Baseball losing its appeal to 8-year-olds
Iam writing in regard to the recently issued Mitchell report concerning the usage of performance enhancing drugs in baseball and its possible impact on the fans.

With baseball being a sport where the stats of one era are used to compare the efforts of players to another era, (part of the "integrity" so often spoken of) we the fans have often wished to discount the influence of the business side of it all. We know it's there and somehow the 8-year-old in each of us wants to believe that a "Bad News Bears" teamcan win it all - even at the adult level - a.k.a. the 1977 Yanks.

Even with that Yankees team, The Boss kept rehiring Billy Martin because he put fannies in the seats. And that's what it's all about- filling seats, buying merchandise - not the purity of the game and its records. They use the latter (so-called purity of the game) at the beginning of each spring training to sell the former (seats, etc.) to the 8-year-old in each of us.

The house that Ruth built was via the homerun. Average people loved that and because of it, him. He drank, caroused, etc. - it was all tolerated for the most part - because he could hit it out. His efforts and displays saved the game, resurrected it from the ashes of the Black Sox scandal.

When Ruth died, tens of thousands lined up to pass his casket out of respect for the man and what he meant to the game. Who among today's stars would they do that for?

We are now witnessing even more of a change of focus by the teams from the average fan base to the more affluent corporate client - luxury boxes, wait staff service, etc. In the face of increased attendance figures, two new stadiums are being built with smaller capacities - hence higher pricing - in both the Bronx and Queens.

No, the 8-year-old in us is outraged, saddened and wanting those who have violated our sense of right and wrong to be punished for all of this - the drugs, the muddying of records, the marketing, the pricing.

Unfortunately, because of the drip, drip, drip nature of these actions and revelations over the past few years, the adult in us has been conditioned to view these latest disappointments that are listed in the Mitchell report on a numbing level.

Joseph Wedick

Keyport