Baseball Needs a Savior

The picture is funny. The story is not. Major League Baseball, no, baseball as a whole, has suffered a critical if not mortal wound this week as the "Steroid Era" has reared its ugly head once more, only this time to take down its greatest star. Not it's greatest asset but it's greatest star. More on A-Holefraudroid later.

This mortal blow to baseball is certainly its own fault, but I need for us to go back to the other two most critical attempts of killing baseball that the game ultimately survived because there came "The Savior."

Flash back; 1919. The Chicago White Sox, clearly the team to beat for the World Series, inexplicably lost the Series with the infamous Shoeless Joe Jackson leading the way to baseball's immortality.

They cheated, they threw the World Series because a gambler was able to get "Eight Men Out." Judge Landis, the iron-handed baseball commissioner, threw the book at them and baseball seemed doomed. It sure looked like it.

Enter "The Savior," Herman "Babe" Ruth. If nothing else, just look at his stats: 142 games (they payed 154 back then), 457 ABs, 158 runs.

Are you kidding me? 172 hits, 36 doubles, nine triples, and an unheard-of 54 home runs. Plus, 137 RBI, 14 stolen bases, 150 walks with only 80 strikeouts, and a whopping batting average of .376. My God. An OBP of .533 and a slugging percentage of .849, the highest ever in his career.

The crowds came in droves to see "The Babe." Hell, they even named a great candy bar after him ( I liked "The Reggie" better). Everywhere he went, the people braved the elements just to catch a glimpse of him.

He once said, "I had a better year and I'm more popular than the President, and I make more money than him too".

Baseball was saved by "The Savior."

Flash forward to 1947. Baseball was struggling again. World War II cost the American people over 100,000 of their young men. You ever wonder how many of them could have been the next Babe Ruth? How many of those lost were African Americans? I have no clue. I could probably look it up, but for the sake of brevity I'm sure the number was significant.

Yet baseball had refused to integrate the sport and now, admittedly, 60 years later it is widely known that not all the best players at that time were playing in the MLB. Baseball was on the verge of tanking once again.

Enter "The Savior," Jack Roosevelt Robinson. I don't need his stats to justify his contribution to this game. We all should know what they were. Jackie and those who followed him led the way to what I believe were baseball's glory years.

Growing up as a Brooklyn Dodger fan, and perhaps I may be biased (Of course I am, I'm from Brooklyn), but the players of that era were beyond belief. There was no free agency and players hardly moved from team to team, and when they did, it was the result of a blockbuster trade like Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn. You identified with players and they made up the team of your choice, and they became your role models and you copied their stance, their swing, their walk, their everything. I could copy "Stan the Man's" stance exactly from the left side and turn around and do the same with Ernie "Let's play two" Banks.

Baseball was saved by "The Savior."

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?