Peter Pascarelli - my favorite baseball analyst - was removed from ESPN.com's Baseball Today podcast recently for sarcastic comments he made about the commissioner of baseball.
Even after Peter went on-air a few days after the comments to graciously apologize, ESPN not only removed him from the show, but has, as of today, given no explanation or made mention of the debacle. Today, the newest episode aired without a trace of Pascarelli's presence; even the host and producer pretended he'd never existed - all at the behest of some faceless higher-ups (MLB + ESPN), no doubt.
Here is an old-school baseball man that loves the game more than anyone I can think of. He lives and breathes the sport - this is apparent by listening to five minutes of him talk to his old pals Jim Leyland, or Bobby Cox, or any of the other old-time baseball men that don't give the type of interviews Peter gets to anyone but Peter (except maybe Gammons). I didn't always agree with him - Barry Larkin is easily a Hall of Famer - but he brought an endearing, human quality to his work that drew me in. I don't know how else to describe him, but this is the internet. If you're interested, have a fun Google search, and I'll see you back here in a few minutes.
This event, in the face of a cynical, holier-than-thou sports world that has forgiven the deeds of Mark McGwire, Michael Vick, and Marv Albert, directly after defaming and shaming them, will not go undetected.
I don't judge those men - their lives and deeds are their own to figure out, regardless of their fame or fortune. However, if they can make mistakes and continue in their profession in any capacity, then that standard should apply to the media that brings said sports into our lives. A couple of mild-mannered, sarcastic jabs about an authority figure should not cost a man his passion and livelihood. Bud Selig should be able take a joke - he owns the Brewers, and they haven't been relevant in a postseason since Milli Vanilli.
Peter Pascarelli's dismissal has made me seriously (and sadly) reconsider the time and energy I devote to professional sports.
Bored of hearing about steroids and strikes, I tried to give up sports a few years ago. I picked up acting in local community theater - small time, non-paid stuff, but it was fun, time-consuming, and it allowed me to meet my wife (in a Woody Allen play, no less). Acting distracted me from what I couldn't stomach any longer: the greed and excess involved with professional sports.
Too much about sports is glitz, glamour, and hype, sex, pressure, and fame. The primary reason, I believe, is simple: there is too much money in sports. I could expand on that point for days and days, but there is no denying that money lords over every aspect of the sporting world. Labor disputes, contract squabbles, college athletes that can't pay bills but make millions for schools that are already brimming with cash-heavy boosters, secret houses owned by married men for the purpose of anonymous group sex - these are some of the side effects of pouring way too much scrilla into what should be a respectable, lucrative livelihood, not one that dictates a person like me will get to see 3 games next year, all on someone else's dime, because I can't afford a $25 nosebleed.
I mean, sure, I could go watch Little League and stop bothering with Major League Baseball, but I'm addicted. It's like Lay's potato chips. You can give me other chips, and I'll declare my satisfaction, polish off the bag, and pat my stomach. Deep inside my heart, though, I always wish it could have been Lay's. I have to be honest - I'm not really sure why I feel this way. Maybe it's the skill level, maybe it's the ease with which I can turn on a TV or radio and have my fix 24 hours a day.
I do wish I could find the satisfaction I get out of watching a baseball game doing something else, but I haven't found that thing. I've looked. Believe me. The closest thing I've found is NBA or NFL games. Delightful.
Baseball was the first sport I ever cared about. I started watching intently after my father took me to a Cubs spring training game when I was 11. I still carry the ticket stub around in my wallet. I used to lay awake at night, buried in sheets, a flashlight on, coming up with strange, long lists of all-star teams comprised of hitters and pitchers I'd only read about or watched on old VHS tapes. There was no internet when I was a kid, no satellite TV. I didn't have a concrete, justifiable reason for hoarding stacks of paper peppered with names like Hornsby, DiMaggio, and Mays, so I hid the lists and never spoke to anyone about them. My little brother knew about them, but he didn't pay much attention to my nerd shenanigans back then. We co-manage several fantasy teams, currently.
