There’s No Denying the Fact That Fans Can Be Forgiving

Four years ago, baseball was dead, its obituary punctuated by an ugly labor war that canceled the World Series and created a spring training joke, where plumbers and postmen were passed off as major leaguers.

Basketball was big. Hockey was hip. Football was fabulous. Baseball was your father’s game, antiquated and locked in a time warp, looking inconsequential to many sports fans.

Not so fast.

It’s wonderful what a bunch of home runs and strikeouts and a perfect game will do. Baseball is back in a big way, enjoying an era of excitement fueled by power and pitchers.

Attendance is up more than 3%. Seven teams have drawn more than 2 million fans, and five more are poised to join them. With one-third of the season remaining, every team in the majors has drawn more than 1 million on the road and just five of the 30 franchises are under 1 million at home. Average attendance is a shade under 29,000 fans every time a game is played.

Perhaps the beginning of baseball’s comeback came the night in 1995 when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played and trotted around Camden Yards, exchanging high-fives with the fans.

There was still some residual anger from the strike and the vanished World Series, but here was one of the good guys of the game, reaching one of its most cherished records and celebrating with the customers.

“That’s something we all have to remember,” said Hall of Famer Tom Lasorda, an ambassador for baseball in good times and bad. “The game doesn’t belong to the owners and it doesn’t belong to the players. It belongs to the fans.”

Ripken’s remarkable streak stretched past 2,500 games this season and it was just one of the exclamation marks in baseball’s recovery.

Less than two weeks apart in May, two of the game’s most venerable ballparks were the sites of historic accomplishments. David Wells, a blue collar pitcher in pinstripes, threw the 15th perfect game in history at Yankee Stadium, and 20-year-old Kerry Wood tied the single-game record with 20 strikeouts at Wrigley Field.

The feats served as centerpieces for their teams. The imperial Yankees, the game’s most successful franchise, made a runaway of their race, pushing past 50 games over .500 and threatening the best record in history. The Cubs, perennial also-rans, were in the middle of a playoff chase.

As remarkable as the one-game accomplishments of Wells and Wood were, they were just one game. More riveting have been the day-by-day home run exploits of Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey and Sammy Sosa.

Their run at Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers has energized the season and made their games compelling on a daily basis.

Did McGwire hit one last night?

How about Griffey? What did Sosa do?

And they’re not the only ones chasing records this year.

Juan Gonzalez reached 100 RBIs before the end of July. Every time he drives in a run, it brings him a step closer to Hack Wilson’s record of 190 RBIs. Maris’ home run record is 37 years old. Wilson’s RBI record is 31 years older than that.

The excitement is contagious. Certainly, Ripken has noticed.

“The individual stuff, especially the home run chase, has really energized fan interest,” he said. “I think a lot of people thought the record was unreachable.”

Maybe the same ones who once thought the same thing about Gehrig’s consecutive game record.

“It’s really an exciting thing to watch,” Ripken said. “I think that fact that people now arrive early at the ballpark to watch McGwire take batting practice is indicative of that.”

Baseball’s recovery is obvious to Florida manager Jim Leyland.

“For the most part, the enthusiasm has picked up again,” he said. “It’s there for the taking if we just continue to keep our nose clean and provide good entertainment. It has a chance to survive in a big way.”

Leyland had some initial doubts about the wild card playoff berth, but has been won over, especially after the Marlins used that route to win the World Series championship a year ago.

“I think baseball’s higher-ups made some good decisions, and I think the players are taking over, which is what you want,” he said. “The players are providing the excitement now.”

Lasorda, long considered a traditionalist, embraces the wild card idea, perhaps because it’s the only hope his Dodgers have for playing in October.

“I loved the wild card the day it came in,” he said. “It’s not like football or basketball. In our game, there are teams with a shot at the wild card in September who are out of the pennant races.

“To get the wild card in the National League, you’ve got to beat 13 teams. It’s more difficult to win the wild card than it is to win the division where you only have to beat four teams.”

Ripken likes it, too.

“The birth of the wild card has really changed the way fans and players view pennant races,” he said. “Now a team can be out of first place and still be in the hunt for a playoff spot. It makes the games in July, August and September more exciting.”

Then there is interleague play, another wrinkle to generate excitement. Ripken endorses it. Lasorda does not.

“Interleague play, on a limited basis, has been a breath of fresh air,” Ripken said. “It’s really cool to develop rivalries with new teams and go to different stadiums. I think fans like to see players from the other league, guys they’ve never seen before.”

Lasorda believes mixing the leagues in the regular season disturbs the purity of the World Series. And he doesn’t appreciate people messing with the event he affectionately calls “The Fall Classic.”

“I wish they’d leave the game alone,” he said. “It’s the greatest game and sport in the country. It’s handed down generation to generation. You could leave for 20 years and when you came back, you’d still know baseball.”