The Incredibles

            It was fitting this week that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America released its Hall of Fame voting results just one day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their Oscar nominations. If baseball looks closely enough, it may find a solution to its most weighty problem on that Oscar ballot.

            In 1994, a vicious labor dispute led to the cancellation of the entire baseball postseason, embarrassing the sport to such an extent that many wondered if fan interest would ever resurface. However, once the games resumed in 1995, America’s pastime stormed back with a vengeance, just as it did after the Chicago White Sox scandal of 1919, when several players “threw” the World Series by taking money from gamblers.

            In the 1920s, baseball was saved in large part by a portly man whose mammoth home runs brought fans to the ballpark in droves. In 1998, baseball was saved in large part by two muscular men whose mammoth home runs electrified the nation. But there was a difference between the way in which Babe Ruth saved baseball in the 1920s, and the way in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball in the late ‘90s. Babe Ruth, according to writers and historians, was known to enjoy many a good drink; he succeeded despite taking a performance-inhibiting drug. McGwire and Sosa, on the other hand, seem to have succeeded due to performance-enhancing drugs. And with their success, baseball fully entered its Steroid Era.

            Home run records fell by the dozens in those late ‘90s and early 2000s. Barry Bonds hit so many home runs so often that he was walked a record 232 times in the 2004 season. There has never been anything like this, as home runs soared over fences with a frequency you had to see to believe. But then again, you had to see these ballplayers’ muscles to believe them, too. During that 2004 season, Bonds turned 40 years old. Yet, he looked more like the lead character from Pixar’s ’04 film hit The Incredibles than a typical 40-year-old athlete. The bulked-up ballplayers, who were free from any kind of steroid testing, flexed super-sized biceps, pecs and quads that brought to mind Mr. Incredible and his giant, muscular body.

            A lot has gone down since 2004 in Major League Baseball, as we’ve learned that so much of that excitement from the late ‘90s and early ‘00s was created by performance-enhancing drugs. Who took what, and when, and how much is impossible to know for sure, as there was no steroid testing until 2006. There was no agreement on in-season testing for human growth hormone until yesterday. Athletes in search of an edge turned to syringes to enhance their own skills, and they got rich doing so.

            And so, when several of the most celebrated players of the past 15 years became eligible for Hall of Fame candidacy this year, the baseball writers sent a powerful message by electing no one to receive baseball’s highest honor in 2013. Not the guy with seven MVP awards. Not the guy with seven Cy Young awards. Not the guys with 3,000 hits, 500 or more home runs, or 3,000 or more strikeouts. Nobody.

            Some of these eligible players did not take steroids or human growth hormone, but through its massive cover-up baseball did not allow us to know who was cheating and who was playing fair. So, this year, every player suffered the consequences.

            It was an era of irresponsible, unhealthy, and deceitful behavior. But it is also true that during this time, baseball fans devoured the record-breaking offense with much enthusiasm and not much questioning. It is, therefore, rather difficult for us to point fingers at these players without pointing fingers at ourselves as well. They were, after all, giving us what we wanted. We cheered and clapped for the guys who looked like Pixar characters, so the sport created more and more of them.

            So that brings us to the Oscars. Back in 1995, Pixar introduced a revolutionary form of digital animation with the now-classic film Toy Story. Half a decade later, after the success of A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2, it was clear that this company had changed the way movies were made. Thus, in 2001 the Academy began awarding an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. In the first 11 years of that award, a Pixar film was nominated eight times. This week, the company picked up nomination number nine.

            Baseball can look at this Oscar category and follow suit with its Hall of Fame dilemma: Simply take the players from the Steroid Era and vote them in under “Best Animated Players.” Some of them were on the juice and some weren’t, but baseball gave us no way of knowing. So we’ll treat them all like we do Buzz Lightyear, Wall-E and Mr. Incredible – we’ll give them their own category. And if the dust ever clears and we get full disclosure, we’ll consider nominating them for the regular Hall as well, just as Pixar movies like Up and Toy Story 3 have also been nominated for Best Picture.

            It’s fitting that this year’s Pixar nominee is a film titled Brave. If only Major League Baseball had shown some degree of courage during the Steroid Era, we might be looking at our recent sports history through a different lens. But brave they weren’t. So the baseball writers called them out on that this week. Even Mr. Incredible can’t save the day with this one.

Second Halves (One Sixty-Two: Day 84)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Eighty-Four: Adam Lind, Toronto Blue Jays

As I inch ever closer to age 40, it has come to my attention that I may be in the All-Star Break of my life. That is, the first half of my own season may be in the books, with a second half just getting under way. It’s kind of a frightening prospect, but one that I can’t deny. After all, the average life expectancy for American males is 75, and I have definitely passed the halfway point toward that number.

As my generation chugs into its collective All-Star Break, I see and hear a lot of folks taking stock of their past – attending reunions, playing their favorite ‘80s pop songs, and spending time with family. But conspicuous as the gray hairs may be for some of us, this is no time to despair over the passing of time. The season is long, and second halves can be even better than the first.

