Tag: baseball

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Rock Doubt

Well, at least we’re not Oakland. 

Small consolation at the best of times, I know. But it’s all I’ve got left to offer. 

If you’re a fellow Colorado Rockies fan, you get it. And if you’re a fellow Colorado Rockies fan, I am so, so sorry. 

One. Hundred. Losses. 

And beyond, naturally. The count stood at 102 when I wrote this and may have added one or two more by the time our final out of the year was recorded on Sunday. But as usual, it’s the big round number that stands out, the mark of infamy that no Rockies team had ever before reached. 

One hundred losses.

We’re not the first team to ever get here, of course. We’re not even the first one this season. The aforementioned Oakland A’s (111 losses at this writing) had a year that almost gave the tragic 1962 Mets a run for their money. Lest anyone forget, that was the year manager Casey Stengel uttered the immortal words “Can’t anybody here play this game?” 

So yeah. We’re not the worst of the worst of the worst.  

Um … yay?

It’s not just the bad season, of course. Everyone gets them eventually. It’s that there have been so many for so long, years where even “mediocre” has seemed like an aspirational goal.  It’s been 16 years since “Rocktober” now. Only four of those have seen winning seasons. The last one – admittedly, one of our best teams since those brief World Series days – was five years ago. 

But even there, it’s not just that it’s happened. It’s how. Get any group of Rockies fans together for longer than ten minutes and you’ll hear the same grumbles. “The owners don’t care. They don’t have to. People keep coming … they could lose every game and still make money.” 

I don’t live in the Monforts’ heads, so I can’t swear to whether that’s true, though I have my theories. (That’s half the fun of being a fan, after all.) But the fact that it’s even credible is toxic. 

After all, it’s a problem that goes beyond baseball. A problem that can be summed up in four words. 

“It’s all about me.” 

It fills the headlines every day. We see it in political showdowns that play poker with people’s lives and well-being. We see it in collisions at every level, where the fears or ambitions of a few can run roughshod over everyone else. During the height of the pandemic, it was an opponent almost as dangerous as the virus itself, when all of us had to remember that our actions affected more than just ourselves.

To be honest, we’re better at that than we give ourselves credit for. Most of us know that we should be looking beyond our own skin, that our neighbors matter. But like a person standing in a doorway, it only takes a few to get in the way of everyone else – not just by what they do or prevent, but by building a feeling of despair that accelerates the cycle. When you start to feel like nothing can be done, you’re less likely to do anything.

Heavy thoughts for something as light as a bad baseball season, I know. But the answer’s the same. Awareness. Hope. Determination. Not to give up, not to wait for things to magically get better, but to act. To remind the self-focused – in the owner’s box or in the nation – that we’re here and we won’t be taken for granted.

Interesting stat – out of all the baseball teams that have lost 100 games, about one in eight had a winning season the next year. Even the “average” mega-loser made their way back to the playoffs in about seven years. Change can happen … once there’s the willingness to do it.

It’s time to play ball. Push hard. And remember, we’re not Oakland.

It’s not much of a battle cry, but it’s a start.   

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On the Flip Side

The day after the All-Star Game, it felt like I had entered Bizarro World. 

Even if you’re not a certified geek like me (nobody’s perfect), you’ve probably heard of Bizarro World, the Superman setting where everything is ridiculously reversed. Bizarro World’s residents put curtains outside their windows. Their greatest celebrities are hideously ugly. And of course their Superman equivalent, the clumsy and Frankenstein-ish Bizarro himself, gains power from Green Kryptonite and has a penetrating gaze that can ONLY see through lead. 

So when our own Elias Díaz became the All-Star MVP with a game-winning home run – the first  of the Rockies ever to win the honor – the fan reaction would have made Bizarro feel right at home. 

“Well, it’s been nice knowing him.”

“Yeah, he ought to get traded any day now.” 

Mind you, I get it. It’s been a long, long, LONG time since the glory days of Rocktober in 2007. The current ownership has pretty much dedicated itself to the pursuit of mediocrity … and then not even taken the steps to secure that. Stars get cut or traded before they become expensive, endless streaks of losing are tolerated as long as Coors Field keeps filling up and a .500 record is treated as aspirational to the point of being unrealistic. 

