National Pastime

Welcome to the teams competing here in the East Regional draw of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's basketball tournament. The city is glad to be part of what some observers of the sports and social scene believe has become the national pastime.It indisputably is that every Spring, when the colleges engage in the long, tense, one-loss-and-you're-out NCAA tournament that has come to be called "March Madness." Brokers have been offering tickets for today's sold-out double header at the Baltimore Arena for $300.

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s recent column expressed the common view that most Greeks don't value "enterprise" because they've become dependent on overly generous government benefits that have ruined their economy ("America isn't Greece - at least not yet," Aug. 12). Yet I have struggled to reconcile the idea of the lavish public pensions he talks about with the images of newly homeless Greek pensioners picking through garbage for food as a result of EU-imposed austerity measures. Something seemed amiss.¿¿ The Greek government's financial problems come down to one thing: Tax evasion.

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s recent column expressed the common view that most Greeks don't value "enterprise" because they've become dependent on overly generous government benefits that have ruined their economy ("America isn't Greece - at least not yet," Aug. 12). Yet I have struggled to reconcile the idea of the lavish public pensions he talks about with the images of newly homeless Greek pensioners picking through garbage for food as a result of EU-imposed austerity measures. Something seemed amiss.¿¿ The Greek government's financial problems come down to one thing: Tax evasion.

One of the few positives that accompanies the end of summer is the arrival of pennant fever which allows a lucky handful of cities to harbor sandlot dreams of October glory. Sadly, for yet another season, the playoffs will elude both of our local teams. The Orioles have, at least, perked up under their new manager, but the Nationals? Their rusty collection of mediocre arms, tired bats, and underwhelming prospects is locked into another last-place finish. The sting of this year's disappointment was worsened by the announcement that Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals' top young phenom who struck out 14 batters in his first big league start, was felled by a potentially career-ending arm injury.

Uncle Sam, in his traditional star-spangled top hat and striped trousers and snowy goatee, and the Statue of Liberty, that distinctive femme with tiara and sandals, were sitting on stuffed chairs in their living room and watching television. "I must con-fess," said Uncle Sam to Lady Liberty, "I'm starting to prefer basketball to baseball."This scene took place in a cartoon drawing by Mischa Richter in a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine.Could it be that the sports tastes of America had so shifted that the National Pastime had moved into another era -- and crowned a new champ?

If you're a baseball fan, you might want to pick up a copy of this month's GQ. Peter Richmond's cover story on Ken Griffey Jr. pretty much encompasses everything that's right -- and wrong -- with the national pastime.What's right is Mr. Griffey himself: The kid who scrambled into the Yankees dugout to watch his dad play is now, at 26, the sport's best player, blessed with a swing as flawless as the Hope diamond and a zest for the game."If baseball was all year round, I'd play all year round," Mr. Griffey tells Mr. Richmond, and I believe him.What's wrong is that most of Mr. Griffey's time is taken up by marketing piranhas who swarm around the superstar as he attends to "the business of being Ken Griffey" -- autographed merchandise, a Chevy commercial, a Nike ad campaign.

If football is analogous to war - players hit, kick, throw bombs - what does the gentler game of baseball represent? Jack Petrash has discovered the answer. When he sat down to write a book about fatherhood, the comparison to the national pastime was irresistible. "It was the best way to explain what I wanted to say on the subject," says Petrash, a twice-married father of three who lives in Kensington, a suburb northwest of Washington. Petrash, 51, a teacher for 25 years at the Washington Waldorf School, a private school in Bethesda, took a year off to write "Covering Home" (Robins Lane Press, $19.95)

WASHINGTON - Maybe it's his affection for U.S. history. Maybe it's just that he spent the previous afternoon schmoozing with an old pal in the Oval Office. Whatever the reason, when Dale Petroskey, the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., is asked to name his favorite installation in Baseball as America, the sprawling exhibition that opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History today, he's on it like Bonds on a hanging curve. He walks past the Abner Doubleday baseball, which, at 150 years old, looks something like a shrunken head.

Ryan Little was feeling a little tipsy one recent night. He decided to call "this girl Diane" he knew from college. Unfortunately, his fingers were also a bit woozy as they walked across the cell phone keys. When his call went through, he started talking, flirtatiously and without stopping, for a full four minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn't Diane on the other end. "I hit my Dad's number instead," the Baltimore resident said. Increasingly common with the proliferation of cell phones and their free midnight minutes, the drunk-dial has become a national pastime, and tonight untold numbers of drinkers will ring in the new year - perhaps in more ways than one. Some call these calls pathetic - particularly those made to exes - but others laud them as an outlet for spontaneous expression that at least is a whole lot healthier than many other drunken activities.

