A Tale of Two News Stories

For many years, I worked as a writer and/or editor for newspapers and a trade magazine.

In fact, one of my standing assignments for awhile was to write a weekly column about events that were coming up. That column was titled, "The Week Ahead." In that column, I told readers about things that were coming up.

I didn't confine myself to the county in which I lived and worked. I wrote about events that were scheduled in just about every part of Arkansas. I know it is difficult for natives of a place like Texas to understand, but, unless the weather is bad, just about any place in Arkansas is easily within a day's drive of any other place in Arkansas.

It was a unique job. Part of it was spent writing about things that had just happened — and part of it was spent focusing on things that were still in the future.

There were lots of dramatic moments during my years in print media — moments that often defined who we were — but I don't think I have ever witnessed a week like the one just past.

I hope I never go through one like it again, either — and I wasn't even part of the professional news media as this week played out — but I'm not sure what could be done to prevent it.

The week began innocently enough, I suppose, with the annual celebration of the Fourth of July. From my balcony, I was able to watch two or three fireworks shows that evening (when one is gazing into the dark horizon, I have found that it is hard to determine where one such show ends and another begins).

In hindsight, that was the proverbial calm before the storm.

The next day, all hell broke loose. In Florida, Casey Anthony was acquitted of killing her young daughter, and an anguished wail rose from coast to coast.

My impression, from the beginning, was that women more than men felt the sting of the verdict. I'm not saying that men weren't affected by it, too; some clearly were. But I heard and read far more quotes from women about it, and I saw far more women participating in protests against the verdict. And I have seen frequent posts about it on Facebook — again, mostly (but not exclusively) from women.

I think the verdict — whether it was the right one or not — cuts deeply against the grain of the protective maternal instinct.

As a young general assignment reporter covering murder trials for a newspaper in central Arkansas, I realized that the duty of an effective attorney is to present a plausible case in court. A prosecutor wants to win a conviction; a defender wants to win an acquittal. Toward those ends, they will construct arguments that benefit them the most.

While I did not watch the entire Anthony trial, it seems to me the prosecution was successful in offering an argument that women in particular found acceptable.

The members of the jury apparently did not feel that the prosecution met the law's requirements, though. I've heard a few jurors say, in recent days, that they wished the prosecution had given them the evidence they needed to convict — because many, apparently, believed the prosecution was right.

In their eyes, however, the evidence just wasn't there.

Every time I switched on my TV on Wednesday or Thursday, I saw someone talking about the verdict. Aware of the public's notoriously short attention span, I wondered what would seize its imagination next. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

On Thursday evening, about 25 miles from where I sit writing this, a firefighter from central Texas who brought his 6–year–old son to this area to see a Texas Rangers baseball game lost his balance reaching for a baseball and fell 20 feet to his death.

In the aftermath of that tragedy, I have heard of the special bond that existed between this man and his son, how they shared a passion for baseball and how they stopped on their way to the ballpark to get a baseball glove, hoping to catch a foul ball to keep as a souvenir of their special day together.

I think this story has reverberated with men because it has been my experience that most men really treasure these times with their children. Perhaps it is because I share their gender, but I think a lot of fathers resent the stereotype impression society has of abusive, distant or deadbeat dads.

Now, it is true that there are abusive, distant or deadbeat dads — more than I would like to acknowledge — but my experience is that the majority of fathers are dedicated to their children. They just don't get many opportunities to show it.

Most fathers miss out on the day–to–day stuff, not because they aren't interested but because they are busy with the jobs that put food on the table and keep a roof over their children's heads. Meeting one's obligations can be a lonely business.

It is more common for women to work outside the home now than it was when I was growing up, but my guess is that it is still the mothers (primarily) who put band–aids on skinned knees and provide milk and cookies after school. My guess is that they still do the prep work for birthday parties and have heart–to–heart talks. They just do it all a few hours later than they used to.

For fathers, a baseball game is a rare opportunity to share something with their children — and it really is the kind of thing that creates memories that last a lifetime. (There was a lot of truth in what the little girl said in "Field of Dreams" about adults being drawn to that Iowa field by the lure of memories.)

