The Decline of Baseball

Ross Douthat ponders baseball’s slide into sordidness. “(New York Giants legend) Bobby Thomson died last week, and (Red Sox-turned-Yankee ace) Roger Clemens was indicted. No juxtaposition could better capture the way we used to feel about our sports heroes, and the way we feel about them now,” he writes. Clemens wants what Thomson enjoyed — to be judged only on what happened on the field. “We know too much to give him that. But though he hasn’t asked for it, maybe we also know enough about baseball history to give him our forgiveness.”