Rebuilding years get bad, I know. But this isn’t rebuilding. This is marking time. To steal a quip from Abraham Lincoln, if the Monforts don’t want to use the Rockies, would they mind letting someone else borrow them for a while? 

But while they’re dithering, let’s not let them steal our joy. However brief it may prove. 

I have a little experience there. 

If you’re a regular reader here, you know that my wife Heather has just a few medical issues. Which is kind of like saying that Hollywood has just a few people on strike right now. We’re talking good stuff like Crohn’s disease. Or MS. Or ankylosing spondylitis. And often, some special guest star that we struggle to identify at all. 

Draining? Yes. Discouraging? Sure. There have been a lot of grinding days where we’ve both felt like we’re walking to the North Pole while trying to drag Pike’s Peak with us. The next moment can never really be counted on and every plan has a just-in-case contingency. 

But here’s the thing. It’s not unrelieved gray. Somehow, some way, sunlight does sneak in. And we’ve learned to treasure it for however long it lasts. 

It might be laughter at a silly joke or horrid pun. Or a “what the heck?” moment in the Chinese action melodramas Heather loves. It could be a moment of peace in the mountains or a cheer from Missy at getting to help us wash dishes. (Yes, our Missy celebrates dish washing – I told you this was Bizarro World.)

Whatever the form it takes, joy finds a way in. And when that happens, there’s nothing wrong with holding it if you can.

It’s not easy, I know. On a grand scale, it sometimes even sounds a little frivolous. “How can you enjoy (x) when (y) is going on?” But the mind can attend to a number of different things.  And while I never want to be the one fiddling while Rome burns to the ground, I also don’t want to be a grim soul who’s closed himself off to anything but pain.

So yes. Celebrate the good when it comes, however small it might be. Touch the joy. Feel the now, no matter what tomorrow holds.

And if someday it holds a change of ownership for the Colorado Rockies, maybe we can all rejoice a little more.

Bizarro? Maybe. But you’ve got to start somewhere.

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For Just a Moment

“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the HOPE!”  

– John Cleese, “Clockwise”

Oh, my Colorado Rockies. You do know how to break our hearts, don’t you?

We go through an entire offseason remembering how bad things have been. We grumble at an ownership that sees .500 as a lofty aspiration – even while we know in our heart of hearts that that’s absolutely right.

And then you do it. You go out and win your first two games against a team that played for the National League pennant last year. Not just lucky squeakers, but actual, solid wins.

What’s a fan supposed to do?

I admit it. On Friday night, I was singing a certain score to the tune of “Cleveland Rocks”: “4-1 ROX! 4-1 ROX! 4-1 ROX! 4-1 ROX!”

“Don’t fall for the ‘opening days’ of hope,” a friend advised on Facebook. Cynical, but basically sound. Smart, even. After all, the Rockies are past masters of April Love: a beautiful opening month followed by a loud ker-SPLAT.

I pondered it. Considered it. And then rejected it.

“I refuse to let the present be poisoned by the future,” I wrote back. “Especially when it’s this much fun.”

We’re often advised to follow the classic Mel Brooks proverb: “Hope for the best, expect the worst.” It’s good advice. Aspirations should always be high, plans should always account for challenges and disruptions. But somewhere along the line, a lot of us lost the first half of that saying.

It’s so easy to forget how to hope.

Mind you, I’m not talking about tolerating abuse or a dangerous situation. I’m not even talking about waiting for things to magically get better instead of backing up your dreams with action (something the Rockies ownership has been accused of on multiple occasions). As I’ve said before, hope is optimism plus sweat.

This is something simpler. When you have a good thing, even for a moment, why not allow yourself to enjoy it? Even if it’s likely not to last?

Maybe especially then. That’s when it becomes all the more valuable.

It’s easy to get grim. Heaven knows the world gives us enough reason. Sometimes it inspires a drive to sally forth and make things better. Often it just inspires exhaustion from trying to survive one more day.

But when it inspires nothing but despair … that’s when it gets deadly. Because despair is inertia. it allows no joy, no effort, no hope. It expects nothing and then immediately fulfills its own prophecy.

