Imagine a skinny, little 15-year-old boy from a suburb in Japan coming to the United States for the first time in his life. For summer vacation. It was his first time away from his mom and dad, and one of the first times he would even leave his hometown alone for an extended time.
He didn’t speak English, and would be staying with a family in California for a month, and going to a summer camp with American kids.
The boy encountered many culture shocks: what the heck is peanut butter? Why do these people eat that sugared-popcorn-snack-like thing in the morning? And with milk poured on it, no less! But the most jaw-dropping of all was witnessing major league baseball for the first time.
And it came in the form of the almighty 1989 Oakland Athletics.
He wasn’t a crazy baseball fan (like he is now), but he liked his Japanese hometown team, the Chunichi Dragons. He had heard of the major league, but really didn’t know much about it.
On the team, there was a skinny black man stealing bases like no other (that player’s name, the boy later found out, was Ricky Henderson). There was a scary-looking, un-hittable closer who “shuts the door” on the other team (Dennis Eckersley). There was this manager, people called him a genius, who seemed always seemed to know what would happen next (Tony LaRussa). But the crazed fans were really going nuts for the Bash Brothers, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.
McGwire was blond-haired, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, looking like Superman and hitting the ball out of the park. Ditto for Canseco.
No matter how far behing their team ever was, they could change the game with a swing of their bats. It was exciting to watch them. They put fear in the eyes of opposing pitchers.
It was magic. It was out of this world. It was like a Hollywood movie or a sci-fi, super-hero comic book. The boy said to himself, “Wow, this is AMERICA.”
That skinny kid was me, and this was my first encounter with major league baseball. Though I’ve changed my pledge to a Boston team since then (and I’m not so skinny and I eat that sugared-popcorn-snack-like thing for breakfast), it is not overstating it to say that my love and admiration for the game of major league baseball was formed that summer.
That’s part of why it has been so heartbreaking to see now-admitted cheater Canseco ripping into his “brother” McGwire about steroid use in his book,”Juiced”. And then to see McGwire, called before the US Congress to testify about steroid use in the major leagues, on advice of his attorney saying little more than: “I am not here to talk about the past.”
I feel cheated.
The little boy in me is saying, “Say it ain’t so.” The magic is gone. The superheroes were cheating.
They were, after all, not very “super.” Between steroid use and the ridiculous money the players are making, though I still love the game and watch many games on the TV and from the bleachers, I do so as a cynical adult. My excitement and joy will never be as great as that pure “wow” I experienced 16 years ago.
One of the congressmen at the hearing said it. “Whether you like it or not, the professional athletes are role models to many children.” Major League Baseball and its players owe it to the kids, like that kid from Japan, to clean up its act.
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