I still remember the night my family went to a major league game for the first time. It was in St. Louis, which was a day's drive from my hometown. My parents wanted to visit friends who were scattered along the eastern half of the continent, but we made the first stop on our road trip in St. Louis, where we knew no one, checked into a Holiday Inn near Busch Memorial Stadium and went to see the Cardinals play their rivals, the Chicago Cubs.

It was not a good evening for the Cardinals. The Cubs won, 12–0. It wasn't too bad early on. Neither team scored through the first four innings, then the Cubs scored twice in the fifth. That wasn't so bad. Going into the seventh, it was still only 2–0.

But then the roof fell in. Chicago scored 10 runs in that seventh inning, most after the Cubs had two outs.

You can look at the box score if you want to see how truly terrible it was. What I remember is sitting next to my father and watching run after run score — and, with each run, more of the fans around us got up to leave.

I don't think my father has ever been much of a baseball fan, but I was an avid collector of baseball cards in those days, and most of the kids I knew were Cardinals fans. Like most kids, I craved acceptance so, at that time in my life, I guess you could say I was a Cardinals fan, too.

Anyway, that game didn't turn out to be much fun for me. I remember looking at my father when the Cubs scored one of those runs in the seventh. He smiled and chuckled, then put his arm around me and held me next to him for a few seconds.

"Not much fun, is it?" he asked. I remember shaking my head. "Want to go back to the motel?" I nodded.

So we all got up — except for my brother, who had dozed off in his seat — and my father picked up my brother and carried him all the way to the car. I don't think he ever woke up.

On our way out of the ballpark, though, we stopped at a souvenir stand so I could get a cap. I wore that cap nearly every day — and almost constantly on weekends — for a couple of years, not because it was a reminder of a remarkable game but because it was a reminder of a rare evening with my father.

When I was a kid, I didn't see much of my father. He taught at a local college. He often left the house before I got up in the morning and usually returned either just before or after I went to bed at night. My mother was the one who observed the early milestones of my life.

Dad always attended school functions and things like that, but he was usually busy during the days. I didn't hold it against him. That was just the way it was — not just for me but for everyone I knew.

That night in Busch Stadium was special for me, and it remains special to this day. I believe that memories of similar experiences have made what happened in Arlington the other night so poignant for so many men. It cuts against the grain of the father–child relationship that they cherish.

No father wants his child to witness a horrifying accident like that — or to have an eagerly anticipated trip to a baseball game end with that child riding in the ambulance that carries his dying father from a ballpark to the hospital.

I think the two stories that have dominated the news for the last week have been chilling to both genders more for what they represent than what they actually are.

Guilty people sometimes go free, and loving parents sometimes die. We know that. But these two cases were special.

Casey Anthony is believed by many to have violated what may be the most sacred trust in humanity — the one that exists between a mother and her child.

And Shannon Stone died because he selflessly tried to catch a baseball to give to his son as a souvenir.

It all seems like a waste, doesn't it?

The Dean of Ballparks

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The exterior of Fenway Park in 1914.

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Now that Yankee Stadium has ended its 85-year tenure as the home of the New York Yankees, which stadium holds the title of dean of America's ballparks?

Actually, that much hasn't changed.

Yankee Stadium opened its doors in 1923. But the ballpark that has been open longer than any other was — and still is — Boston's Fenway Park, which, as baseball historians will tell you, was Babe Ruth's home for many years before the Bronx opened the House That Ruth Built.

In fact, Fenway Park opened in 1912. Ground was broken on the construction site 97 years ago tomorrow, on Sept. 25, 1911, and the first baseball game was played there the following April — a few days after the "unsinkable" Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.

And Ruth, who began his baseball career as a pitcher, played his first major league game with Boston in 1914.

Every other ballpark in the major leagues came into existence after Yankee Stadium. The oldest baseball stadium in the National League is Chicago's Wrigley Field, which opened in 1926.

With the noteworthy exception of Wrigley Field, all the other ballparks in the majors are mere infants by comparison.

In the National League, for example, the next-oldest ballpark after Wrigley Field is Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium, which opened in 1962.

All the other ballparks in the American League are still practically waiting for the paint to dry when compared to Fenway Park. The next-oldest baseball stadium in the American League — now that Yankee Stadium has closed its doors for good — is Baltimore's Camden Yards, which has been open since 1993.

