Commentary
Glory of ‘base’ will never die
One hundred fifty springs ago,
in the bustling city of Brooklyn, a
newspaper man watched children
play a game never before seen by
his aged eyes. He put into words
the unfamiliar sights and sounds
that suddenly filled the town’s
once-vacant lots:
“In our sundown perambulations
of late, through the outer parts of
Brooklyn, we have observed several
parties of youngsters playing ‘base,’
a certain game of ball.”
Walt Whitman, that Brooklyn
newspaper man, could have never
then fathomed that this game called
“base” would become one of
America’s most important attributes.
Since the first organized
baseball game in 1846, the sport
has shaped our nation and her
culture. The famous philosopher
Jacques Barzun once wrote,
“Whoever wants to know the heart
and mind of America had better
learn baseball.”
Truly, the game is uniquely ours,
because baseball is so much like
America herself — consistently
strong, rich in tradition, full of life.
No other sport so accurately repre
sents a people as baseball portrays
the country that gave it life.
But the grand old game has seen
its better days.
Today, baseball is crippled by a
group of professional players —
considered the world’s best — who
have refused to play because of
“labor” disputes. This latest and
longest major-league strike, which
seems to have been settled for now,
has led some to ask if the game will
ever be the same.
The pessimists are right to ask
the question. Along with the
strikes, baseball now has more
competition — at both the profes
sional and youth ranks.
The emergence of soccer, along
with summer league basketball, has
drawn youngsters away from the
Jamie Karl
fields of dreams. In 1995, children
list football or basketball as their
favorite sport, with baseball at a
distant third.
But this is not the first time
baseball has been in rough waters.
Throughout its history, the game
has stood firm and proud, enduring
the country’s darkest days.
Baseball has lived through the
Great Depression and two World
Wars. It has rode through the Black
Sox scandal of 1919, and survived
the “dead-ball” years, when loosely
wound balls made for low-scoring
pitching duels.
And major-league strikes are
nothing new. In 1981, players were
on strike for two months, demand
ing more multimillion-dollar
salaries. Then, too, the analysts
said the game would be forever
wounded. Yet by 1989, attendance
reached 55 million for a season —
a record for the sport, and a figure
football or basketball could never
touch.
Nothing can shake the grand old
game. Even when its carping critics
have pronounced it dead, baseball
keeps coming back — like the
country that calls the game its own;
obviously, there is something about
the sport its adversaries cannot
comprehend.
Baseball is not about players who
refuse to take the field because of
salaries. Baseball is bigger than that.
Instead, baseball is about a time
when parents tucked their children
into bed at night and reminded them
to pray, “God bless Mommy and
Daddy, and God bless Babe Ruth.”
Baseball is about a time when
teen-age girls carried cards of
Mickey Mantle in their purses,
while the boys did their best to
imitate “The Natural.”
Baseball is about a time when
there were real role models, with
names such as Joltin’ Joe and The
Say-Hey Kid.
Baseball has given America
some of her fondest memories:
when the Great Bambino called his
shot; when Bobby Thompson’s shot
heard ‘round the world made radio
announcer Russ Hodges yell, “The
Giants win the pennant!”; when the
game’s first black player, Jackie
Robinson, walked onto the green
diamond of Ebbets Field, ending
athletic segregation in America.
In the words of poet Donald Hall,
baseball is continuous, like nothing
else among American things. It’s an
endless game of repeated summers,
joining die long generations of all the
fathers and all the sons.
Put simply, the sport is different
from all the rest. The grand old
game has a soul all its own, a spirit
bigger than that of any one player.
It is no surprise that baseball has
overcome yet another obstacle. The
sport will remain the nation’s
pastime — a game to be played,
admired and respected for genera
tions to come. And while time will
march on, and the names and faces
of the game will surely change, one
thing stays the same: There will
always be baseball.
As Walt Whitman wrote 150
springs ago: “Let us go forth awhile
and get better air in our lungs. Let us
leave our close rooms.
“The game of ball is glorious.”
Kail Is a Junior news-editorial major and
a Dally Nebraskan colnmnlst and night news
editor.
Land-loving lug lets ship pass
Do you see that / That little
speck on the horizon? If you squint
really hard, you can see it on the
water, bobbing slowly and happily.
That’s the boat. I missed it.
I am set to graduate in May. It is
coming up very rapidly, and I am
now realizing that I should be on
that happy, bobbing boat so far
away on the horizon.
Tlie boat is the S.S. Employ
ment. Apparently, people on this
boat have worked very hard for
their boarding passes, and I’ve been
standing on the pier, looking the
other way, waiting for my ship to
come in to me.
Friends and classmates of mine
have been planning for quite some
time to board the S.S. Employment.
They’ve had internships, revised
and sharpened their r6sum6s and
prepared for their voyage on the
open sea.
I ve been in the lounge, sipping
pifia coladas, waiting for the bell
captain to take my luggage to my
cabin.
I’ve heard more than one time,
from others about to graduate, that
this last semester is no more than a
formality. I’ve heard more than one
time that others have jobs lined up
and careers set to go the very
moment after they flip their tassels
to the left side of their funny caps
and descend the left side of the
stage.
All I know is that after I am
handed my diploma by the Pope or
Tom Osborne or whoever gives
them out, I will descend the stairs
on the left side of the stage straight
into the water. No poop deck will
be under my land-loving feet, and
to be honest, I’m not sure how
good of a swimmer I am.
The concept of the job interview
frightens the poop deck out of me,
too. And I know I’ll have to go
through this routine sometime in
Todd Elwood
the near future.
I would like to write for a
newspaper after I graduate, and that
can only mean I will eventually
have to talk to an editor of some
sort.
