On the Couch : By Dr. Richard Lustberg

An Analysis of Current Topics and Issues in Sport
June 1997

The reason people are uninspired by baseball players may be because the players are too much like us.

As cold weather turns warm and as basketball and hockey finish their seasons, the attention of sports fans can be given fully to baseball. Sadly, the emotions of hope and promise that once surrounded America’s pastime appear gone as the game struggles with significant ethical and moral problems. And if the truth is to be known, the problem with baseball is the problem with us.

For many what is happening to the game of baseball and sport in general is depressing and unacceptable. Baseball has become personified and identified with strikes, greedy owners and players, unsportsman-like conduct and generally poor manners by its players. Players are consumed with their salaries and playing time. Many are unable to take responsibility for their actions or behaviors on or off the playing field. The concept of team play and accepting the role as a member of a team has been lost. The needs of the one seem to outweigh the needs of the many.

Blame, and the ability to accept consequences, has practically become non-existent. Blame is routinely externalized and denied. If it is not the media’s fault, it is the umpire’s fault. If it is not owner’s fault, it’s the manager’s fault. If it is not the fan’s fault, it’s the strain of alimony and support payments to the ex-wife and children. And so it goes. It has been pointed out that players of past generations did not act in this manner. Some might say that those players were part of a system where they had no rights. This only applies to their working conditions and not to their behaviors and attitudes. Sadly, many who have become legends are forced to sit idly and watch the destruction of their game and our once proud national pastime.

Clearly, player’s and owner’s behaviors are not much different from our own. Maybe they never were and we just didn’t know it. Recent technical and media advances and our own increasing escapist and voyeuristic needs have brought players’ lives under an ever-present microscope. As the media reports pour in about our (and our athletes’) moral degradation, we often roar aloud with an agonizing outcry while doing little about it. Others distance themselves by objectifying these actions so as not to take responsibility for them. It’s not us, it’s them. In doing so, we do not have to deal with the many complex and difficult emotional and intellectual conflicts raised within us. Overwhelmed and unable to deal with these situations, we vent. Some of us remain silent because we do not wish to be seen as hypocritical.

Baseball personifies our need to seek immediate relief and solace over seeking long-term solutions for the complex moral and ethical problems we face. Baseball’s immediate needs appear to center around revenue and more of it. Thus we see higher ticket prices, plans to move teams to new locations, and efforts to build new stadiums at the publics expense.

We also bear witness to inconvenient starting times; uninteresting interleague matchups and we are at the whim of network executives. Clearly the owners are seeking immediate gratification and the individual need over the long-term interests of the game and fans. Players? Cecil Fielder complains about being paid $7.2 million. We wait to see how icon Cal Ripken will accept his position change to third base. Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher - two pitchers in their twenties with short tenures in the Major Leagues, and coming off injury-plagued seasons - are at a loss as to why they might be sent to Triple-A. Utility players with low batting averages or pitchers with exorbitant ERAs are at a loss as to why they were cut. Barry Bonds is described by many as self-absorbed and uncooperative. Albert Belle is depicted by the press as being despicable: Rude, angry, abusive. The union supports Roberto Alamor after the Orioles’ second baseman spit on an umpire because he disagreed with a decision. Caving into public and team pressure, Alamor apologized. Steve Howe, caught numerous times for violating baseball’s drug policy, always believed he was entitled to another chance. And so on.

Any of this sound familiar? It should because it’s modeled right in our very homes where more often than not, personal, emotional and monetary profit are chosen over principle and moral judgment. Immediate gratification is chosen over parental responsibility. How has this all come about? The roots and causes are as complex as the solutions.

Players from this generation have been raised in or exposed to, situations and environments that yield those personality types that display the behaviors we are witnessing. A society obsessed with money and sex and where divorce and teenage pregnancy are becoming common, the Belles, Bonds and Howes of society are natural.

Our relationships have become both transitory and volatile as evidenced by the continuing high divorce rate, spousal and child abuse as well as teenaged and single, parenthood. Relationships and people are now treated quickly and as easily replaceable, much in the same manner our products are planned and manufactured. Adults unable to provide for their children out of necessity and feeling overwhelmed abdicate, give in to reasonable demands of their children and look to nurture themselves. This is done in a number of different ways. Some of these ways are through the use of drugs, frivolous spending of money, indiscriminate sex and poor time management.

One of the messages these environments convey to the child is that one’s own needs come first and the way to meet these needs is not through long-term solutions but through short-term solace which means meeting the individual’s immediate need. In this manner a number of attitudes develop in the young children that have been modeled as faulty coping mechanisms.

As adults, these personality types go on the offensive and in doing so, limit the effectiveness and range of response from those in charge for fear of either being litigated against or not supported. There are additional dangers in these behaviors because they are catching. Numerous research studies suggest that people are easily influenced by others’ behavior. The dark side of the force is seductively easy to join. In this manner, we have produced a generation of youth who are without a moral and ethical compass suing for physiological compensation.

Certainly not all ball players and youth are self-centered individuals. Perhaps the media’s coverage has tainted the game and the personalities involved in it. Or maybe we have sunk to an all-time low when it comes to our morals and values. I tend to believe it is the latter and not the former.

We all know that the potential for catastrophe exists when children and our youth go unsupervised. We can’t even trust a group of unsupervised owners and players as we have seen what has happened to the game of baseball when it lost its direction and leadership. Research clearly shows that children need consistent structure and direction from their parents. Clearly there is a lack of effective leadership coming from the top in many places in our society.

Baseball is without a commissioner and lacks leadership that prevents it from becoming the sport we would like to see. Maybe baseball and our society are in need of a good dose of old-fashioned 1950s parenting. Maybe we need strong leaders. The trouble is, where will they come from?