WASHINGTON - Sporting the bright red caps of their departed Senators, city leaders announced yesterday that the national pastime would return to the nation's capital after an absence of 33 seasons when Major League Baseball moves the Montreal Expos here in time for Opening Day 2005. "It's a great day for Washington," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams, wearing a red cap styled after those once worn by the Washington Senators. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was equally enthusiastic, describing Washington - the country's biggest city without a baseball team - as the best place to revive the troubled Expos franchise.

I t was the final season at old Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter and company were slugging their way through a big winning streak, and 56,000 noisy fans crammed the historic ballpark for an afternoon game. The visiting San Diego Padres, desperate to halt the momentum, handed the ball to one of their most intriguing prospects, an earnest young right-hander from Anne Arundel County. Things didn't start out well for Josh Banks. Left-fielder Johnny Damon and Jeter led off with singles.

Much has been written on this page and elsewhere about what's wrong with baseball, from performance-enhancing drugs to the out-of-whack economics of the sport. Let us give equal attention to something that is right with the national pastime - Jerry Narron. Mr. Narron is manager of baseball's oldest franchise, the Cincinnati Reds, and on Wednesday night he did something every baseball fan with basic cable and a memory of Little League has been aching to do for years - he benched a star player for not hustling on a routine play.

These are strange times indeed. In Greece, all team sports have been suspended for a two-week period after hooligan violence led to the death of a fan before a Greek Cup women's volleyball game. In Jamaica, the British coach of Pakistan's national cricket team was found dead recently under suspicious circumstances after the team suffered a World Cup loss to Ireland. Next thing you know, our NHL players will start braining each other with their hockey sticks and our NBA players will start chasing fans into the loge section.

No need to be embarrassed. You're probably not the only one in Baltimore who just figured out that the Ravens are in the playoffs and everybody at work is going to be talking about them and, well, it's going to be a little uncomfortable at the water cooler if you don't develop a rudimentary understanding of the NFL in relatively short order. Sure, you know that Johnny U. used to be a big deal around here and you've seen Brian Billick hanging around the quantum physics stacks at the library over at Johns Hopkins, but you wouldn't know a linebacker from the Wichita Lineman Glen Campbell used to sing about and you probably think the "Tuck Rule" is part of the NFL's dress code.

In poker's old days -- that's about three years ago -- much of what many people understood about the game they learned from a Kenny Rogers song. You had to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away. Right? Well, the lyrical advice in that poignant old ballad was basically on target, but today a whole lot of folks are serious about figuring out exactly when they should be holdin' and foldin' and walkin'. Some professional players have observed that poker is a game that takes an afternoon to learn and a lifetime to master.

Two days after losing the vote to play host to the 2012 Summer Games, U.S. Olympic leaders learned that the national pastime won't be played in London. In a move some interpreted as a slap at the United States and contrary to the philosophy of inclusiveness espoused by the International Olympic Committee, delegates in Singapore voted yesterday to drop baseball and softball from competition after the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. "I don't want to say it's an anti-U.S. thing, but they are two native American sports," said a shocked Don Porter, the American who heads the International Softball Federation.

It used to be that kids couldn't get enough baseball. They'd get up early on mornings when school was out, assemble teams that would converge on the nearest neutral territory to play sandlot ball until the sun fell behind the horizon. They signed up for Little League, listened to games on the radio, traded cards and basically lived for the national pastime. Those were the days. "When I was a kid, my mom used to bring me lunch at the baseball field because I wouldn't come home. Now you ride by and they're empty," said Michael Haspert, an administrator for Little League Baseball in Maryland.

Ryan Little was feeling a little tipsy one recent night. He decided to call "this girl Diane" he knew from college. Unfortunately, his fingers were also a bit woozy as they walked across the cell phone keys. When his call went through, he started talking, flirtatiously and without stopping, for a full four minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn't Diane on the other end. "I hit my Dad's number instead," the Baltimore resident said. Increasingly common with the proliferation of cell phones and their free midnight minutes, the drunk-dial has become a national pastime, and tonight untold numbers of drinkers will ring in the new year - perhaps in more ways than one. Some call these calls pathetic - particularly those made to exes - but others laud them as an outlet for spontaneous expression that at least is a whole lot healthier than many other drunken activities.