The Dark Side of Daimond Series Final

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." – André Malraux

I didn’t plan on spending a season writing about this stuff. It started with Wander Franco. His story had already been out there for a couple years, the investigation in the Dominican Republic, MLB putting him on leave, the fallout that basically ended his career. But that story stuck in my head. Not because it was breaking news, but because it forced me to look at baseball in a way I hadn’t before. I started digging. One player led to another. One story led to another. Before I knew it, I had a whole fucking series.

I went from Franco to Mel Hall, Yasiel Puig, Esteban Loaiza, John Rocker, Josh Hamilton, Lyman Bostock, Chad Curtis, Roberto Alomar, Tony La Russa, the Pittsburgh Drug Trials, the exploitation pipeline in Latin America, Trevor Bauer, Roberto Osuna, Aroldis Chapman, youth baseball, Lenny Dykstra, Julio Machado, Jose Canseco, even the Yankee wife swap, Donnie Moore, umpire egos, Thurman Munson’s crash, and the cleat chaser culture. I didn’t map this out. I just kept following my own fucked up curiosity about the dark corners of this game.

What I learned is that baseball is never as clean as the highlight reels or the nostalgia make it out to be. It’s not just numbers, pennants, and Cooperstown speeches. It’s a game built and run by human beings, which means it’s messy. There are predators, addicts, liars, frauds, cheats, and egomaniacs. There is also pain, loss, tragedy, and silence. I thought I was chasing scandal. What I actually found was the reminder that this game is a mirror. The same shit that runs through America runs through baseball. Racism. Exploitation. Ego. Corruption. Violence. Greed.

And here’s the part that hit me the hardest. It’s not just the players or the managers or the umps or the league. It’s me too. I sat in Wrigley and cheered Chapman even though I knew his story. I ate up the steroid era even though the truth was obvious. I have been complicit in the silence because I wanted the magic more than I wanted the truth. That was a hard fucking thing to admit.

This season of The Dark Side of the Diamond was about facing that. Not to cancel guys. Not to moralize. But to stop pretending the game is pure when it never has been. If I say I love baseball, then I have to love all of it, even the ugly parts. Especially the ugly parts.

So, this is where I leave it. I told the stories I needed to tell. I followed the trail until it went cold. I don’t know if baseball is better for dragging this shit into the light, but I know I am. I understand more about the game I grew up with and why it still gets under my skin.

Next season, I’ll move on to something else. Something new will spark my curiosity, and I’ll chase it. That’s how I work. That’s how Baseball Buddha works.

Thank you for reading, for sitting with me through the uncomfortable, for not looking away when the stories got heavy. Baseball is a beautiful game. But it’s never been perfect. And maybe that’s why I love it even more.