Baseball is America
Origins and History: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
The great Joe DiMaggio, a proud representation of an American hero, said it best: “When baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game.… I’m a ballplayer, not an entertainer.” Baseball is no longer fun; therefore, it’s no longer a game. It is first of all a sports entertainment business; a big business, nonetheless. After the 1994 strike, baseball became “corporate” and embraced the corporate philosophy and merged it with a Hollywood blue state value system with respect to synthetics, thus enabling calibration of performance to the level of entertainment desired, just like Showbiz. The king of the Evil Empire assumed a leadership role after the birth of free agency in the mid-70’s with his extreme, unbridled approach to capitalism. The St. Curt the Martyr, a.k.a Curt Flood sacrifice in 1969 ushered in a new baseball era in the 1970s, which allowed extreme capitalist owners to act as precursors to Joe Francis’s Girls Gone Wild. The game as a sport transformed rapidly into the business of sports entertainment, with an emphasis on entertainment. Extreme capitalism unbridled took control, and transformational ethics, the ethics of conscious, flew out of the park faster than a speeding bullet or, metaphorically, a Baroid dong. Since Durand-Durand is possibly clueless as what that even means, the synchronization took some time to mature. Progress was retarded by the owners and players vehemently working against each other. Then the pivot point came in 1994 with the most painful period in the history of baseball. The severity of the players’ strike, resulting in the cancellation of the Fall Classic for the first time ever, including war years, forced the opposing sides to metaphorically adopt the title of the September 26, 1969, release of the Beatles #1 single, Come Together. They came together, right now, over saving baseball, and a social contract evolved. Operating the business under the umbrella of unified social contract ethics and ends–means ethics enabled baseball to achieve peak performance just like the effect greenies have on a hung-over player. Baseball’s hangover ended and they were off to the races in a way. A capitalistic Twisted Cross model was born out of rejection of transformational ethics and a master race of players emerged, utilizing the Promethean Project ideology from the death camps to gain might through superiority and eliminate those who stood for a traditional American ideology. When the players and owners finally worked together in tandem, a big bully was born. Major League Baseball resorted to unbridled capitalism during the Synthetic Era; providing the general public with the utmost quantity of entertainment achievable while simultaneously maximizing profits. Any concern that its actions were more toxic to America than air pollution was of no concern to baseball, provided the turnstiles keep turning. Right and wrong became artificial concepts within the secular-humanist framework overlaying the American culture, which were redefined through winning and losing and feeling good or bad. Politically correct rhetoric from Durand-Durand was supposed to cover the “social responsibility” issue since transformational ethics was denied access at the turnstiles like a Billy Goated Cubbie fan in ’45. The reason the doping continues, even though lessened as a result of “forced” drug testing, and the fan base does not demand change, change we can believe in, is that the current fan base really does not care; apathy. They just want to be entertained, like being at a rock concert, due to a view of athletes as entertainers, like their favorite rock stars who “want a new drug … one that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you.” Another segment of America is either unsure what’s going on, doesn’t want to know what’s going on, or is afraid to know what’s going on. And lastly, there are some very concerned Americans who are metaphorically singing What’s Going On? Marvin Gaye’s hit song from 1971.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
America’s Favorite Pastime with its foreign taproot evolved into the modern game. Baseball is traced in the 364-page book from its European origins plus much deeper sources. Cultural beginnings, including the rally monkey, hot dog, peanut and anthems provide historical perspective. The American spirit is captured through baseball, beating to the rhythm of the American culture, sometimes as its direction, but most times its reflection. The goodness of the game exists in both its players serving as role models for the youth, with the Yankee Clipper leading the charge, plus inducing positive progressive change highlighted by the 1947color barrier penetration by Jackie. Type and character makeup of leadership in America and baseball is positioned as integral to the cultural socialization process. Christian religious tenets previously employed in traditional America have been metaphorically “Billy-Goated” out of the field of play. An orchestrated reshaping from its Founding principles using education and media as hypnotic tools promoting secular-humanist ideals and values has fundamentally transformed America into a nation ripe for governance by the New World Order as One Global Family. The reader’s thought process is directed to answering the question as to what is the American way? The shear ugliness of baseball bore its soul to the American public during the Synthetic Era as characterized by serpentine-type Congressional hearings involving performance-enhancing-drug use. The author boldly declares America to be a nation on some sort of drug indifferent to toxic societal effects and meritocracy interference. Cultural issues including an intellectual history of PEDs, their affects on performance and leakage into the tributaries plus the evolution of the Promethean Project are well documented. Comparisons are made between the sins of Shoeless Joe and Charlie Hustle and the typical Synthetic Era ballplayer. Hazards of playing ball are probed by comparison to perceived dangers of hit-by-pitch and the Iraq War, shark attacks and automobile accidents. Political perspectives are injected into the read using metaphors, baseball-speak and satire.
About the Author
Victor Alexander Baltov, Jr. is an empirical writer offering baseball views from a “natural” player’s perspective. Diamond time over six different decades was accumulated as an extremely competitive pitcher, center-fielder and shortstop. The author steps into the metaphorical batter’s box of chin music as a lone crusader in the quest to right a major wrong of society, normalized acceptance of cheating in baseball, in the vein of Curt Flood and free agency and Jackie and racism. Nicknamed “Balls” on his mid-70’s Cowboy baseball team, his ball playing experiences in the Garden State, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Florida provide metaphorical field-level and game-speed perspective on culture war issues. Houston, an epicenter of synthetic ballplayers of all ages, was the stage for both later life senior ball as a player and youth ball as a coach. The author was a #1 overall draft pick as a pitcher in the same college league that the Rocket participated in and was not. He tallied just shy of 200 amateur mound victories against fewer that 60 defeats. Being an offspring of a Daughter of the American Revolution who worked in a high security position in the FDR administration and a father born into the Christian cleansing campaign known as the Bolshevik Revolution, his convictions are deep-seated with baseball viewed as a strike zone of supernatural versus Marxian materialistic ideologies. Intimate knowledge of the sources of synthetic enhancement, the Hitler and Stalin regimes, exists. His father grew up under the harsh brutality of the Lenin/Stalin Communist regimes and fought in Operation Barbarossa during WW II against the Nazis and as a Polish Combatant fought against the Soviets and what they stood for as a rogue warrior. The personalities of the author’s university mascots, Cowboys and Mavericks and Dead Ball Era grandpa is reflected in his writings. His focus is on Founding principles with a value system weighting experiences over material possessions. His personity is the epitome of the anti-Marx!