I’m not making light of it. I get it. There are days that crush me under their weight. In a perverse way, I suppose that’s why I reach for joy when I can. It’s a way to take even one step forward, even if it’s at a limp.

And when a moment gives light – even something as trivial as a baseball game – I hold it close. Because we need all the light we can get.

By the time this appears in the paper, the Rockies may have fallen back down to Earth … or still be soaring. Either way, we had the moment, however long it lasted. And that’s something.

So have at it, my Men in Purple. Break my heart one more time.

At least for today, you’ve made it beat a little faster.

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Tellers of the Tale

It’s a truism that we lose celebrities in bunches. We lose everyone in bunches, really, famous or otherwise.

But when the bunch includes some of our storytellers, I pay a little more attention.

And so, in a time when Hollywood passings fill the headlines, my own eye wanders to the microphone and the keyboard. Simple places. Places of magic.

Places that, for a while, were the homes of Vin and David.

**

Vin Scully was the greatest of American baseball announcers. No argument. Also, no frills. In a television era, he brought the tools of his radio days: constant description, constant stories, with no signature catchphrase or verbal pyrotechnics. Baseball suited him like no other sport could have, with a pace that allowed him to put just the right word in just the right place … or even no words at all, in times when a few seconds of silence would say it all.

David McCullough? So often, the subjects of his histories were the overlooked: landmarks so common that we’d stopped thinking about them or presidents we’d passed by. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Panama Canal. Harry Truman. All gained a new day in the spotlight through his pen. One of his best-known biographies even wound up turning John Adams into a television star – a fate the notoriously cranky Massachusetts lawyer might have regarded with a bit of bemusement.

And somewhere along the line, the Voice of the Dodgers and the popular historian reminded us that there aren’t’ any ordinary moments. Not really.

Because if you look closely enough, the extraordinary can wait anywhere.

**

When I used to work as a newspaper reporter, I spoke to a lot of kids about the profession. I always said that my favorite part was that everyone had a story waiting to be told.

Not everyone, they’d insist. Not me. And so I’d spend a few minutes asking questions, listening to the answers, sharing the neat stuff. We never once failed to find a story worth hearing.

I still believe it. We’re walking story generators, each and every one of us. We live, we learn, we experience. In the words of the musical Hamilton, “We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.”

And a lot of times, we fail to notice it.

No surprise, really. We’re all busy living that life, after all. We have bills to pay and families to worry about and a million things knocking at our door (some of them with car warranty offers). It’s easy to get pulled into the illusion of sameness, to think that most things don’t really matter all that much.

That’s the power of a storyteller. To pull back the cloak of the ordinary and reveal the magic that we’ve forgotten to see.

Wonder and purpose. Humor and sympathy. The same no more, but truly unique.

Even in a forgotten bench player in a midsummer baseball game.

Even in a one-term president from an age no longer our own.

And yes, even in each of us.

**

And so, here’s to Scully and McCullough … no, that sounds like a law firm. To Vin and David. Here’s to the words they shaped and the moments they opened.

Thank you for the stories you saw and shared with all of us.

May your own stories never be forgotten.

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Clocking Out

Once again, it’s time for the timeless. At least for this season.

Yes, baseball has finally returned with all its glorious rituals. The crack of the bat. The sounds of the organ. Even that slight bit of hope beating in the hearts of all Colorado Rockies fans … and destined to last all of three innings.

But it’s not about winning, right? (At least, not if you live in the Denver area.) Like any good show, it’s about stepping outside of normal life for a while. You leave behind a hurried world and enter a reality that works to its own rhythm, where outs matter more than hours. It’s a place where time doesn’t run out, only chances.

But that may change in 2023.

Next year, for the first time, Major League Baseball may add a pitch clock.

“It is something that remains high on the priority list of ownership,” commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN. “We have a great game, but historically, I think the game was a little crisper the way it moved along.”  

One could argue that maybe less off-the-field drama and fewer lockouts would do more to bring fans back to the game. But hey, that would be petty.

