Dear readers,

How 21st century reality affects us is something journalists write about often, and it seems no part of our lives goes untouched. Take Steve Pfarrer’s cover story this week about baseball as an example. A lifelong baseball fan, Pfarrer has come to realize that certain modern aspects of the game are ruining it for him, and he’s not alone. Among them is obsessive algorithmic analysis of baseball statistics — known as sabermetrics — which dominate how baseball decisions are made. Another is the bloated salaries players receive, even as the players themselves aren’t living up to their expected hype.

Pfarrer himself sums it up as follows: “To me, baseball officials seem to respond to complaints that games are too long or not exciting enough with gimmicks. They stage them in ‘exotic locations,’ like the two Red Sox-Yankees games that took place in London this summer. They encourage players to ‘emote,’ like NFL players doing their absurd end zone dances. And they offer what I call ‘baseball porn’ — endless video replays, from every conceivable angle and at different speeds, of the home runs that have come to dominate the game.”

It may be that some things inevitably grow out of step with our modern lives. Or it may be that coaches and managers using stats to win games is at the expense of the quality of entertainment for those watching those games unfold. I’m not as much of a sports fan myself, but baseball has always held my interest more than other sports — I played it as a kid. It remains one of the best sports adapted for listening rather than watching, and for that reason and others related to its prominence in our nostalgic pop culture, I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets a wistful feeling hearing a bat connect with a ball.

At the same time, our longing for the way things were can create wonderful moments of expression in art. Two examples lie in this issue — Daisy von Furth’s Style Stop this week (Page 5) explores the fun fashion of some of the women at the Amherst Women’s Club Fall Luncheon; and in this week’s ID column (Page 19) intern Nate Procter asked a number of questions to Snackbeard, the region’s resident singing snack-themed pirate, who tells tales of bygone days on the high seas.

— Dave Eisenstadter