adult has become unwatchable to me.

This saddens me enough to write this book. I am a sports junkie, but my love of baseball was always supreme. The passion for watching and playing was for me one of my favorite aspects in life.

So the intent here is to talk about a lost era. To recount some of my best memories from watching and attending MLB games. Many of my readers will not have lived through some of these exciting and remarkable games, players, and accomplishments. The happiest of times where I was so fortunately able to also attend live games many times. Sharing these memories can give you an understanding of what I felt. The joyous times, the bitter disappointment, and the respect I had for my baseball heroes.

Sadly, today's kids have nowhere near the respect and admiration of MLB players I experienced growing up. Another nice aspect of baseball was that the game spawned its own special language and catchphrases. You will see some of these in this book I show in parenthesis.

The second intent is to point out all of the changes that have occurred to MLB that have made me go from watching or going to many games to honest indifference toward MLB. There are a plethora of things MLB has done which have so diminished the once national pastime. I want the reader to see, in particular, my view of the awful decisions, the unfathomable greed, the cheating, the crazy rule changes, and the way games are now telecast. So be prepared for the top ten ways MLB is destroying our national pastime.

There are two special thanks to start this book. One is for my father who passed at age fifty-three in 1975. He enrolled me in little league, played softball, and took me to many games at Shea and Yankee stadiums. Secondly, I wish to thank my wife of forty years, Eileen, who I love and who has put up with my sports addiction, including all the up-and-down emotional behavior I have often displayed. Please forgive the New York slant in this book, for it was the center of my baseball universe in my youth.

Chapter 1

Childhood and Baseball

My dad, Manny, was not actually a big Yankees fan. Growing up in Queens, New York, he was a huge New York Giants fan. Definitely a National League guy. I learned that the way in New York is that you would love your team with all your heart and despise the other New York teams with similar passion. Back in his day they would listen to the Giants games on the radio, listening with anticipation of what that day's game would bring.

He taught me to appreciate baseball for all its overall sportsmanship, great players, intriguing situations, wild emotions, and the human interaction on the field. He told me baseball was in his blood. In 1962 on that day I knew it was in mine too. He was heartbroken when his Giants moved to San Francisco in 1961, but he understood that New York having three teams and the West Coast having none would not last as the country's population and MLB popularity grew. His equally loyal friends, rabid fans themselves, and neighbors were in shock when both the Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved out the same year. Did they have to lose both National League teams?

What I didn't inherit was the intense dislike of the other New York teams. I loved the Yankees and would watch them on TV at home or at friend's house. When the next year the New York Mets were created, I instantly loved them and followed them equally as much. The short hiatus of National League baseball was over.

Most parents and kids alike I knew at that point who hated the Yankees before still could continue to hate them now and root for the Mets. Not me. I was apparently a rare breed who would love all the New York teams. I could not get enough Yankee or Met games and would follow the games on TV and the radio every day I could during the season.

Manny also taught me how much wicked fun it was to play baseball. We would toss a real baseball