It’s not an unambiguous argument. Pitch clocks have been part of the minor leagues for a few years now (typically giving the pitcher 20 seconds to make his delivery) and when first introduced, they did shave about 11 minutes off the game. But as Baseball America notes, that didn’t last. Even with the attempt to push the pace, the time crept back up again … in fact, Double-A and Triple-A games are now 12 minutes longer than they were before the pitch clock was introduced.

Pretty crisp, huh?

Mind you, I’m not a total curmudgeon. Baseball has been tinkering with itself since the very start. It’s altered the pitch count, the strike zone, the lineups, the gear. Most of the changes have become second nature by now. Some remain controversial, like the now-universal designated hitter or instant replay. (Everyone who believed replay would cause less arguing about an umpire’s calls has never watched an NFL game.)

But the object should always be to make a better game. Not just a faster one.

No, baseball doesn’t have the relentless march of a rigorously timed (and just as long) NFL football game. It’s a different game with a different lesson. Football is about seizing the moment before it slips away from you, making use of your time … and possibly staring in despair when you realize there’s some situations you just can’t come back from.

Baseball teaches hope.

Any at-bat may be the one that turns it around. Any pitch may be the one that snuffs a rally. No matter the deficit, if there’s even one out left, there’s a chance – a forlorn chance, maybe, but a chance. And every fan, at some point, has seen that chance fulfilled.

It’s a more patient view of life. One where things take as long as they take. Where you can always look for another opportunity and strive to make up for past mistakes.

That sort of forgiving outlook doesn’t have to stay between the white lines. It’s a kinder way to live with each other. And with ourselves, too.

Baseball, like life, happens best when it’s not pushed. Let the story tell itself again, with all its quirks and curiosities. On the field and off, leave room for hope to happen.

And with that, I’ll wind up.

I might even do it in less than 20 seconds.  

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Game On

It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan in Colorado.

This year, the Denver Nuggets have BLASTED their way through the first round of the NBA playoffs!

This year, the Colorado Avalanche are setting themselves up as the NHL’s TEAM TO BEAT!

And this year, the Colorado Rockies are … are …

Hmm.

Well, they’re showing up. I think.

If you’re a longtime Rockies fan, this is probably a familiar refrain. Most seasons, the Rockies get some April love, a fast start, and then quietly sink into the mire of “Maybe next year.” But this year – ah, this year, the Rockies set out to accomplish something different. And did.

Yes, this year Colorado’s Men In Purple managed to burn their record to the ground before even getting out of April. Woohoo! Go, team!

We could argue about the reasons forever (after all, that’s what the internet is for). It could be the fault of the ownership. Or the space aliens beneath DIA. Or maybe even space aliens in the ownership – it’s been that kind of season.

Whatever the reasons, this is when we see That Fan start to emerge. You know the one.

“Who needs that bandwagon crowd, anyway? This is when you find out who the REAL Rockies fans are! If you can’t stick with the team in the bad years, we don’t want to see you in the good ones!”  

I understand the attitude. Heck, I’ve suffered through some bad Rockies baseball myself. At the same time, this isn’t Valley Forge in the American Revolution, where we’re called on to say who the sunshine soldiers are and who’s ready to fight for life and liberty.

It’s a game. It’s meant to be fun.

For some of us, the fun is in the art of baseball itself, the tactics and psychology that lie behind every pitch and swing. For some, it’s the familiar faces and personalities, the players that have become almost as familiar as next-door neighbors.

And yeah, for some, it’s the excitement of being part of a crowd that’s watching a team of skilled athletes (and even the worst players are a lot more skilled than me and thee) taking the game to another level. Winning. Winning regularly. Feeling the electricity that comes when you KNOW you’re truly seeing the best around.

That’s just as legitimate. And if they fade into the background in the in-between years, it’s not that they’re fake fans … just less intense ones. Ones that demand more than just nine purple suits and a start time.

The priorities are different.

And if we’ve learned about anything over this past year, it’s about priorities.

When your life gets upended by a worldwide crisis, you quickly learn what’s important to you. The things you must do. The things you can’t do that you miss – or that you realize to your shock that you can do just fine without. The things you never had time for before that suddenly become a means of survival.

In particular, we found we needed people. We needed their stories (and streamed an awful lot of them). We needed their faces, their voices, their reminders that they existed at all, even if at a distance. Some of us found we were ok with the distance, while others were straining at the leash for something more.

