Telling sweet little lies to power.

 "Tell me lies, tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies."

With apologies to Fleetwood Mac, that's exactly what we got last night on ESPN, the hopelessly compromised sports "news" channel that in fact once again proved to be just a lickspittle for another, Big Sports business partner, MLB. 

Or maybe that's unfair. Because really, I'm sure it was ESPN driving last night's farce. No lickspittle they, but the corporate co-conspirators in yet another episode of making life as miserable as possible for their customers—something that seems to be the prevailing business ethic of America.

Last night's rain-soaked debacle was a Chronicle of a Cock-Up Foretold. I know: I foretold it. 

Some 46,707 fans were lured out by the chance to see Aaron Judge break or tie the Real Original Famous Home Run record, only to be doused not just by the elements, but by still more incompetent umpires and an entirely predictable rain "delay" that dragged on for an hour-and-a-half before everyone was sent home—the Yankee Stadium reserves of rat dogs and watery beer apparently having been exhausted at last.

Hard to think of a worse experience at the ballpark, especially at the extortionate prices now charged at YS III. And all easily avoided by anyone with access to a weather map.

The game COULD have been switched to the afternoon in plenty of time to give the fans notice. Instead, Judge lost at least one at-bat—and maybe two, or even three, considering this team's difficulty in putting even bad clubs away—and we may have lost our last chance to see him set the record at home. 

Or at the very least, HAL and company might have tried to compensate the hardy souls who braved the weather with something. 

Free Cracker Jack, mayhap? A ticket to a game next year? HAL's father, wretched as he was, once compensated fans with free tix just for sitting through a particularly awful doubleheader, back in the plague year of 1982.

But no could do. The Yankees happily pocketed their loot. Not only is the club leading the AL in attendance, but it will soon go over 3 million again at the gate—largely because of Aaron Judge's home run spree. 

And afterwards, of course, nobody dared say boo to them, on ESPN or anywhere else.

Ma Boone was particularly craven, dodging altogether a question about what the fans had to put up with. Nobody even popped such a query at Judge, who instead had to field such inanities as, "How hard IS it to hit home runs?"  

(Judge, after fumfahing for a bit, came up with a typically thoughtful answer: "A lot of people think home runs are pitched, instead of hit." His good-natured presence will be sorely missed around the Bronx next year, if the Yanks try to shortchange him again.)

After that came an extended version of ESPN doing its best imitation of a news organization—which wasn't very good at all. The bantering anchors who came on SportsCenter pretended to argue over whether or not Judge was actually close to setting a new "record":

"Will it be a new record?"

"No. The record is 73, set by Barry Bonds."

And then:

"Do you think he'll get to 62?"

"Winning a Triple Crown would be a much more impressive feat."

So goes the no-doubt scripted corporate line:  "We'll allow some adoration of Judge for a Triple Crown, if he wins it. But no questioning the integrity of our game, which we already ruined 25 years ago!" 

Barry Bonds MUST always be acknowledged as the real home-run champ, for a season and a career, no matter how farcical that insistence becomes. MLB MUST insist that it is still the same game, even as it institutes the Manfred Man, regular-season games that count in London and a corn field, designer clown gear, and a playoff season that 40 percent of the teams now qualify for. All in the desperate pursuit of a constantly shrinking fan base.

They just don't get it. TREAT. THE. FANS. BETTER.

It's not hard. No gimmicks involved. No need to put in great big bases, or advertising on the jerseys. Lower your prices, make day-of-game tickets available, stop shaking down hard-pressed cities for public money, and treat everybody with respect.

And if the Lords of MLB can't see this, then it's the job of a free press—looking at you, ESPN!—to make sure they do.