Calling it America's game may be closer to the truth then we realize

I was watching ESPN Classic's year in review SportsCenter tonight and when they got to the number 1 storyline of the year, I figured I had just about had enough. We have become a society that wants action now, and will not rememer the action we wanted when the reaction has hit the fan. We the fans have suffered through a few decades of sports riddling us occasionally with player strikes or owners locking the players out. They bicker and argue about the money they make, but we the "not-so-rich" are the ones who pay the price. Besides the movie The Replacements, what good has come from this. Hockey has hope in Crosby (sorry, that pun has wallowed in my brain for years, waiting to comeout). Basketball is surely glad the Celtics are good, because when the Northeast big 3 (Boston, NY, and Philly) along with my beloved Lakers don't make the playoffs, the ratings are worse then the normally bad ones. And why is Isiah still at Madison Square? Football seems to do good, but its top story was about a quarterback who's game, and life, has gone to the dogs.
And then there's baseball. It seems that our national pastime has gone to the bottom of the well over steroids. Now that a federal grand jury has indicted Barry Bonds, we are now all forced to listen, AGAIN, to whether the record is tainted. Sure its tainted, all of the records of the last twenty years are tainted by what it looks like. But lets look at the blame game that we are now all embroiled in. It needs to be shared. The players are to blame because they wanted to make more money. If you hit 50 home runs instead of 40 on a "contract year", you can increase the amount you make over the next several years by 5 million dollars or more a year. Now if you walk into work every day, and you saw all of your associates in the job doing some drug, and it increased their performance, and you saw that the coaches, managers, team doctors, and owners were very much aware of this, and did nothing, or worse encouraged it, or even worse, bought the supply, then what would you do? Heck, just think of the doghouse out back you could have with a theatre room, mega surround sound, fridge full of great beer, and three bathrooms in it for when the wife is mad at you. Almost be worth starting a spat on that Sunday morning when the Packers play the Bears. So you go for it, and you make a fortune, and you help pull your industry out of financial ruin after a pathetic 1994 season that came to a bizarre and early demise because you and your buddies and your bosses just couldn't seem to agree on money, even though you are all richer than anyone who truly takes care of this country. And then you set some records, and names like Aaron and Maris (and Ruth for that matter) get thrown in, and now everyone doesn't like you anymore. You made the money, and your bosses knew what you were doing, and they encouraged it. Then there is the writers who we were getting sick and tired of reading the same old sports story about the lockout, and how they needed baseball to survive. Oh, a few could do other things, but most needed this game, and they knew it. Now we turn to a year where everyone is going crazy about Sosa and McGwire and the home run record, and baseball is better than ever. Then we get some guy who sees this, and he starts making a name for himself, and he goes on a one man pilage of the home run records. We no longer are worried about saving baseball from itself, so now we have to save baseball from its back-turners.
I sit and wonder sometimes if steroids made Barry Bonds the guick-tempered man he is. I acknowledge that his records are to some degree tainted, but I refuse to throw him under the bus, at least alone. We need to assess this as a whole.

Players -- You are the ones who took the stuff to make your production higher. You knew that this could someday be a problem, but you wanted to make more money. If you cannot survive on 4 million dollars a year for 10 years and then retire comfortably, then you have issues. I know you have this competitive spark, but dammit leave that on the ballfield. I am trying to raise a son in this world, and trust me I am far from a perfect father. But at least he looks up to Derek Jeter as a ball player he likes. MY SON IS A YANKEES FAN, but at least he found someone who is worth looking up to. These last two thought make me damn glad that Charles Barkley made that Nike commercial about "I am NOT a role model". Funny thing is, through all of the things that Sir Charles did on the court, that man will tell you what he believes is the truth, no sugar coating, no what it is you want to hear, he tells you what he thinks, and for that, I can only hope that my son does grow up with that, except the political belief.
Anyway, ya'll need to get your act together and get by this issue. It will hopefully go away someday. Lets just hope that the decrease in home runs doesn't lose fans