Take Rosa Parks, for instance. She was 42 when she changed the world, then spent the next 50 years furthering the movement she’d helped to start. Or how about Frank McCourt: Rather than kicking back after retiring from a fabulous teaching career, McCourt won a Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes at age 67. Morgan Freeman was an actor best known for theater, a soap opera and a kids’ show until he picked up an Oscar nomination for Driving Miss Daisy at age 52; he earned his most recent nomination last year, at 73. And Joe Torre had an excellent, if not Hall-of-Fame-worthy playing career until he took a job managing the New York Yankees at age 56. Fourteen years, four championships and 13 playoff appearances later, Torre is a sure-fire Hall of Famer now.

Second halves can make all the difference. In the smaller time frame of a baseball season, some players post extraordinary first-half numbers, only to fade in the dog days of summer. Others struggle in the first half, only to kick their games into another gear as summer begins its second month.

Adam Lind turned the baseball world on its head last year. He had known modest success as a part-time player from 2006-08, delivering a total of 22 homers and 94 runs batted in over that time frame. Last year, in his first season as a full-time player for the Blue Jays, Lind became one of the American League’s premier hitters: He hit 35 home runs, drove in 114 runs, and posted a .305 batting average. Few people saw it coming, but everyone took note of Lind’s tremendous improvement.

This season, however, has been a different story. After 86 games, Lind is hitting just .214, with 12 homers and 40 RBI. Lind is on his way to one of the highest strikeout totals in major-league history. And yet, Toronto’s manager, Cito Gaston, keeps putting the left-handed designated hitter into his lineup each day. This shows confidence, and I’m sure it means a lot to Lind. As the second half of the 2010 season begins, Adam Lind is clearly looking for a return to last year’s success.

It’s a long season, and sometimes three or four days off in the middle of July can make all the difference. Players clear their heads, rest their aches and pains, and get some sleep in their own beds. They return to the diamond feeling new again, and they look to the second half with optimism. In some cases, they do deliver tremendous second halves, and all of those early woes are forgotten.

Adam Lind is looking for that kind of change as he gets re-started tomorrow. And on Saturday, Lind turns 27 – still well into his own life’s first half, one would hope. But for the game he plays for a living, Lind is looking to pull a Frank McCourt, a Morgan Freeman, and a Joe Torre all in one. There’s plenty of time to craft a second half to remember. Now’s the time to start.

Youth in Reverse

I should have known it was a bad idea. But you can understand the temptation. Here I was, on the day I turned 39, with a chance to go out for dinner and a movie with my wife. Dinner and “Avatar” couldn’t work inside the babysitting time frame. So, in an ill-advised moment, we chose a shorter flick: the Michael Cera vehicle “Youth in Revolt.”

“Juno” it wasn’t. Have I seen worse? Yes. But not many, actually. These days, we get out so rarely that I wanted something much better, especially on my birthday. So why, might you ask, didn’t we choose one of those movies with all the Oscar buzz? It’s a good question, and I think the answer goes no further than the movie’s title: As I cling to one last year in my 30s, how could I pass up anything with the word “Youth” in it?

At 39, I certainly hope to have many more years ahead of me. And there are plenty of people who would still consider me “young.” But even so, there’s no way I can claim to be a “youth” anymore. Thirty-nine is a precarious place sandwiched in between young adulthood and middle age – a place where many of us find ourselves balancing careers, families, personal wellness and social lives. It’s an exciting age, one where the present is full of more things than we could ever accomplish, and the past contains more memories than our brains can recall. And the future – well, that feels exciting and a bit scary at the same time.

So when you turn 39 on a Sunday in 2010, you do a few things. For one, you spend some time with your family. You go to church together, make smoothies for the girls, and show them scary photos from your high school yearbook. You do the “Happy Birthday” song, the make-a-wish, the candle-blowing with their help, the photo, then the photo do-over ‘cause so-and-so’s eyes were closed. You talk with your parents, brother, friends and in-laws, and you read all the kind wall postings on your Facebook page. You do something for yourself – go for a run, buy yourself a few CDs, watch a little football. You also do laundry and dishes and clean up the house, because, well, life doesn’t stand still for you, pal. And then, finally, you welcome the babysitter with open arms, grab some alone time with the love of your life … and watch the worst film you’ve seen in years.

It’s all very beautiful and gratifying, in many ways. But still, as you stare at that movie screen and see a baby-faced, 21-year-old actor looking back at you, it’s easy to wonder where the time has gone. And, while we’re at it, when those aches and pains are coming. And when the gray hair will fall upon you like a dusting of snow. And, dare I think it, when you and the wife will find yourselves too tired to even bother with dinner and a movie. “Youth,” you said? Two tickets for the eight o’clock show, please.

Baseball-Reference.com shows that 18 men born in 1971 played Major-League Baseball last year. Just barely one player for every two teams. If you’re 39 years old and a professional ballplayer, you’ve probably got the word “retired” attached to your title.

Unless, of course, you have revolted – against aging, that is. As for me, I’ll take what life’s got in store. Bring on 39. Just give me a better movie next time, please.