Play Ball
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

It has been said that culture is religion externalized; I would suggest that sport is culture ritualized. As Gladiator became the circus of choice in our culture, I couldn't help but wonder why. Did we like watching the Roman culture at its most decadent such that we could feel better about our own culture, or did we like watching Roman culture at its most decadent, because we are as decadent as they? Yes, neither any real actors nor Russell Crowe were actually hurt during the filming of those scenes; we all knew that. But didn't we pay for the privilege of making a part of ourselves believe it was real? They didn't merely tell us what it was like, they showed us. And we did drink. While the Romans were vicariously bloodthirsty, we are circumspectly bloodthirsty. They watch others spilling blood, and we pretend we like it for some other reason.

That shift, or decline, in our culture works itself out not only in the movies we watch but in the sports we watch as well. It was once said that baseball was America's pastime; but we have passed that time. Sure, the revenue is still there. People still go to the games, and a few even listen to the games. But that is fading fast. It's not ultimately scandals and greedy players and greedy owners that are killing the game. Instead we are no longer worthy of it. When men gather around the watercooler at work, or around the pew before church, it is unlikely that we will be talking baseball. We would have talked of nothing else forty years ago or more. Now we are apt to grunt our way through a conversation on the latest Winston Cup race, the latest tag team Texas death match featuring The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin against Rowdy Roddy Piper and Hollywood Hogan, or the prospects of our favorite football or hockey team, all of which come with the promise of blood and pain.

Like Gladiator, we know the wrestling is as fake as China's-uh-parts; but we still tune in. Of course we don't take it seriously. But we do fill the coffers down at Pay-Per-View Inc. We buy the t-shirts; and our children, instead of playing catch, are in the back yard practicing the latest version of the body-slam.

I've heard all the arguments from the NASCAR crowd: we watch because of the skill, the athleticism, the strategy that goes into winning a race. We don't come to watch them crash. To such I ask, "Would you be there if a speed limit of say, 30 mph were imposed?" Wouldn't that take skill, reflexes, strategy; endurance, concentration? We only like the nuances if they take place in a back drop of potential death. No one cheers at the deftness with which Lance Armstrong changes gears, or rides in someone's draft. We don't care because he's riding a ten pound bicycle instead of a three thousand pound, 800 horsepower casket.

Football is much the same way. Here I'm stepping on my own toes, as I have been unable to give up my affair with the Steelers. I can make the same argument as the NASCAR fans. Football is like ballet, I say, except what gets me out of my chair and dancing like I've just scalped someone is the brutal hit. Watch the highlights some time; they'll show the leaping grab, the graceful return, but for every one of those they'll show three teeth-jarring hits.

Hockey, of course, has no teeth-jarring hits because by the time you reach the NHL, all your teeth have been placed in jars. Hockey is French Canadian for "blood on ice." And don't even get me started on the tattooed gangsters and hip hop stars of the NBA. Whatever our sport of choice, it is all bloodsport. If there's not an ambulance parked out back, we don't want to watch.

But violence is not the only issue. Baseball is no longer our national past time because it doesn't pass time quickly enough. We as a culture are losing our patience with the game of baseball. Baseball is, like no other, a game of strategy; of finesse, of thinking several moves ahead. It is the popular equivalent of chess in a Game Boy age. Baseball is more apt to make us go "Hmmm", than it is to make us go "WOW!" And we want "WOW!". Now the only thing we go "WOW!" about is the salaries. It is not a sign of health that the biggest story, practically the only story of the off-season was the contract for one shortstop. The only thing extreme about this sport is the cost. We'd rather talk about money than baseball. Money is exciting; baseball, on the other hand is slow, cerebral, and can actually be played by old guys like Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken Jr. and Mark Dewey.

Baseball is to books what our now-popular sports are to movies. We want flash and dazzle. We don't want to be amused, we want to be amazed. We want that rush of adrenaline, even if we have to borrow it, just like the citizens of Rome. And like Rome in the days of the gladiators, baseball is running out of steam and running on fumes. It survives only because of what it once was. No longer do sons wheedle their fathers to play catch; instead fathers wheedle their sons. When the baby boomers die, so will baseball. They tried an extra hitter, concrete bowls, spandex uniforms and rubber fields to win the next generation. (Thankfully they didn't try Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura.) And they went hit-less. They have moved to old fashioned ballyards, uniforms, and with their last modicum of wisdom-real grass, peanuts and cracker jack, because the only people who care are those who remember how it used to be.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turned its jaundiced eyes from you. Boo hoo hoo.