Baseball, Meet Peanut Butter

I keep looking for reasons to feel proud of baseball. I peak at the headlines, in search of stories that will make this beautiful game look as gorgeous to me now as it was when I was 8 or 9. But I keep falling short.

I see the same names in the headlines each day, and for the same reasons: Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi. Some days, I wonder why anyone would choose to become a fan of a sport in which there has been so much cheating.

I look a little further, and I see a general manager resigning amidst allegations of kickbacks from signing bonuses. I glimpse deeper, and I see stories of men signed to contracts in the millions, yet club employees fired in order to pinch pennies. Every day, I see a new story about a man who, in the midst of a global recession, continues to turn down an offer to earn $45 million over the next two years, just to play left field and hit baseballs.

What is the point? Why am I still reading about this sport? What would be the reason to follow a game that has lost its way so wildly?

I can’t say I have a convincing answer to these questions. I don’t think I can persuade anyone why this sport is worth their time more than, say, watching a movie or tooling around on Facebook or iTunes.

But, then again, I’ve been thinking about peanut butter lately.

It’s been a couple of months now that we’ve been reading about the salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut company in Georgia. We’ve seen hundreds of peanut-butter products recalled, and read of hundreds stricken and several believed to have been killed by the salmonella, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal investigators are now claiming that the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Georgia, knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter, and had mold growing on its ceiling and walls. The company has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Unethical actions have led to sickness, death, fear and unemployment. Another national shame has enveloped our country.

And yet, I do love my peanut butter.

I have, of course, made sure to avoid all recalled peanut-butter products. But as for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, they remain a staple of my lunchtime diet. I expect they always will.

I am separating the product itself from those responsible for manufacturing and selling some of the said product.

Peanut butter, like baseball, is rather lovely in its essence. It’s got a simple, homespun elegance that has attracted devotees for decades. We know the sticky-sweet taste of a PBJ, so much that here in New York we’re even willing to spend several dollars for a sandwich at the high-end Peanut Butter & Co. restaurant in Greenwich Village.

And we know the simple elegance of baseball as well. We know the dash from first to third on a hit-and-run. The pickoff at first base. The shoestring catch. The squeeze bunt. The ground-rule double. The pitcher who escapes a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam.

It is a fabulous product, this game. It will be so forever. The scandals will come and go, as will the unsavory characters. Many of them will do their best to ruin the game itself.

But we will demand better. Just as the president must confront this peanut butter scandal with improvements in federal oversight of America’s food, so will the government and sports world at large demand that Major League Baseball right its ship.

These demands have already begun, and they will continue. Because, no matter what the product, it is always the consumers who hold the ultimate power. You can try to fool us, and sometimes you will. But in the end, our voices will be heard.

So go ahead, buy me some peanut butter (and Cracker Jacks). Because you do care if I ever come back.