Cranes Corner: 6-22-21 No Vaccine for the Fandemic.

Crane's Corner

I’m not a kid and I live 2817 miles from Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, But any late afternoon or early evening between April and October, you are most likely to find me sitting in from of the television, watching a bunch of spoiled millionaires, or soon to be millionaires, trying not to break a nail, pull a hammy or get hit with one of those Coppertone juiced baseballs hurled 100 miles an hour by a tobacco spitting student of physics. Thanks to satellite technology and The Firestick I get my daily fix of what is described as Major League Baseball, but actually resembles a traveling self-help group for a talented but tradition challenged roster of some 1000 whiners.

Now to be fair, it’s not entirely their fault. Mom and Dad or some other adult in their life coddled them until releasing them to their current caretakers, the coaches, managers, owners and Commissioner of the Game. My friend Steve Sax, a West Sacramento kid who played for the games elite franchises...the Dodgers and Yankees says the games have been reduced to Romper Room with bases. Rarely does any player go a whole week without a day or two off, to work on his sunflower seed spitting, bubble blowing, I Phone gaze at his investments or check out the potential ,homewreckers down the third base line, who might be laughing at his jokes before falling into their 4th post game margarita. Pitchers rarely make it past the 6th inning, lest they have an ouchie tomorrow morning. Close plays are reviewed by old umps with worsening eye site who even with 16 cameras and slow motion usually miss what the average fan saw with their own eyes in real time, Double headers, once played most Sundays by guys in hot flannel suits, are only scheduled to make up a rainout, and they’re mere 7 inning contests---day night affairs to allow for the players to have a nappy, and the owners a fresh set of suckers--er fans...to buy up the 16 different uniform color combination gear in their 45 dollar box seats as they cheer on their team with a watery ten dollar brewski.

After juicing the ball to allow for more home runs, paying no mind as the players juiced themselves to hit them, baseball changed the rules. Now, with everyone but the ball girls topping 100 on the radar gun, baseball is suddenly shocked by the pitcher's chicanery. More surprised than Bob Baffert with a positive drug test Really? Pitchers and hitters have been playing a cat and mouse game since the 19the century. Ask Steve Sax to name a couple of pitchers who shall we say enhanced the spin, curve or drop rate of a baseball and he’ll tell you it would be easier to name the few who didn’t. Why has it been going on since Ed Crane, the man they called Cannonball pitched in the late 80’s and 90’s. 18 80’s and 90’s. It wasn’t the substance that Crane put on the baseballs that ruined his career, it was the alcoholic post game refreshments.

As for another Ed Crane who loved the game. He was done in by his Mother’s well-intentioned attention to detail. For Christmas she presented me with a First Baseman’s glove that came with a curse. The mitt was the Dick Stuart autograph model. Stuart’s bat was feared--his glove not so much. He led the National League in errors for years--but he could laugh about--his car sporting the vanity plate E-3. Actually the glove was fine. It was high school curve balls that convinced me I couldn’t hit for a living, so I better start talking.

The game’s not the same. The players earn too much and complain too much, but the Mets are in first and I’m still rooting for em. There’s no vaccine for the Fandemic.