Owners -- I really detest ya'll the worst. Ya'll have aided and abetted in this issue, you want that ring, you want more money, and you want the fans in the seats. Now there are a few who may go about this in a strange way (Current starting lineup for the Florida Marlins will make just above 8 million dollars, for the ENTIRE lineup, for the ENTIRE year), but you are all to blame for this. Fay Vincent will go down in the annals as one of the not so popular commisioners, but he got the entire game through what could have been a nasty strike, and had all teams play all games, started only one week late, and ended the season in only three extra days. The World Series ended on October 20th that year. We can't get them done now before November. (FYI, for what its worth, you bums who try to argue there is one extra series now, its a five game series, and there were still 11 days in October, so get a life). So you get all upset and whine like little immature brats (and you thought it was the players who were that) and you decide to fire the commisioner and you hire one of your own. Now I want you to tell me how that lets the players know you want a man in charge who has ONLY the best interests of baseball on his mind. He sells his team, the Brewers, TO HIS SISTER, and now does not have a conflict of interest. Lets see one of you, just one of you, grow some cahones and escort Barry Bonds into the court room, and testify that you helped create this mess, and that he need not be the only one to blame. Yes, he lied to some federal investigators, but what are the circumstances that led to it? You know that you need to sahre in the blame. And I want every one of the owners, managers, and team doctors and their associates to go in front of this same grand jury, and under oath, tell the court that you never told a player about this performance enhancing drug, and what it will do for the player and team. When that is done, then lets see what happens. We will need to build another Medium Security "country club" correctionl facility to house those guys in prison for perjury. These guys saved this game from what they, but mostly ya'll, did in 1994, and you turn your backs and run, you rich, spineless, gutless, bastards.

Writers -- Oh come on, you think you had nothing to do with it? Mark McGwire helps to literally put baseball back into the spotlight, along with Sammy and Cal, and he smashes the single season home-run record. He owns the rookie home run record, and only 23.5 percent of the voters for the hall of fame (128 of 545) voted for him. Lets see all of you go into that same courtroom and tell the same panel under oath that you did not make any money off of the home run chase, that you never submitted a story that oozed the excitement of watching the fans crowd the bleachers of visiting stadiums when Big Mac took batting practice. My God, when Maris had to deal with it, he lost his hair and chained smoked during interviews, and this was way before the ESPN/CNN era. I am a liberal who believes in freedom of the press and what a good press can prevent happening, but geez guys, this man made your life great after that 94 strike. He saved alot of your jobs, and now you cannot vote him into the hall of fame. At the time of your balloting, there was no evidence of any illegal substance abuse. He was using that andro stuff that at the time was legal. He told ya'll up front it was there and it was legal. Lets face it, you too, when all is said and done, are as gutless and as spineless as previously mentioned owners.

In short, baseball has a serious problem, and its not steroid use anymore. Its an image problem, and instead of cleaning it up the right way (or the write way), you decided to try and duck and run. You are all to blame, but only the player will take the fall, and its real easy to pick someone that no one likes. Too bad you didn't have these kinds of troubles to put fall guy status on for Ty Cobb. But then again, we were much smarter then.

One final note, I think whoever wins the next presidential election needs to ask Greg Anderson to be a confidant and advisor. Any man who spends that much time in prison for not running his mouth can probably be trusted

BCS. What does the C stand for?

