“Take me out to the ball game…. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack. I don’t care if I ever come back!”
Opening Day. It’s tomorrow.
Yet I’m nauseous. And, it isn’t from peanuts and Cracker Jack–it’s betting. It has infused the game.
The number one story on ESPN.com today isn’t about Opening Day, or March Madness. It’s about the Babe Ruth of today’s game, Shohei Ohtani, who allegedly paid off the gambling debts of his close friend and interpreter to the tune of $4.5 million.
There is constant discussion about odds on radio sports shows (whose biggest sponsors are betting platforms like FanDuel and Circa Sports).
My Chicago Cubs have cast their lot with DraftKings, another major gambling platform that is selling for $48 on the Nasdaq.
Betting numbers are everywhere. DraftKings has the “over and under” number on the Cubs going into the season at 84.5, just 1.5 games over last year’s win total after September’s collapse.
We are drowning in sports odds, and it makes me sick. I am immersed in news about my Cubbies. It is my relief from “Sleepy Biden” and “Terrible Trump.” It is my refuge from the atrocities in Israel, Hamas holding hostages, and starving Palestinians in Gaza.
I am thankful for my blessed baseball, listening to recordings of Harry Caray singing in the bottom of the seventh. I prayed to be alive for this season. When I can’t sleep because of heartburn or nightmares, I recite the names of the Cubs infielders, outfielders, and starting pitchers in my head while I do my breathing meditation. It relieves my fears of lurking dementia. Swanson, Hoerner, Morel, and Busch in the infield.
DraftKings and FanDuel, I hate you.
I long for the purity of the game. I want to close my eyes and drift back for a lazy popup my dad hit to me in the park across from our house.
That is my baseball. Ladies Day for a quarter with my mom at Wrigley, watching Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella.
Please don’t ruin the game I love so much with “84.5 over and under.” Sure, I want the Cubs to win and make the playoffs. But what I really want is to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the bottom of the seventh with Risa, Sarah, Scott, Noah, and my grandchildren, to the tune of Harry Carey rasping it out with gusto.
To me, betting on baseball is trash.
Ultimately, it will sully the sport.
The Ohtani incident may be confined to a player’s friendship with a compulsive gambler. I know it will still spread. It will be the Major Leagues’ Covid-19.
But at least for tomorrow “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.”
Dust off the plate.
Play ball.
Questions:
What sports gambling do you like to do?
Should sports gambling be abolished?
7 Comments
If I’m going to play with my money, I’ll buy tools and machinery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that’s what I’m talking about!
What do you need? What do you need?
I need to get some scratch for my March Madness bracket! 🤣🤑
Miniature CNC Mill or Lathe. You guys only deal in stuff that won’t fit in my shop!!!!!!! I build scale IC motors, v’s and inlines that run on white gas and a mix of WD-40. I also make some that run on compressed air. It is just a hobby.
Amen Lloyd!
It used to be sports were about having good time with other folks of all walks of life. Now it’s about virtue signaling just how much more ‘woke’ you are than anyone. Betting and gambling is bad for anyone to be involved in – just saying…
Gambling is addictive like a drug.
Should drugs be tightly controlled by the government? Maybe. At least guard rails are nice. It does seem to work. Or at least it did. Now, even if they banned sports gambling, I wonder if the genie is out of the bottle already.
Or is a gambling ban limiting our civil liberties?
One thing is for sure. Legalized gambling is a tax on the poor. Rich too, but particularly the poor.
Gambling is for SURE a tax on the poor . . .
If I was gonna bet, I’d bet that you don’t care less about auto racing as much as I care less about baseball.
To each their own.