As this country slowly comes out the other side, I hope we remember those discoveries. I hope we remember what worked in our life and the ways we found joy in a stressful time. Most of all, I hope we remember how important the people around us are, and don’t dismiss them until the next time they’re taken away.

I also hope, someday, that we remember what good baseball looks like in Colorado.

Maybe it’s time to talk with the space aliens.

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Bottom of the Order

It’s almost time for the Colorado Rockies to break our hearts again.

We all know what I’m talking about. This is the team that routinely leads the league in home runs, batting average, and shattered expectations from about mid-April onward. Possessors of the loveliest field in baseball and the lowliest pitching staff. Blessed with forbearingly loyal fans and cursed with a mascot that’s … well … Dinger.

This is no Curse of the Bambino, where the Red Sox were doomed for decades to be almost the best, almost good enough. This is having to play the game for the love of the game, because even the playoffs are a quixotic dream, never mind the World Series. (Save for one strange, wonderful, painful year, of course.)

Yes, even the worst big leaguer has tools beyond what most people could dream of. Even so, I think a number of us Rockies fans can empathize. We know what it’s like to have the dream but not the reach, especially on a field of grass and dirt.

After all, an awful lot of us played right field.

“Playing right field, it’s easy, you know,

You can be awkward and you can be slow …”

— Willy Welch

I came by my love of baseball early. By the time I was in sixth grade, I could quote all the classic World Series moments and tell you who was up or down in the National League. I had my bat and glove, a batter’s tee, even a “pitchback” – netting stretched tightly to return a thrown ball – to practice my brilliant mound moves.

The one thing I didn’t have was any hint of talent whatsoever.

OK, I could move around a little on the bases. That helped on the rare occasions I drew a walk or (once) got hit by a pitch. But otherwise, my one actual summer on a team wasn’t marred by anything as crass as achievement. My bat lived in a different universe from the ball that was being pitched, my cannon arm was more of a leaky water pistol, and my attempts to catch (dodge? Not be crushed by?) a fly ball probably belonged in a Chevy Chase movie.

Naturally, I wound up in right field. Not the right field of Hank Aaron and Carlos Gonzales. This was the grade school Siberia, where fly balls and grounders rarely intruded upon the peace of one’s meditation.

The funny thing was, I didn’t really mind. (In a way, I may have even guessed what was coming, since I deliberately chose No. 13 for a uniform.) Every game, I was out there, keeping up enough “chatter” for three other players combined, letting my enthusiasm make up for the lack of a stat sheet.

Sure, my glory moment consisted of tapping one bunt that dropped right in front of the plate for the Easiest Out In The Known Universe. But who cared? I was on the team, playing baseball! Sort of!

I didn’t come back for a second season. But I never regretted playing the first one. I still don’t.

After all, it’s important to do things you’re not good at, too.

Sounds un-American, I know. We’re about looking for ways to excel – even if we sometimes put it a little more nicely, like “discovering your gifts and how you can make your own contribution.” But it can be an interesting thing to step away from your talents and struggle.

You break new ground, adding experiences and insights you might not have had. You learn humility and empathy, and how to appreciate the gifts of others. Maybe you even walk away with a little more skill than you had before – my own struggles with math in school, for example, made me an invaluable tutor to my little sister because it hadn’t come naturally to me and I could explain it in a way that made sense.

All in all, a lot of neat things can come at you from right field.

And if an unlikely championship ever does come to our Rocks, we’ll be screaming the loudest of all.

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April Love

As I write this, the Colorado Rockies are sitting on top of the National League West. King of the hill. Top of the heap. Masters of all they survey.

Or, more realistically, the lords of April.

I can see some of the longtime Rockheads nodding in agreement. For the newer fans, excited by the fast start of the boys in purple, let me give you some real-world comparisons for perspective:

“What a beautiful wedding! Oh, that marriage will surely last forever.”

“4-0 in the preseason! I’m telling you, the Broncos are going to crush the Super Bowl this year.”

“He won Iowa hands down. You know it’s just a matter of time before we all start calling him Mr. President.”