Almost every major league baseball team plays in a ballpark that was built in the last 15 years. And almost all of those ballparks were said to feature something that distinguished the ballparks of yesteryear.

Why not renovate those ballparks instead of starting over from scratch? That seems like a fair question to ask. But the answer is different in each city. Maybe the location of the ballpark creates parking problems that can't be resolved or land can't be acquired to expand the seating sufficiently.

Maybe the stadium's location interferes with commerce. Maybe the financial operation has been poor and the owners had to sell to someone who doesn't care about history, just how much money there is to be made from buying and selling the land.

Sometimes, the structure is simply antiquated, unstable, and needs to be replaced.

Whatever the reason — and, in spite of the fact that the new stadium will be called Yankee Stadium and won't be given one of those hideous names that incorporates the sponsor's name (which could prove to be embarrassing if the sponsor goes out of business or has to endure a humiliating public scandal) — another monument to the past is coming down.

And we are the poorer for it.

It reminds me a bit of an episode of "Frasier," in which Frasier and his brother decide to buy and restore a restaurant that was significant in the family's history but is about to shut down permanently.

They decide to do this while having a one-last-time family dinner at the restaurant, after Daphne observes that, in her native England, they cherish their "antiquities," but Americans can't wait to tear them down.

It's not quite that simple. But it does strike me as ironic.

The Last Days of 'The Cathedral'

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If you're a sports fan — not just a baseball fan — you have to feel something in these, the final days of Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium opened 85 years ago, in 1923, and it's been the home of baseball's New York Yankees ever since — except for the 1974 and 1975 seasons, when the stadium was closed for renovations.

Yankee Stadium has played host to college and pro football games, as well as some noteworthy boxing matches. Outdoor venues rarely host fights anymore, but it happened frequently at Yankee Stadium. Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney both won fights there in the 1920s, and Joe Louis beat Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium in the 1930s — in a symbolic victory for America over Nazi Germany.

Tony Zale beat Rocky Graziano there in 1946, and Sugar Ray Robinson lost there in 1952.

In the final fight at Yankee Stadium — the only fight held there after the renovation — Muhammad Ali defeated Ken Norton in 1976.

It is as the home of the Yankees that the stadium will always be remembered. So many of baseball's greats have played there — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, the list goes on and on.

And, because the Yankees have won so many world championships, it follows that there have been more postseason games played in Yankee Stadium than any other ballpark.

A total of 16 World Series championships have been clinched with victories at Yankee Stadium — nine by the Yankees, seven by their opponents.

Other than the Yankees, the St. Louis Cardinals are the only team to wrap up more than one world championship at Yankee Stadium.

Unless a miracle happens and the Yankees sneak into the playoffs, Sunday night will be their final game at Yankee Stadium. The Baltimore Orioles will be the opponent. ESPN will be there to present the final game — and I'm sure there will be some nostalgic film clips from the stadium's 85-year existence.

The game "will be an open-casket funeral for the House that Ruth Built, with no shortage of eulogies, tears and fond remembrances," writes Jeremy Olshan in the New York Post.

"Though some 40 former Yankee greats are expected to pay homage to the Stadium," Olshan writes, "more notable perhaps are the two biggest absences: Yankee boss George Steinbrenner and public-address announcer Bob Sheppard, who are both too ill to attend."

Of the two, I would say that Sheppard's absence is the more significant. His distinctive voice has announced the players at Yankee Stadium since 1951. Reggie Jackson called him the "Voice of God." It's hard to imagine the final Yankee game at Yankee Stadium without the 97-year-old Sheppard at the public address microphone. But that's the way it will be on Sunday night.

Nevertheless, it should be a memorable day for the folks who are fortunate enough to be there. For three hours on Sunday afternoon, fans will be allowed to walk around on the field, reports the Associated Press.

Can't be there? Tune in that evening.

If you need something to help you get in the mood, ESPN Classic will be showing films of some of the great sports events that have occurred there in the last 85 years — including some of the noteworthy fights.

There's a slight chance of showers in New York Sunday night, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to dampen the occasion.

Among the many for whom the final Yankee game at Yankee Stadium will be a bittersweet experience is famed songwriter Paul Simon, who reminisces in the New York Times about a lifetime as a Yankee fan.

