Gone...
Frankly, I don't believe the Gammonites are reporting the lockout accurately. If the nepotistic fools who run MLB made peace today - that is, if both sides suddenly came to their senses - I can't see them jumpstarting the 2022 season in four weeks. They must hold the Rule 5 draft. They must cram the entire free agency signing-market into 30 days. Camps must open.
Logistically, the month of April is probably shot to hell.
And with both sides digging in, and the blame game taking over, you can feel the lost games stacking up into an unforgiveable pile.
What's amazing is how oblivious these lords of the game are to the nation's angry and unsettled mood. In a way, they are like Putin: They seem to think that this turmoil will end one day, that normalcy will return, and they can go back to printing money.
Well, today we should be watching the Twins game on YES. Coney should be marveling over Paul O'Neill's eating habits, while John and Suzyn gush over a certain rookie. Baseball should be a beacon of hope in this horror-strewn world.
They have blown it. God help them. God damn them. They have blown it.
Watched a full day of college baseball yesterday. Going strong. Kids into it. Lots of fun. Fuck MLB. It deserves its irrelevance. I do hope America tunes into USFL games in the spring. King Football shall bury MLB. Please let it happen. Only then will the wonderful game of baseball truly flourish.
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "base-ball" of which you write? Its name seems vaguely familiar, although it is difficult to access any memory of it.
ReplyDeleteA-men, Duque.
ReplyDeleteBig mistake USFL is making? NOT bringing back two-way football.
Think of how different and interesting that would be to watch, all players having to play both offense and defense, with very limited substitutions. And maybe all place kicks would be made by a player already on the field—no kicking specialists.
I'd watch that.
Baseball survived The Civil War, WWI, The Depression, WWII, Vietnam, 9/11 and countless other life changing events and in its own way, thrived and offered solace and succor to generation after generation of Americans, but these stupid assholes on both sides, may have actually killed it.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't care if it dies because we here have watched it slowly kill itself and perhaps it is time to put it out of its misery.
Anybody really miss watching guys pounding the ball into the shift or busting buttons swinging for the fence on each pitch?
Didn't think so.
Fuck the millionaires and billionaires who murdered MY game.
P.S, read a book about real heroes.
ReplyDeleteThat should not be hard and it is better for your soul.
Why blame both sides? It's the owners who are locking out the players.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Barney
ReplyDeleteAnd the first professional team was post Civil War, not antebellum, so I do not think that counts as survival, not to nitpick.
Not to nitpick, but the first professionalisms baseball team was formed by Mr. Cartwright in 1845 and it was named the New York Knickerbockers.At least that is what my prior reading on the subject says.
ReplyDeleteBoth sides are to blame because part of this is the players who are seeking to get revenge over what they perceive as a hosing from the last deal. Clark will stay hardcore to make up for the "bad deal" of 5 years ago.
The players are rich and have reached a point, as in almost all pro sports, they they want to be fabulously wealthy and never work after they hit like 35.
I don't begrudge them, but I don't want to hear about their love for the game and they fans.
If they loved the fans and the game, they would donate a lot more than 1 Mil to stadium workers for lost revenue.
AS I have stated before, both sides are rich entitled people who circulate in a different world.
A pox on both their houses.
FYI, a sign of the Apocalypse, the soccer team in Charlotte attracted 74,459 in its first game, which was a "thrilling" 1-0 lose for the homeboys.
Those attendance numbers for MLS, and a successful sustained spring pro football league, will put MLB out of its misery. Owners barely understand this. They're more concerned about chiseling a nickel out of some teenager from the Dominican's rookie contract and imagining they got one over on Scott Boras.
ReplyDeleteWant to see baseball? Go watch your grandkids play high school ball. They give a shit, play hard and want to win. The skill level might not stack up, but it is fun to watch, might cost you $5 and you will leave the game feeling like you did when you were a kid.
ReplyDeletePgpick, absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteMost of them have a genuine joy when they play.
My oldest grandkid is just in LL now, but the feelings are the same.
Actually, Archie, I read the same stuff growing up...and it's not true.
ReplyDeleteFirst, for the record, the first openly professional team was Cincinnati, in 1869—a club made up predominantly of New York and Brooklyn players. Many players were paid under the table before that, though, or given cushy, no-show jobs—on the public payroll, in the case of the team Boss Tweed owned in New York.
All of Cartwright's claims are hooey, it seems. And the first game was not over in Hoboken's Elysian Fields—we don't know where it took place, really, as baseball evolved out of many previous, ball-and-stick games...
...But it WAS the Knickerbockers, under the direction of Doc Adams, who consolidated the rules of what became known as "the New York Game"—which is what we think of as modern baseball.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the writings of the great John Thorn, and several other recent writers on this. It's an intriguing story. But what it always comes back to is: REAL baseball started right here, in NYC.