Over the past two days, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has been airing the latest documentary by Ken Burns entitled Baseball The Tenth Inning, which is a follow-up to his 1994 film Baseball. This new documentary highlights the troublesome 1990s of the National Pastime which includes the Steroid Era and the labor strike that caused the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. It was these events and Major League Baseball’s reaction (or lack of reaction) to these indignities that caused my own strike from baseball (as mentioned in a previous blog entry).
With this documentary on the air, it seemed to a be good segue into this ceditra entry from September 7, which had as its random genesis an advertisement in The Washington Post for Washington Post Wednesdays offering five dollars off Washington Nationals home games:
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It appears that my old habit of hitting advertisements when a newspaper was selected. In the old days of this experiment, the newspaper of choice was USA Today and the last few entries, if memory serves, were about ads.
Back to today and our subject is baseball. I have written about my boycott of baseball so there’s no need to go there again.
An aspect of my boycott is that I am not passing on my love of baseball and the game to my children. I don’t watch it on TV with my kids and, with one exception, we have not taken them to a Nationals game (and even then it was only because the tickets were free). Therefore, my trio of progeny have a limited exposure of the National Pastime.
Tied to that is the fact that, with one exception, my boys have not played youth baseball at any level. Jared played T-ball for one season, but didn’t go back to the game because he thought T-ball, at that level, was boring (there was no fielding, every batter hit the ball and only ran to first base). Christopher, now twelve, has never played but he did ask last week if he could start. I am concerned that since he has never played that he would be at a disadvantage against all the other kids who have been playing since they were a fetus.
But then again, if he wants to play, why shouldn’t I let him?
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Back to today and I now may have the possibility to regain my love of the game and to introduce my children to baseball without going through Major League Baseball as the news was announced that a new professional baseball team, the Loudoun Hounds, is coming to my neck of northern Virginia.
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