For those who are old enough to remember Simon and Garfunkel's classic songs in the film "The Graduate," there is a special poignance in the reflections of the man who wrote the lines, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio/Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

And, in Simon's words, it's time to say "so long" to the House that Ruth Built.

Who's Going to the Fall Classic?

We’re about a week away from the conclusion of the major league baseball season.

Most of the pieces of the playoff puzzle are known, but it’s going to take a few more days before we know how they fit together.

Still, it’s possible to make a few assumptions at this point.

• In the National League, for example, it seems pretty clear that the Chicago Cubs are going to represent the Central Division in the playoffs. And they’ll probably wind up with the best record in the league, so they’ll have homefield advantage through the playoffs.
  
  The Cubs have a nine-game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers, who, while technically still in the race in the Central Division, are locked in a three-way battle for the wild-card spot.
  
  The Brewers’ two rivals for the wild card are also fighting it out for the Eastern Division title. The odds are that one of those two teams — Philadelphia or New York — will win the division, leaving the other one to battle the Brewers for the wild card.
  
  Mathematically, there are a few other teams that could make things interesting at the end if the Brewers, Phillies and/or Mets get cold and lose the rest of their games. Or someone else gets hot at the right time.
  
  And that’s certainly not unheard-of — it was only last year, after all, that the Colorado Rockies, after plodding along through most of the season, won 14 of their last 15 regular-season games, as well as a one-game playoff for the wild-card spot, and went on to play in the World Series.
  
  The Rockies are out of the picture this year, but a similar hot streak could propel Florida, Houston, even St. Louis into the playoffs. It’s not likely, but it’s possible.
  
  Over in the lackluster N.L. West, the Dodgers appear to be on the verge of winning the division title. But even a 3.5-game lead with about nine left to play isn’t necessarily safe in that division.


• In the American League, the Los Angeles Angels have already clinched the Western Division. The Angels are the front-runners for the homefield advantage, although Tampa Bay or Boston still could overtake them for that.
  
  The Devil Rays and the Red Sox are battling for the Eastern Division title. The loser almost certainly will be the wild-card team.
  
  In the Central Division, the Chicago White Sox and the Minnesota Twins are the last ones standing, but only one is likely to remain standing after next weekend.
  
  The Chisox have a 1.5-game lead today, but my guess is they’ll settle the matter once and for all next week when the teams meet in a three-game series in Minnesota.
  
  The numbers probably favor the Twins. They’ve won 65% of their home games, whereas the White Sox have won only 44% of their road games.
  
  And, after this weekend’s series in Tampa Bay, Minnesota plays all its remaining games at home.
  
  Again, there are a few teams that still have a chance — mathematically. If you’re a fan of the Yankees or Blue Jays, there’s still a chance. But the odds get longer each day.

Still, as Yogi Berra said, ”It ain’t over ‘til it’s over!”

Business as Usual

A week after the release of the Mitchell Report, baseball is shrugging it off, according to an editorial in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.

The newspaper makes a good point. The players union has to take the lead in this, or steroids will continue to stain the sport and every accomplishment by individuals and teams.

It seems odd, to me, that there should be mechanisms in place for punishing people who engage in recreational drug use, but nothing in place to punish those who use drugs to profit.

Is the profit motive considered so pure and praiseworthy that the ends justify the means? And the recreation motive is considered selfish?

What are your thoughts?

Ambiguity and Baseball

Mitch Albom makes a valid point in the Detroit Free Press.

He gives two lists of statements, one supporting the position "Why Steroids Don't Matter" and the other supporting the position "Why Steroids Matter." Readers are asked to circle the statements they agree with, then compare the number of circled statements from each list.

"Bigger number is where you stand," Albom writes, using phrasing that, perhaps unintentionally, reflects the nature of the problem.

"And if that sounds like confusing, non-declarative, mixed signals," Albom concludes, "well, now you know how baseball came to this sorry point in the first place."

I couldn't agree more. It's the ambiguity that has existed in baseball on this issue for many years that has led the sport -- and others, as well -- to the predicament it faces.

Thomas Boswell says, in the Washington Post, that "Perhaps what is most chilling in the Mitchell report is the casual business-as-usual comments of general managers and scouts as they discuss what they assume is the steroid use of players."

