Jun 14, 2008 - 04:06:35 CDT
Organized sports has no idea how immense an image problem it has developed due to the prevalence of drug usage and drug allegations.Cynicism about the role of drugs in thoroughbred racing even surfaced at a Legion baseball tournament last weekend.
I was amazed to hear fans at the Bismarck BClassic speculating that Big Brown had been drugged. That was fewer than 24 hours after the horse's poor performance in the Belmont.
When you reach the point where sports fans think of the drugs-sports connection as commonplace, people, you've got a huge problem.
Those jaundiced viewpoints don't just surface in the face of lackluster efforts, either. WhenSkunk Rigosio's home run performance jumps from seven one season to 34 the next, what do you hear? You've got it: "I wonder if he's on roids?"
This is disturbing to me. So much of sports, particularly baseball, is built on statistics. Some of the best Hot Stove League arguments I've had involved the relative merits of baseball players from different eras. Now the advent of juiced athletes is taking away the very basis of those joyful rhubarbs. More is the pity.
In a recent 11-day span, your humble reporter spent six full days at baseball tournaments. This, of course, is quite similar to paradise.
It allowed for some thought-provoking time. The upshot of these deliberations, if you'll permit me:
n In high school baseball the squeeze play - suicide or safety -is no longer a surprise tactic. Back in the metal bat days, yes. With wood bats, no, as Fargo South discovered to its great dismay in the state championship game.
n The straight steal of home remains a real shocker. Isaw Bismarck High pull it off twice in regular season games this spring.
n How about those Ws? Williston,Westphal, wow. Winning three games by 9-0, 4-0 and 1-0 margins en route to a state championship boggles the mind. The Coyotes surrendered just nine hits in 21 innings and didn't make an error. Ten of those goose eggs belonged to senior right-hander Trevor Sorenson, certainly a worthy tournament MVP. Some future team may equal that record, but they'll never improve on it.
n Playing, umpiring and watching baseball, I've witnessed more innings than I care to count. Still, there's always the possibility of something new surfacing with each and every pitch. So it was with Zac Elgie's barehanded catch of a pop foul in the state Class A high school tournament. Elgie, playing first base, chased a high pop foul near the dugout in the quarterfinals against Fargo South. He overran the ball and, instinctively, reached back with his bare hand and made the catch. As Casey Stengel would have said, "amazing."
n Fourteen innings. From a fan's perspective, Dickinson's 2-1 victory over Century in the 14-inning third-place game must have been riveting. The baseball was good and, as the score indicates, neither team deserved to lose. Dickinson had a 12-10 edge in hits and there were only two errors in the ballgame. Each team used three pitchers, with CHSace ZachWentz and Dickinson staff leader Grant Kovacs working five innings each. There were times it seemed the game would go on all night.
n That, in turn, leads to one of the best lines to come out of the Memorial Ballpark press box in many moons. As the third-place game went into double-digit innings, Lee Leiss of KDIXradio in Dickinson captured the mood. He advised his listeners, and I'm quoting from memory, "For those of you listening in Dickinson, you might want to drive on over and catch the end of the game." Needless to say, he got the best laugh of the tournament.
n Wood bats vs. metal bats, you decide. In the span of 11 days the state Class A baseball tournament was played in Mandan with wood bats and the BClassic Legion tournament ran its course in Bismarck. The numbers tell an interesting tale:
With wood bats, Class A scored 66 runs (5.5 per game), had 141 hits (11.7 per game and made 29 errors (2.4 per game).
With metal bats, Class B scored 221 runs (13.8 per game), had 237 hits (14.8 per game and 77 errors were made (4.8 per game).
(Steve Thomas is a Tribune sports writer.)
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