I’ll have to shake his or her
hand. He or she will then have to
wipe his or her hand on something
very absorbant. I know that will be
my first mistake of the interview.
My palms tend to moisten when I
get nervous. Actually, they moisten
to the point that I can grow rice on
them.
He or she will think, “I can’t
hire this guy. He will electrocute
himself on our equipment. There
would probably be a lawsuit.”
If I am not immediately escorted
out of the building, away from any
of the equipment, I will most
assuredly have to answer his or her
questions about myself.
“So Todd,” he or she will say
after drying off, “what experience
do you have in newspapers?”
Of course, I will have antici
pated such a question, so I will
have a perfect answer prepared.
But then, two things will
happen. I will realize that I do not
have a lot of experience with
newspapers. I delivered them as a
Hid, but that’s probably not going
to impress the poop deck out of
him or her. The second thing that
will happen is that my brain will
suddenly be in Alaska. ’
I am not knocking Alaska. I’m
sure it’s a lovely state, and I’ve
heard wonderful things about its
bears and its snow, but I will be
in an editor’s office somewhere
other than Alaska, and I will
probably need it to answer the
questions.
“Well,” I’ll timidly say to him
or her, “I delivered them as a kid.
Ha ha.”
“OK, funny-boy, let’s just get to
it,” he or she will say in frustration,
through clenched teeth. “Just tell
me why you think I should hire
you.”
At this point, my brain will
decide that Alaska isn’t quite cold
enough, and it will travel to the
North Pole. It may be trying to find
Santa Claus. He’d give me a job;
I’m sure of it.
load good writer guy! I will
bellow my response. “Me make
good worker guy! You like me!
Really, really!”
I will then break down in
uncontrollable sobs until security is
called to haul me off, making sure
to keep me away from the equip
ment.
I think it’s safe to say that I have
not only missed the boat, but there
are times when I don’t even know
the way to the sea.
All of this should worry me, and
my palms should be dripping in
anticipation of the next few
months. But the truth of it is that I
just want to graduate. I believe that
after President Clinton or Madonna
or whoever hands me my diploma,
I will have plenty of time to worry
about it.
And if all else fails, I can stow
away. Just let me know if the bell
captain comes for my luggage.
Elwood Is a senior English and sociology
major and a Dally Nebraskan columnist
Gun-control laws
not a simple subject
When the subject is guns, we
definitely have a failure to
communicate.
Those who hate guns seem to
believe that those who don’t are
a lot of lowbrow, beady-eyed,
beer-guzzling neo-fascists who
are constantly leaving pistols
around the house so children can
find them and shoot their
siblings.
Those who defend gun
ownership seem to think that
gun-control advocates are a
bunch of left-wing, government
loving, wine-sipping sissies who
believe that the best way to
handle a criminal is to kneel at
his feet and blubber: “Don’t hurt
me. Take my money. I know you
had a disadvantaged childhood,
and I share your pain.”
That’s why I seldom write
about the endless struggle
between gun owners and gun
haters, even though I think I
understand them better than they
understand each other.
For example, many gun lovers
seem to believe that any gun
control law that imposes any
restriction on gun ownership is a
bad law.
If you carry that to its
illogical conclusion, we would
have no gun laws and no
restrictions. It would be legal for
anyone — responsible citizen or
nut — to buy a gun as easily as a
bottle of root beer. And for
anyone to carry it everywhere
and anywhere, openly or con
cealed.
We need gun laws. How
restrictive they should be, I don’t
know. But reasonable people
should be able to agree on terms
that would help keep guns away
from dangerous hands while
letting decent people protect
themselves.
“Protect themselves?”
someone is scornfully saying.
“They don’t protect themselves
or anyone else. They just let
their guns fall into the hands of
children or criminals.”
That’s the response of many
of those who dislike guns and
want a European approach:
Nobody has them but the cops or
the rigidly controlled sportsmen.
And I think they truly believe
that hardly anyone ever uses a
gun to shoot or fend off a
criminal.
Maybe that’s the fault of the
media. We seldom overlook a
story about a child using his
dad’s gun to shoot his older
sister.
But we aren’t as alert to
stories about people who ping a
crook.
There are sources for both
kinds of stories.
Mike Royko
The gun-control advocates
keep large files on every case of
careless gun use they can find.
But they don’t have any
records of people successfully
defending themselves against
criminals.
At the same time, the Na
tional Rifle Association has thick
files of honest citizens using
x guns to kill, wound or capture
criminals.
Chances are you didn’t read
about the great jewelry store
shootout in Richmond, Va., a
couple of months ago. I know
about it only because a friend in
Virginia called me.
This is what happened:
I wo gunmen barged into the
Beverly Jewelry Store. Both
were career criminals with long
records for stickups, burglaries,
drug-running and other crimes
across the South and Southeast.
One was being sought on a
murder rap. He was later
described by an acquaintance
this way: “He won’t kill you
unless he has to. But if he has to,
he will.”
They had picked the wrong
jewelry store. The owner is a
gutsy guy and an expert marks
man. His employees had all been
trained in using guns and had so
many guns hidden in the store
that he and his salespeople were
never more than an outstretched
arm away from one.
So when one of the gunmen
jumped on a display case and let
loose with a warning blast from
his shotgun, the owner and his
five employees all reached down
and came up shooting. Six guns
going at the same time.
The robbers got off a few
shots that didn’t hit anyone, but
within seconds, both were dead.
The owner of the store said he
doesn’t believe in being passive
when someone threatens his life
with a sawed-off shotgun.
So if the police can’t protect
people from murderers — and
they admit that is beyond them
— who will? That jewelry store
owner knew. He and his employ
ees were on their own, as most
of us are.
It’s not a simple subject.
©1995 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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