After that Cubs game, I breathed baseball. I read it, watched it, wished like hell I could play it well. I forsook school work, chores, and friendships, many a time because I had Howard Cosell's autobiography at home to read, and that was more interesting than playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out with my mother's daycare kids.
Baseball became the one constant I desperately needed, since my teenage life was, as teenage lives go, swirling in desolate confusion and self-doubt. I came to enjoy and appreciate ESPN; my unequivocal favorite hour of television was the Dan Patrick-Keith Olbermann anchored Sportscenter episodes.
As I entered my twenties, I scratched out a few feeble lines of successful dialog with the opposite sex, stumbled into a steady girlfriend, and left baseball behind. Subsequently (but not necessarily relative to the woman), drinking became my number one hobby. Going to bars, one would figure I'd end up getting interested in sports again. I didn't. The only thing that interested me was numbing out an existence I am still perpetually inches away from understanding.
After the ebb and flow of day-to-day life - skipping college to work at shitty restaurant jobs and drink - really began to beat me down, who was there for me? Baseball. It was like all those rookie cards sheathed in plastic I'd kept under my pillow as an adolescent were still there, reassuring me that after the carnival of ridiculousness was over, I'd always have something to look forward to.
Fantasy football helped me really re-discover sports on a "yes, I'm wearing a basketball jersey all day today but I won't be playing basketball in it" level. Fantasy sports gave me the opportunity not only to make up imaginary lists of players, but to pit my lists against other people's... well, it worked for me, and it still does. It shuts my brain off, and I need that.
When I quit drinking, thanks to my wife, baseball was still there. Ignoring my disdain for excessive competition and the almighty American drive to make a buck, I re-invested in the game.
Last year was my first playing fantasy baseball, and I really liked it. I'd been wanting to play for years, but I was worried about the 162 game schedule, and how it'd affect my then-super-new marriage. My wife knew I liked sports when we met, but after we married, it's been as if I'm embarking incredibly slowly on a drawn-out mid-life crisis, constantly listening to old hip-hop from the mid-1990s and watching as much baseball as my eyeballs could digest.
During last baseball season, I got a job doing internet sales for a music instrument shop. I basically post stuff on eBay all day and then get messages from people that know 4563349750332 times more information about the products than I do. In doing this, I started listening to several sports podcasts on ESPN.com. I listened to a couple a day at first, but at this point - as of today, I mean - I'd say a good six or seven hours of my workday is filled with these podcasts, and they're great. Much of the time, they're more about games than the dumb drama that literally caused me to abhor another youthful fancy: working in sports as a journalist. I knew that I'd have to cover _________ _______'s rape trial, or extramarital affairs, or other things THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ACTUAL GAMES, whether I liked it or not.
The problem remains, however: what am I going to do without those podcasts?
Sure, I listen to NPR every once in awhile, but I can only take so much bad news and politicking. There are other options, but presently, my concern is elsewhere.
I'm going to miss Peter Pascarelli, and I'm not sure who to blame. I've written ESPN, and I'm going to axe the Baseball Today podcast from my routine. Aside from that, I'm not sure what else I can do.
There is the possibility that Peter himself simply decided enough was enough, that he couldn't utter even the most innocuous of salty barbs, and he was done dealing anything that didn't have to do with a ball, a bat, and a few warm hours of sunshine. I hope that's the case. He deserves better than this, and so do his fans.
I'm tired of a country and culture where censorship is only illegal if the subject material is palatable to a ten-year-old. I do not want my sports or sports personalities whitewashed for the purpose of preserving good working relationships with super-rich, super-sensitive, PC fools. The United States is GREAT because it allows us to be FREE. WE CAN SAY AND WRITE WHATEVER WE WANT. I don't remember there being an asterisk in the Bill of Rights.
Don Imus has a radio show today. Peter Pascarelli does not.
Fuck the world that allows something like this to happen.
