When I first heard the news that MLB was sending two teams to Japan to kick-off the 2012 season I didn’t think much of it.  Now that I am stuck in a classroom full of 6^th graders taking state mandated tests, I have some time on my hands.  Major League Baseball is a monster-sized, multi-national, money making operation.  This is fine.  As a matter of fact, this is great.  I have no problems with this whatsoever.  But hosting Opening Day in a different country…that’s some bull!

You can talk all you want about how Japan is a great consumer of all things MLB.  You can praise them over and over for what they have done for the game.  And don’t get me wrong; they have done positive things for the game of baseball.  But they are still number 2 when it comes to fans.  I know how much it sucks to be an Astros fan right now.  Bud Selig publicly humiliated us.  Try being an A’s fan today, though.  They couldn’t even watch their team play on opening day.  Seriously.  Imagine how it must feel to know that you woke up to catch the 3 AM start time, only to see that the Oakland regional network was not carrying the game, the MLB channel would be playing it on tape delay 3 hours later, and then trying MLB.com to see that the game has been blacked out despite any amount of money you have already paid.  This is where the beef lies with Opening Day held across the world.

Bud Selig and Major League Baseball will try to tell you different.  They will try to explain to you that once every 4 years (Baseball has opened up the season in Japan in the years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012.) baseball needs to make its way over to Japan to help expand the game.  They will try to tell you that we still have Opening Night this season- April 4- and Opening Day- April 5.  Malarky, I say.  That rhetoric is purely diarrhea of the mouth.

If it is so damned important to make sure games get played in different countries, does it really have to be the first game of the season?  Certainly not.  Bud, you do know it is called America’s Pastime, right?

Give the people what they want.  All we want here is this American sport of baseball to hold its Opening Day in America.  This is hardly asking too much.  Expansion of the game is great.  I really do believe that, and so do most of you readers out there.  Keeping American fans from not being able to go to the park to watch their team’s opening game is horse manure.  Making it so that fans of a team playing their Opening Day game in a different country can’t watch said game is down right blasphemous.  And hosting the very first baseball game of the season in a different country is just the worst idea ever.  Figure it out, Bud Selig.  You’re really starting to wear out the knees in those pants…if you know what I mean.

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-       Another Yankees vs. Red Sox series got underway last night…yawn.  At least there was a little bit of tension after Francisco Cervelli’s (weak) celebration of his own homerun.  But other than that, what is the point of so many meaningless games for these two teams down the stretch Bud Selig?

-       How cool would it be to play for Joe Maddon?  The guy used to go to elementary school with Julius Caesar, supports awesome Rays fashion wear , and is a leading man in the case of using crunched numbers (to give his team the best chance of winning).  Is he baseball’s Phil Jackson?

-       Why does MLB not care about exciting pennant races?  Here’s a great article by Rob Neyer over at SB Nation.

-       I can’t seem to understand why so many people hate the Mets blue and black unis.  Not the “Los Mets” ones, these.  They seem to be fitting for a team who is getting beat day after day.

-       Matt LaPorta is being sent back down to the minors.  Is anyone surprised anymore?

-       How about Alex Gordon?  After being the 2^nd overall pick of his draft class, and not living up to people’s ridiculous hype, he has finally hit his stride as a ball player.  It is my personal opinion that maybe if the Royals had pulled their heads out and given him enough regular AB’s with the big club this probably would have happened sooner.  Just look at his Triple-A numbers.

-       I have become discouraged with youth baseball over the last couple seasons.  I am sick and tired of watching 11-year-old kids quit all other fall sports to play baseball year round.  I find it extremely frustrating and detrimental.  It not only limits a child’s athletic development, but it deprives them of experiencing different aspects of sport and what it offers.  This idea is probably best reserved for an entire article of its own and most likely will find its way to the Sombrero very soon.  Just wanted to vent my frustrations.

In the same sense that people say baseball is better with Josh Hamilton in it, the exact opposite can be said about Nyjer Morgan of the Washington Nationals.  Baseball is worse with Nyjer Morgan in it.  On Wednesday night, Morgan continued his dip-shit ways by igniting a brawl with Chris Volstad and the Florida Marlins.  However it was not just the brawl itself that made Morgan appear completely despicable, it was how he handled the entire situation- for a second it even seemed like he might head into the crowd.

Now, considering that he hasn’t even served what was supposed to be a 7-game suspension for throwing a ball at a fan in Philadelphia, I think it’s safe to say that Morgan’s punishment is overdue.  The brawl is just the latest of his extra curricular activities on what has become a deep list of disconcerting outbursts by the center fielder.  Therefore, I think that it’s time that either the Nationals organization or Bud Selig lay down the law and suspend Nyjer Morgan for the remainder of the 2010 season.

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The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1933; organized in conjunction with the city’s World’s Fair by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward. The American League won 4-2 behind the stellar play of Babe Ruth, who not only hit the first home run in an All-Star Game history but also robbed the NL’s chances of a comeback in the eighth inning by pulling back Chick Hafey’s otherwise certain yard ball from over the fence, a la a young Ken Griffey, Jr. The game was intended to be a one-off event, held alongside other historic displays of America’s industrial progress, such as Cadillac’s first V-16 limousine and incubators containing live babies. However, the showcase was such a smashing success that the MLB, ever-capitalizing on potential revenue, decided to make it an annual affair.

Today, the Midsummer Classic has grown to include such other cash-generating spectacles as the Sirius XM All-Star Futures Game, the Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game, Gatorade Workout Day and the State Farm Home Run Derby, among various other corporately branded proceedings. The five day celebration concludes with what is supposed to be the exhibition of baseball’s greatest current talents, the All-Star Game itself. The only problem is that Major League Baseball has tried to turn what was once a relaxed, fun-filled atmosphere for players and fans alike into a crucial must-win match-up by granting the winning league home-field advantage in the World Series. This dubious decision was made by Commissioner Bud Selig following his almost equally inexplicable judgment to end the 2002 All-Star Game in a tie following eleven innings of paired play.

Continue Reading “C’Mon Bud, Let’s Bring the Fun Back to the All-Star Game”

As even the most casual of baseball fans know by now, Armando Galarraga retired 26 consecutive batters to open a game against the Indians on Wednesday, but failed to complete a perfect game as first-base umpire Jim Joyce incorrectly ruled that Cleveland’s Jason Donald beat out an infield single with two outs in the ninth. In the wake of such a stunning event in baseball, which made headlines well beyond the Sports section, there is bound to be overreaction, and there has certainly been no shortage of that in the 24 hours following the umpiring debacle.

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