When the report was released Thursday, commissioner Bud Selig "incredibly said ... he hadn't read [it]," Boswell points out, but "[t]he metastasizing problem was clear before the strike of '94, not several years after it, as the commissioner likes to rewrite history. The media couldn't prove it. Many fans were indifferent to it. But that doesn't excuse baseball for conveniently ignoring it."

Now, as Boswell concludes, "with its analysis of the past and its recommendations for the future, the Mitchell report gives baseball a choice: stop digging deeper into denial, throw away that damn shovel and grab this rope like it's your last hope."

In the coming years, the players who have been using steroids will face their own consequences when the performance-enhancing drugs have done their lethal work. The players have reaped the temporary benefits, but, as no less an authority than the Bible says, "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."

Baseball must deal with that inheritance now. And it must try to understand the reasons why it stood idly by and allowed this to happen. And then take credible steps to clean up the mess.

Good luck with that.

The Fallout From the Mitchell Report

J.C. Bradbury writes in the New York Times that baseball players should police themselves.

It is not possible, he says, to achieve the total elimination of performance-enhancing drugs. Therefore, the objective must be "the second-best goal of reducing performance-enhancing drug use."

Under a system of significant fines and bonuses, baseball can clean up its act, he says.

In the Los Angeles Times, Helene Elliott says baseball players need to take responsibility for what happens in their sport.

Childs Walker, in the Baltimore Sun, reassures everyone that baseball will bounce back, as it always seems to do after a scandal.

And Jason Whitlock, in the Kansas City Star, is even more reassuring. It's the fault of the system, he says. This is a drug culture in which everyone does it. Everyone self-medicates to keep doing their jobs.

I think Whitlock could be on to something here, but I can't help feeling he takes it to the extreme. I do believe, however, that he's right when he says there's no easy solution to the problem. But, just because it isn't easy or self-evident, does that mean we shouldn't even try to find an answer?

I'm glad we're having this discussion. And I hope there will be much more said about this. We've turned the other way for too long, when everyone knew there was a problem.

So even if Whitlock is right and the steroid scandal is the result of peer pressure, it's time for some tough love.

Where Baseball Needs to Go Now

Jerome Solomon of the Houston Chronicle thinks the Mitchell Report is a "sad day" for baseball.

I disagree.

Sure, it's sad to realize that some of the biggest names in the game -- Roger Clemens, newly crowned home run king Barry Bonds and others -- have been cheating to succeed.

But this is one of those pivotal moments, a fork in the road. Major league baseball must make a real commitment to ridding itself of the cheaters, as surely as it did in the 1920s following the Black Sox Scandal.

If handled correctly, the rehabilitation ultimately will be joyful for the sport and its fans.

I'm not saying it won't be painful for a time. As it is for an individual who must deal with the withdrawal from an addiction to nicotine or alcohol or heroin, baseball must cope with its withdrawal pangs from performance-enhancing drugs.

But, as the old saying goes, no pain, no gain. And there is so much to be gained.

The release of the Mitchell Report is, as Jay Mariotti writes in the Chicago Sun-Times, "the first day of the rest of our baseball lives."

What kind of life that will be depends on how baseball's owners and players -- and fans -- react to this issue.

It's out there, no longer hidden in the shadows. Out there for all to see. Will we sweep it under the rug? Or will we learn from it?

Will There Be A Game 7?

It's still really early in the Cleveland-Boston Game 6 in the American League Championship Series.

It's the first inning, but J.D. Drew of the Red Sox just ripped a grand slam and Boston is up 4-0. A four-run lead doesn't seem to mean as much in major league baseball as it did when I was a kid, but if Boston holds the lead, the teams will play the deciding seventh game tomorow night.

By nature, I'm a National League fan. I like the Dodgers and Cardinals, and I've been in St. Louis to see them play each other on several occasions. With neither of those teams involved in this year's playoffs, I haven't had a strong rooting interest. And it's been hard to build an interest in the other series when they've all been over so quickly.

Now, it will be kind of fun to watch the Colorado Rockies playing in their first World Series, no matter which team they play, but there wasn't much drama in their series with the Diamondbacks. It was four and out.

Now we might finally be treated to a Game 7.

So I'm pulling for the Red Sox to win tonight.