“Man, this Colorado spring is gorgeous. Aren’t you glad to finally say goodbye to ice and snow?”

You get the picture?

Yes, our hometown baseball crew is doing well in April. I’m pleased but not terribly shocked. The Rockies always do well in April. They last just long enough to get everyone excited and then a) the first three injuries happen, b) the wheels fall off our pitching rotation and/or c) Dinger the Dinosaur attracts the wrath of the baseball gods merely for existing.

How bad an indicator is it? In 2007, the year the Rockies actually made the World Series, they managed a 10-16 record in April. Mediocre with a side order of painful.

Until, suddenly, they weren’t.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I love the grand old game.

If ever there was a sport where the cream rises to the top, it’s baseball. Sure, there are bizarre flukes and bad calls, just like any other sport. But a 162-game regular season acts as one heck of a filter. When you hit a five-game winning streak in football, you’re playoff-bound for sure. When you hit a five-game winning streak in baseball, it’s … Wednesday.

Well, unless you’re the Marlins. Then it’s more of a miracle. But I digress.

I’ve had friends complain that baseball is too slow a game, that nothing seems to happen. They’re missing the point. Baseball, at its heart, is a game of patience.

There’s no clock. Any moment could be the one that wins or loses it all, however lopsided the score. (Especially with our bullpen.)

There’s a long season. You build the foundation of your season slowly and carefully, to where an unusual two weeks may mean nothing – or it may be the capstone of everything you’ve been working toward.

And there are players behind the players, always building to the promise of tomorrow. Baseball has perhaps the best-developed minor league system of any sport, a farm ground that allows you to watch not just today’s stars but the potential for years down the road. (Assuming they don’t get swiped by a richer club, of course, but that’s an argument for another day.)

It’s a life lesson turned into a sport, that you don’t have to win every at-bat, or even every game. But if you do the small things right enough, often enough, over time the small things become the big things.

It isn’t all staked on one April.

Sure, I’ll sit back and enjoy the Rockies’ wins. For today, they’re good. For tomorrow, there are no promises. Such is baseball. Such is life. A good beginning has to have follow-through if it’s to be more than a memory.

Maybe it’ll be there. Maybe not. We’ll see. Patience now, patience always.

Yes, the Rockies are truly towering. But only time can tell if they’ve peaked too soon.

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Stolen Chances

I consider myself a forgiving person. But “forgiving” doesn’t mean “patsy.”

No, Alex. No. No. No.

You know the guy I mean, I’m sure. Sometimes it seems like everyone on the planet knows Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, New York Yankees superstar. And to not know about his fight with big-league baseball over performance-enhancing drugs – well, you might not quite have to live under a rock, but it would at least require a unique focus on young Prince George to the exclusion of all else.

He’s been told to leave the game until 2014. He’s appealing.

But he’s not very appealing to me.

I don’t want him back in the game. Not in 2014. Not in 2015. Not ever.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s done.

I know, there’s this little business of innocent until proven guilty. A-Rod hasn’t admitted guilt. Under different circumstances, that’d carry weight with me.

Except he has admitted guilt. Not this time. But a while back, when he confessed to using PEDs between 2001 and 2003.

Old news? Price paid? Move on?

Sorry. Not that easy. Not for me.

We’ve been here before, though last time it was dogs, not drugs. Back in 2009, after the NFL star Michael Vick finished serving his prison time for dogfighting, I made it clear that while I wished him luck in starting a new life, that that life shouldn’t be anywhere near professional football.

“I believe in forgiveness,” I wrote then. “But I also believe in consequences. And some doors don’t open twice.”

For me, the case here is just as clear-cut. A-Rod used stolen ability to win baseball games. Possibly now, certainly then.

In my field, there’s a special word for using abilities that aren’t your own in order to get ahead. It’s called “plagiarism.”  And if I go there, I can be fired.

Worse yet. If I go there, I can probably forget finding a job in this field again. And I don’t really want to go back to bagging groceries.

A-Rod committed the athletic version of plagiarism. He let us watch talent he falsely claimed was his own.

Going easy just because it’s easier to replace my job than his doesn’t make sense. Trust was still abused.

And in the end, this is all about trust.