The last time my buddy Paul and his wife were in town, as you may have read on his blog, we got together and had some serious laughs. On Saturday night we went to a local sports bar, All Sports Cafe, and had dinner. This place is greatly noted for housing a West Virginia Mountaineers fan club on Saturdays during the fall. Well, I am an avid hater of those bums, and am proud to say I went there with a friend who is a big Pittsburgh freak, so whether he's a Pitt Panthers fan or not, he is in this blog. HA HA got bounced by a 28 point underdog. Amazing how a nail-biter turns into a holy roller healing room. Wannstedt came off those crutches real quick in the 4th quarter. Anyway, this weekend now leaves us with the BCS. First off, what does the C stand for in the middle? If they took that C out, it would make complete sense. Now I understand that there is big money in the bowl games, and there is a history. And we all know that its the only way the 2nd largest metropolis in this country (LA) is going to see a meaningful football game in January. But that aside, we still don't know who will be the best.
Will the Georgia Bulldogs figure out a way next year to let their Mark Richt talk to his alma mater, Miami, and then announce before their last game that he is staying, and then go out a win a thriller. Now in all seriousness, I feel that LSU may be the better team. It took 6 overtimes to hand them two losses, and they shlacked the Hokies, which is now ranked 3rd (GO HOKIES), so they probably deserved it; but you can't tell me that somebody somewhere knew how to get some writers to think about it.
Giving these arguments for this years BCS, there is still a need for a playoff. Hawaii never played a huge contender, but if beating the big teams counts, then why aren't they inviting North Texas, which racked up 62 points against Navy (and LOST), which is a team that beat Notre Dame. Oh wait, Hollins University could have beaten Notre Dame this year (for those who don't know, Hollins University is an all female {except for the occasionally accepted post-grad male, lucky dog} small college in North Roanoke County). It would settle the debate each year. Sure, it might mean that the two teams that had the best season against the hardest schedule may not play, but it would be because one, or both, of them lost a playoff game. Have them play a playoff, and then have the two remaining teams play in one of the big bowl games. You have 8 teams and they play two weekends in mid December. Or even go 12 and have them play over three weeks. Whichever, you have those eight teams play someone they didn't play in the playoffs in a bowl game. Four losers of the quarter finals play each other (have the same number of weeks off), then the two losers the next week play each other, (again, same number of weeks off). But what do I know, I am just a fan who cares about the game
Anyway, GO HOKIES, make those other birds know that they are just a basketball school. And now, bring on one of my favorite times of the year in college sports, March freekin Madness
Later Daze

FM -- No static at all

I first of all want to thank my great friend Paul for telling me I would enjoy this form of written expression. I had been toying with the idea of a blog, but tonight the right moment of thought about one of the things that I am passionate about really came to light, and it was all because of a comedy.
FM is a rock comedy (complete with a pretty good collection of music, and two concert scenes that include skinny Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffett when he had a full head of hair) made in 1978 about a radio channel that had made it all the way to the top, and how its owning company had decided to "conglomerate" it. They had decided to force certain commercial spots onto the number one station in Los Angeles because it was number one, but it got to number one by not being a corporate sellout. When the station manager refuses, it turns into a rebellion of sorts. I don't want to tell you the entire movie, but wanted to talk about what this movie tried to tell us would happen 29 years ago, when it came out.
It is now the latter half of the "20 oughts" or whatever they call the decade after the 90's, and my hometown, Roanoke VA, has a station that has been around longer than my 44 years on this earth. It was an AM station (Oh Lordy 12-40) that began just before Christmas 1946 (for those interested, check out http://www.wrovhistory.com/main.htm) and it was the one station that played the music that mattered while I was growing up in this town. I can remember listening to Stairway late at night as a kid and could hear vague radio signals through the static before Mr Plant hit his final "to heaven". But then came the 89, and the station moved to FM. This was quite a good change for awhile, but then things went the way of...well, THAT way. Yes they were bought by that great satan of mass radio negligence, Clear Channel.
WROV, I will always think highly of you as a whole, but your Clear Channel years suck. I have become a subscriber to Sirius Sattelite radio, and you only have Clear Channel to blame. If you, or any other radio channels come around that are for the listener in Roanoke (as opposed to the person who has the most money), let me know, and I will give it a shot, but suffice to say, I think those days are long gone. Oh, I am sure these things are blamed on lack of local monies, or downloading, or whatever they say is robbing the industry of money, but thats what any big business does these days. They only want you as a customer, but once you are they could care less about service to you (this is also another blog another day).
Well, I can see where getting this stuff out is therapeutic. I'm outta here, and in the words of Bart Prater (long before Jim Croce said it), Have a good night and don't spit into the wind.

Later Daze