Cubs, Cougars and the comforting, enduring magic of baseball

MESA, Ariz. — If baseball has truly lost its grip on American sports, you would never know it around the Chicago Cubs spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona. The romance between the game and its followers rekindles each February.

Fans young and old gather each morning around one of the Cubs seven practice fields that surround the 15,000-seat Sloan Park — a direct relative of Wrigley Field in both appearance and price — as a $10 soda would attest.

The Cubs are five days away from their spring training home opener against the White Sox. The team’s star players are all here. The chance to catch an in-person glimpse of any of them still attracts a crowd of all ages and pushes back against a broader social trend that has baseball moving down the bench.

A study by the Pew Research Center revealed baseball is no longer considered America’s pastime. It has been sacked by football. Of the 12,000 adults, representing all demographics, football was crowned America’s top sport by 57%. Baseball is second at 27%.

February’s Super Bowl attracted a record television audience of 123.7 million. It’s a far cry from the least-watched World Series in history when Texas beat Arizona last October in front of an average television audience of 9.11 million.

Trying to explain baseball’s demise to the Little Leaguers decked out, head-to-toe, in official team gear or the elderly man sporting a Cubs cap so weathered it should be in the Smithsonian, would be futile. This crowd doesn’t care about Pew research. To them, baseball is timeless. 

It’s a game when the youngsters feel all grown-up and one that reminds the grown-ups how it felt to be young. It also sparks conversations that walk right through political, religious or cultural barriers. To this crowd, baseball makes life better.

Such loyalty hails from the past, but its future hinges on parents to keep signing their youngsters up to play and commit to countless hours at the ballpark.

Little League is where many of us first wore a uniform, were introduced to teamwork, and learned how to spit. The diamond is where the summer sun sparkled the brightest. It’s also where we failed. Thunderous hits and tremendous catches along with strikeouts and dropped balls schooled us for life’s ups and downs. It also introduced the invigorating power of new beginnings.

Historically, no one has appreciated the start of a new season more than the Cubs or their fans. The 2016 World Series title remains their only one in the last 116 years. Everybody except veteran pitcher Kyle Hendricks is gone from that championship roster, but the dream for a second one in 2024 is alive and well.

Baseball needs deep roots and big dreams. Without them, a game that is already slow and methodical by nature and long on the clock, is no more attractive to America’s young television viewers than a TikTok video that exceeds 20 seconds.

The key for baseball is to get more people to watch in person.

As each Cubs player took the practice field the generation gap between the oldest and youngest fan magically closed. Without numbers on the workout jerseys, the crowd quietly debated who was who? But one thing was certain, they were all bedazzled watching grown men playing a boys game.

The average age for a MLB player is between 26-30 years old. 

The BYU baseball team, playing in the MLB Desert Invitational at Sloan Park, practiced separately from the Cubs but did the identical drills. The contrast was fascinating. The Cougars are a mix of college kids, some back from last year’s team, some fresh out of high school, and others having returned from Latter-day Saint missions. They have a batting average and a grade point average that both require significant attention.

For the Cubs, it’s all business and the business is the game itself. Their sole objectives are to score runs while preventing them, no matter the cost. Chicago has invested $160 million so far into this year’s roster and that doesn’t include the $40 million they are paying new manager Craig Counsell over the next five years.

As different as the Cubs and Cougars are in age, experience and expectations, for at least one week they have shared the same fields while doing the same things — throwing, catching, hitting and enjoying the sunshine. The men ran around like boys and the boys tried to emulate the men.

BYU head coach Trent Pratt has a sign in the Cougars locker room back in Provo that reads, ‘Throw Strikes. Play Catch. Put the ball in play.’ They are the simple keys to a successful debut season in the Big 12 and provide a baseball metaphor to a happy life.

Perhaps it’s that marriage of simplicity and difficulty that keeps baseball intriguing, and the power of a big swing that makes it romantic. While it’s unlikely that America’s past pastime will ever take back its perch from football’s present, watching a 95 mph fastball belted over the outfield wall is still a sight to see and something no other sport can duplicate.

The Cubs will swing for the fences Friday in their Spring Training home opener against the White Sox. BYU freshman Kuhio Aloy has already hit two home runs at Sloan Park, which features the same dimensions as Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Aloy and the Cougars (1-1) face Grand Canyon (2-0) in Monday’s MLB Desert Invitational finale (1 p.m., BYU Radio 107.9 FM). It will give Pratt’s young roster one more day to experience what it feels like to play where the pros play and bolster their dreams of returning for their own Spring Training.

There is a good chance all these Cubs fans will be back to watch them if they do. Contrary to Pew’s research, they aren’t going anywhere.