At least two things have been enjoyed by Americans for the last 106 years; Ford Automobiles and the World Series. Both had their inceptions in 1903.
Both baseball and automobiles, in some fashion, had been around since the late 1700's, but Ford and the World Series are responsible for mass producing their respective products for U.S. consumers. Can you fathom the U.S. without our affordable mass-produced cars? Or our mass-produced Baseball franchises? How would we get anywhere? And what would we do all summer?
Just more anecdotal evidence that U.S. History and Baseball go hand in glove... or mitt.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Doubt Era
Whenever I have tired of the "sky is falling" news in the past few months I have turned the TV and/or radio to sports news. What struck me was though I thought I was pleasantly engaging in escapism I was really hearing the exact same story. Of course the names of the players were different, but the underlying theme is the same: We (Americans) have lowered our moral and ethical standards in exchange for artificially inflated numbers.
Want a bigger house? Here, write this number down as your salary. Everyone is doing it!
Hey man, wanna make it to the Pros? Try this. Everyone is doing it.
You better live up to this expectation of 20% growth!
You better live up to this 20 Million Dollar contract!
Whether it's Madoff, Countrywide, Lehman Brothers and AIG... or A-Rod, Clemens, McGuire and Barry Bonds it really is the same base philosophy: Produce bigger, faster and stronger numbers regardless of the cost and/or consequence.
The consequences? Well, for starters our economy is in shambles. The economic devastation is widespread. People have lost lifetimes of retirement...we've lost jobs... we've lost entire industries! Baseball players may not have equally far reaching consequences for juicing, but in the end there will be consequences from their actions. Some of them will have health issues. Others- like the innocent kids who idolize their heroic performance- may hurt themselves in an attempt to mimic their heroes by using PEDs.
But for all of us it has created The Doubt Era. When investing money we've become doubtful of companies' performance. When seeing a home run we've secretly placed an asterisk next to the box score. There's an uncertainty to the true strength and validity of it all, and our walks through Wall Street and Cooperstown will never be the same. The people that were supposed to be holding the moral compass left it behind when they found a fast track to "success." While everyone knew about this, we all turned our heads so our egos and our check books could grow.
What must emerge from all of this is the next generation of leaders, with a revised definition of success. It's not who can be bigger, faster and stronger... it's who can be bigger, faster and stronger with the least amount of harm and the most amount of good. Okay, maybe that's not a revised definition, but it's worth repeating since it seems as though some people missed that day in class- the day when your teacher tells you not to be a greedy bastard...
It was this epiphany that led to the creation of this blog. For years- only a casual baseball fan- I have questioned if the sport is really still relevant as "America's Pastime." What I'm beginning to realize is... yes. Not only is baseball relevant as our pastime, but it represents us culturally. No other American sport seems to manifest our own culture and values as much as baseball has, does and undoubtedly will... for better or worse. Lately, worse!
Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. America and Baseball have had their ups and downs. And for every scandal in baseball there has been dozens (if not hundreds) of heroic moments. For every loss in our economy there's been even bigger gains! Undoubtedly things will get better as we clean up our balance sheets and our clubhouses.
But without question, baseball is U.S.
Want a bigger house? Here, write this number down as your salary. Everyone is doing it!
Hey man, wanna make it to the Pros? Try this. Everyone is doing it.
You better live up to this expectation of 20% growth!
You better live up to this 20 Million Dollar contract!
Whether it's Madoff, Countrywide, Lehman Brothers and AIG... or A-Rod, Clemens, McGuire and Barry Bonds it really is the same base philosophy: Produce bigger, faster and stronger numbers regardless of the cost and/or consequence.
The consequences? Well, for starters our economy is in shambles. The economic devastation is widespread. People have lost lifetimes of retirement...we've lost jobs... we've lost entire industries! Baseball players may not have equally far reaching consequences for juicing, but in the end there will be consequences from their actions. Some of them will have health issues. Others- like the innocent kids who idolize their heroic performance- may hurt themselves in an attempt to mimic their heroes by using PEDs.
But for all of us it has created The Doubt Era. When investing money we've become doubtful of companies' performance. When seeing a home run we've secretly placed an asterisk next to the box score. There's an uncertainty to the true strength and validity of it all, and our walks through Wall Street and Cooperstown will never be the same. The people that were supposed to be holding the moral compass left it behind when they found a fast track to "success." While everyone knew about this, we all turned our heads so our egos and our check books could grow.
What must emerge from all of this is the next generation of leaders, with a revised definition of success. It's not who can be bigger, faster and stronger... it's who can be bigger, faster and stronger with the least amount of harm and the most amount of good. Okay, maybe that's not a revised definition, but it's worth repeating since it seems as though some people missed that day in class- the day when your teacher tells you not to be a greedy bastard...
It was this epiphany that led to the creation of this blog. For years- only a casual baseball fan- I have questioned if the sport is really still relevant as "America's Pastime." What I'm beginning to realize is... yes. Not only is baseball relevant as our pastime, but it represents us culturally. No other American sport seems to manifest our own culture and values as much as baseball has, does and undoubtedly will... for better or worse. Lately, worse!
Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. America and Baseball have had their ups and downs. And for every scandal in baseball there has been dozens (if not hundreds) of heroic moments. For every loss in our economy there's been even bigger gains! Undoubtedly things will get better as we clean up our balance sheets and our clubhouses.
But without question, baseball is U.S.
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