Time to Take the Car Keys Away From Grandpa

I used to really like Andy Rooney. He seemed really wise and humorous in the way only old men can be. He knew a lot about linguistics. These days? Not so much. Andy Rooney has talked bad about the game of baseball. That alone is not so bad - plenty of people say bad things about baseball and it is warranted. If someone wants to make a case for the game losing some integrity, I will listen. If someone wants to talk about how foolish it is for the game to worship the past more than celebrate the present, or play pretend-ethics in a world that is pushing towards being meta-ethical, I'll listen. But Andy Rooney has crossed a line. He has said horrible things about baseball. Andy Rooney is not a baseball man. He cannot say these things. Read through the following from Rooney's column for the Stamford Times (huh?) and just make sure to notice a couple things. 1) Xenophobia? 2) Andy Rooney writes like a fifth grader. Fuck you, old man. Fuck you.

Andy Rooney — A no-hit game for me

Baseball has never been my game. I never liked it as a kid, probably because I could never throw a ball very well. My friends said I threw like a girl and that's enough to put any young boy off a game. As I've probably told you — after over 4,000 columns it's sometimes hard to remember what I've said before — my father took me to a Yankee game when I was about 10 years old and Joe DiMaggio struck out three times.

My disinterest in baseball as a kid has lasted all my life. I'm still not interested in the game. I don't watch it on television or follow it in the newspaper. I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today's baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me. They're apparently very good but they haven't caught my interest. I also think baseball needs some rules changes, too. For example, the player who starts the game as pitcher should have to play all nine innings without a substitution. A pitcher hardly ever plays more than a few innings and then the manager replaces him with someone who isn't as good. I think baseball managers dominate the games more than the players do and more than coaches do in other sports.

There are 30 major league baseball teams, but sometimes it seems as though the New York Yankees are the only team that ever wins the World Series. There have been 102 World Series since 1903. The Yankees have been in 39 of those and they've won 26. Five teams have never won a World Series. What in the world keeps baseball fans in those cities coming to games?

The figures they keep giving us on broadcasts of baseball games are batting statistics, the amount being paid the players, the number of fans in the stands. There are other statistics I'd like to hear more often. When a player comes up to bat, they can tell me what his batting average is but I'd also like to know how many times he's struck out. Tell me how many different teams he's played with. Which player on either team has made the most errors? What's the average IQ of a baseball team compared with the IQ of a professional football team?

It seems like a major mystery that baseball has never caught on in other countries the way it has here. There are baseball leagues in several countries but their citizens' interest is mostly in soccer [football as they call it]. Cricket is popular in some countries, but it makes hopscotch seem exciting.

It's easier to understand why our football game isn't played in other countries. Football is complicated. It takes a lot of practice and it's expensive. All players need for a soccer game is a ball and a pair of shorts and shoes. It's harder for a bunch of kids to get together Saturday morning and go to a vacant lot to play football than to play either soccer or baseball.

Some of the best times of my life were playing football, and some of the best friends I made were fellow football players in high school and college. You're more dependent on teammates in football than in baseball and a bonding takes place.

In a football game, you're dependent on the players on either side of you. In a baseball game, you're pretty much on your own. Basketball is a better team sport to me than baseball, but size means too much in basketball. I never got taller than 5-foot-9 and didn't make the basketball team in school. I ended up as the backstroker on the swimming team. I was a good swimmer but hated doing laps for practice. The water was always cold and after half an hour in the chlorinated pool my eyes were red and my skin wrinkled. It took the fun out of swimming.

Considering the fact that who wins or loses any game makes no difference whatsoever in our lives, it's interesting how important a game can seem to us sometimes. The greatest sports loss of my life was a high school football game. We were undefeated and the game was the last of the season. It ended in a scoreless tie and we were crushed by what seemed like the worst defeat of our lives.

Write to Andy Rooney at Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or via email at aarooney5@yahoo.com