BASEBALL WILL NOT PUSH US OUT.

• Date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Zirin, Dave

I will always remember 2021 as the year I fell back in love with baseball.

Growing up in the 1980s, I lived for the New York Mets. I watched every game I could. When the games were on pay cable, which we did not have, Id listen to the audio and try to make out the video images through the squiggly distortion.

My baseball glove was a monument to my love, covered in autographs. I would trace my fingers over the signatures of people like Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry while I would crouch in the field for Little League, ready to snare a ground ball at the hot corner.

But, as an adult, the sport became too much for me. Maybe it was the steroid scandals. Maybe it was the way that my teams, the Mets and the Yankees, proudly became propaganda vehicles for George W. Bush after 9/11. Maybe it was just too slow for the fast pace of life.

At any rate, while I still covered the politics of baseball in...