Baseball is a beautiful sport!

This is Babe Ruth, the greatest man to ever play the sport of baseball. I'm writing this post because baseball is the great American pastime, and it's being ruined by the modern era. With players using steroids, free agency making people play for ludicrously huge contracts instead of a love of the game, and so many stadiums being named after corporate sponsors, it's destroying the integrity of the most magical sport in the world.

I want baseball to be the way it was. The time when names like Ruth, Mantle, Gherig, and Maris inspired a nation. The days that huge contracts and cheating were nowhere to be found and we were captivated by the purity of the sport. The amazing moment in 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. The 50 or so years before that when black people weren't allowed to play in the same stadiums as white people. The ten years after Jackie Robinson when black people still weren't allowed to play for the Red Sox.

The collective memories of a nation should be preserved. Remember the year 1919 when the World Series was fixed? Remember the 1920's when immortalized baseball hero Ty Cobb ran into the stands and beat the living shit out of a one-armed man? Remember when Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD? Remember the 80's when over half of all major league players were addicted to cocaine? Remember the time that the most prolific hitter in the history of the sport was banned from the game for life because of illegal gambling? How could we forget all of those magical Babe Ruth home runs that were helped by corked bats? What about the long and storied tradition of rampant cheating in virtually every era in the history of the game? Where has that gone?

Baseball has a long history of proud, beautiful tradition, and to see it being sullied by players making money and cheating in new and interesting ways is.... well.... it brings a tear to my eye and a pit of sadness in my American heart.