Red Sox Remarks

If you know me, you know that baseball fandom has been a big part of my life.

I was born in Brooklyn into a Dodger family. I went to games at Ebbetts Field during every season from 1954 to 1957, and then my team abandoned me. I was unaffiliated for four bleak seasons and then I attached myself to the Mets in their inaugural season -- 1962. I attended quite a number of games at the Polo Grounds during the two seasons the Mets played there. I even saw them win a few.

I am sad to say that I feel my passion for the game slipping away. There are many reasons for this, like inter-league games being played every day, and two also-rans from each league getting admitted to post-season play as wild card teams. But the biggest challenge to my fandom is the transient nature of major league rosters. Teams are not really teams anymore.

Case in point: consider the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox. In 2012, they had finished in last place. Then they achieved a complete reversal of fortune. They sailed through the 2013 regular season and the post-season with not so much as a speed bump along the way.

The Red Sox went into the 2013 post-season with six reputable starting pitchers. One of them, Ryan Dempster, was relegated to bullpen duty for the playoffs. The other five were Buchholz, Lester, Lackey, Doubront, and Peavey. That was a formidable, championship-worthy starting rotation. What happened? Today, August 3rd, 2014, only one of the six from last year, Buchholz, is still on the Red Sox roster. And the Red Sox are a safe bet to finish in last place place again.

Now I know I'm acting like an old fogey who says "in my day, sonny..." I developed a strong bond with the Dodgers because the players didn't change from year to year. Some were Hall-of-Famers: Reese, Robinson, Snider, Campanella. And then there was Gil Hodges. Why isn't HE in the Hall of Fame? Let's not forget Carl Furillo, Junior Gilliam, Billy Cox. And the pitchers! Erskine, Newcombe, Preacher Roe in the rotation. Labine, Roebuck and Bessent in the bullpen.

Today, you can rarely develop a long-term attachment to a player. Will Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter be the last Hall-of-Famers to play their whole careers with one team? There are other possibilities. Verlander, Pedroia, and Mike Trout are three examples of players who have been with only one team and who have careers that are on a trajectory towards Cooperstown. But don't be surprised if they don't conclude their careers with their original team.

So what is a team today? For whom are you rooting? Met fans had a rare experience of seeing one of their pitchers, R.A. Dickey, win the Cy Young Award in 2012. The next year? Gone. Being a fan today is like having Alzheimer's disease. You're always meeting new people. How sad.