I think that’s what has made every new drug revelation so disgusting even as the accusation becomes so familiar. We trusted that we were watching Alex Rodriguez, or Lance Armstrong, or Mark McGwire. That we were witnesses to something special, lightning in a bottle not captured twice.

Well … there was something in a bottle, all right.

My first newspaper editor once told me that all a paper has to sell is its credibility. When that’s gone, the paper’s done. I think something similar is true of professional sports. If the stories it writes are nothing more than drug-enhanced fairy tales, we might as well be playing video games instead.

Maybe this is a lot of time to spend worrying about a kid’s game. But that’s part of it, too. The nation’s security doesn’t exactly demand that A-Rod stay in pinstripes. Just the security of the New York Yankees’ bottom line.

I think I can live with endangering that.

I know. I’m not the commissioner. I’m not the authorities. I’m not anything except one more baseball fan, tired of all the chemical cheating, who just wants to get back to enjoying the game.

But that’s what sports comes down to. If the fans stop watching, everyone stops playing. And to some of us, that’s sounding less painful every day.

So hang up the bat, Alex. Say your say, whether in defiance or apology. And then, please, go.

It’s time.

It’s past time.

It’s now.

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My Rules, Your Rules

My fellow fans of the Colorado Rockies, rejoice. Our suffering is over.

That may sound nonsensical, like saying “Welcome the World Series champion Chicago Cubs.” But you see, I’ve found the way to end our early-season woes, now and into the future.

Are you ready? Here it is.

Every season, from Opening Day until May 15, we declare that runs against our relief pitchers don’t count.

You see, every Rockies fan knows that the three sure things in life are death, taxes and that our bullpen will blow a late-game lead. So we simply don’t let them. Let the opposition do what it can against our starters; once the relievers come in, their batters will be shut down to zero … by decree.

It’s simple. It’s effective. It’s …

What do you mean, illegal?

Well, no, the rule book doesn’t currently allow that. But don’t worry about that. If we don’t like the rules, we can simply ignore them.

Just ask the great state of North Carolina.

For those who missed it, two North Carolina legislators have introduced a bill that would let the state set an official religion. And to those with worries about that pesky First Amendment (and that equally inconvenient Fourteenth Amendment that applies its protections to the states), have no fear – the bill explicitly says the federal courts don’t get to decide what’s constitutional in North Carolina.

That’s right. If we don’t like the rules, we get to ignore them.

Mind you, declaring independence of federal authority used to be called secession, but I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Right?

Now, to be fair, no one really expects the North Carolina bill to go anywhere. It’s a statement, sort of like pounding your shoe on the table, only less likely to leave an impression.

And yet, and yet … it’s always tempting to set aside the rules, isn’t it?

Note that I’m not talking about constitutional challenges in the courts. There’s a long and honored place for that. Any rule set can be re-interpreted over time, from theology to baseball, and fresh debates help keep the rules alive, by forcing us to consider what we mean by them.

But interpreting the rule book, even revising it, is a different thing from throwing it out all together. And there’s been a lot of states ready and willing to do just that.

Don’t like the mandated health insurance that the Supreme Court called constitutional? Go ahead, set it aside.

Federal laws on marijuana seem draconian? Repeal them locally and hope the feds don’t care enough to do anything.

Federal tariffs not to your liking? Go ahead and … whoops, that’s the South Carolina nullification crisis of 1832. My mistake. (I guess everything old really is new again.)

To be fair, the feds have the same temptation. It can be so easy to shortcut due process by just sticking a terror suspect in Guantanamo Bay, or to whistle at rules against unreasonable search and seizure while allowing a choice in airports between “virtual strip search” or actual groping. If thy rule offend thee, cut it off.

But it’s only when we agree on the rules that we really have a nation.

Again, I’m not saying the rules can never change. I’m sure we can all agree on many that should. But that’s the point – changing the rules requires agreement. Ignoring them requires a roll of masking tape to mark off your side of the room and a declaration that “I’m not listening to you!”

If we’re going to do that, we might as well call the ballgame. And frankly, I’m not willing to give up on the season yet.

But then, I’m a Rockies fan.

Call me an optimist.