SI.com's "Things We Miss in Baseball."

If you can't spend to win, you shouldn't own a team. The people who own the Pirates shouldn't. The owner of the Royals, who has hardly any mon...oh, wait.

 

Point being: You can't miss what never existed.

 

Please list all the teams with $150 million payrolls.

 

Please take it somewhere else gramps.

 

He made a statement, I'm asking him to back it up.

Go whine about your poor little cubbies, fanboilooser.

 

I miss being 16 years old and getting completely sloshed at Cleveland Stadium because the beer vendors just wanted to make money, and when you were one of 2,500 people at a Thursday game in early September, your money looked good to them.
I miss trades where the players involved were actually the biggest part of the deal, not the salaries.
I miss Mario Soto's change-up.
I miss one flap down.
I miss eating ice cream out of one of those little plastic helmets and not paying eight bucks for it.
I miss Carlton Fisk and think anyone that calls Ivan Rodriguez "Pudge" should go to prison.
I miss pure hitters like Rod Carew, Al Oliver and Wade Boggs.
I miss the dirty, grungy, paint-peeled seats in left field General Admission at Cleveland Stadium.
I miss saving my money and finding creative ways to get into a ballgame.
I miss wondering what it would be like to walk on a Major League field. Sometimes we are spoiled in thos profession. Like Jim Bouton said in Ball Four, about walking across the outfield, "sometimes I forget to tingle."
I miss batters coming to the plate without body armor.
I miss Riverfront Stadium, where some of the greatest memories of my life were made. I miss promotions like the 33 1/3 record of the Reds Greatest Hits of 1976. I still own it and can recite it from memory..."So, the Reds an out away from sweeping the 1976 world championship. Here's the windup and the pitch. Flyball into centerfield. Foster has it and the 1976 World Championship belongs to the Reds."
I miss Herb Score.
And, finally, I miss players who cared more about winning than cashing a paycheck. Guys like Rose, Ozzie Smith, Dave Concepcion, Dale Murphy, etc.

 

Baseball cards on the bottom of Ding Dong boxes.

 

Forget your irony/sarcasm font there?

 

Awesome.



Bless my mother, she assured I'd never get a full set of those, b/c the hardest-to-get cards were inevitably on the shittiest snacks. Like a four-panel of Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett was on the back panel of the Ass-Flavored Cake or some shit (actually I think it was the apple or cherry pie, neither of which I ever even remotely liked)...which of course rarely made their way to East Bumfuck. On the rare occassions they did, I'd beg Mom to buy them.

"No, you're not going to eat them."
"I know!"
"I'm not buying you food just for the cards."
"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Great times.

 

Good list Carleton. I loved my copy of "Finley's Heroes" the A's put out in the 1970s. Watching World Series games in the cafeteria during lunch - I miss when "cheaters" referred to people loading up on the ball, hitters corking the bat or teams stealing signs.
I miss hating Garvey, Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey.

 

Does the Post Gazette still own like 15 percent of the Pirates? I always thought that was kind of a conflict.