4/06/2004 06:41:00 PM by Tommy

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As a baseball fan, I try not to pay too much attention to the business aspect of the game.

For one, numbers are fucking boring to me. I'm not a numbers guy, and whether you're spouting attendance information, payroll information or the length in years and amount in dollars of the contract of some half-high school educated, semi-literate hillbilly from Crotch Spread, Kentucky who can bring the heat at 98 miles an hour, it just gets tiresome.

But for another, if I can pry myself away from Skinemax long enough to pay attention to certain things, I just start getting angry. No Skinemax, that's enough to boil the blood. But add to it that that a goofy sumbitch from San Pedro de Macoris is making more in one at bat, or more in his 2/3 of an inning he's coming out to pitch than I'm making in a year with my college (B.S.) degree working in the middle of the night. That shit bothers me.

So generally, I try to ignore it. Try to seperate things in my mind. I try to bullshit myself into thinking it's still about the game being played on the field.

But this made my ears perk up a little.

Seems Bud Selig, the used car salesman ostensibly in charge of our little game, and his ilk are looking into putting ads on uniforms. To increase revenue.

He's trying to shake me out of my delirium.

One of his minions:

"We're always looking for new ways to advance our business," Tim Brosnan, MLB's executive vice president for business, said.

Also: "We're unashamed of the fact that we are a business," Brosnan said. "We're mindful of the fans, but I don't think this is unreasonable."

Here exactly is the problem with Major League Baseball. The motherfuckers in charge of it. These pricks who are all so fucking aware that baseball is big business. For whom the biggest possible number underneath the bottom line is the primary goal.

These assholes who won't let it just be a game.

I think Brosnan's second statement is telling. We are mindful of the fans....but he doesn't think he's being unreasonable.

Let me tell you something. Unreasonable is in the eye of the beholder. Lizzie Borden didn't think she was being all that unreasonable when she was holding the axe, either.

He is mindful of the fans. He is mindful.

What in the blue fuck does that mean?

Any time I use the term "mindful" is when I'm doing something in spite of something else.

Yeah. Brosnan is mindful of the fans' ideas on this little piece of bullshit. He just doesn't give a shit.

I know chili dogs are bad for me. I am mindful of the notes several different medical agencies who say things like "There's rat hairs and cholesterol" in chili dogs. And how chili dogs are "bad for the heart and arteries." And "I shouldn't eat 9 in one sitting."

I'm mindful of all these things. But when you've got a plate of chili dogs in front of you? What's your priority? I'm gonna eat me nine chili dogs.

Actually, without trying to, I've kind of stumbled into a good metaphor.

My friends and family are also telling me that chili dogs are bad for me. Granted, they were my initial source of chili dogs, and they tell me all things in moderation. But they see and know that if I do nothing but consume chili dogs, and search for new sources of chili dogs, I will become unsightly to look at and be around.

Soon, the more chili dogs I bring to myself, the less my friends and family want to be around me.

The fans aren't Bud Selig's or Major League Baseball's first priority. Their priority is bringing in the cash, even though the fans were their first and most loyal source of chili dogs...er...cash.

It's getting to be too much.

Bud, the more you try to get revenue from other sources, the less the ones you should be loyal to will want to be around you.

I don't have much uncouth to say about this, except Fuck the Car Salesman. He doesn't love baseball. He's not looking to make baseball the great game it could be. He's not looking for the game's best interests. He's looking to see how he and his owner friends can line their pockets to the highest degree.

I don't want to watch Kerry Wood (brought to you by Old English Malt Liquor) pitching to Alex Rodriguez (brought to you by Hardee's) in the George Foreman Grill World Series next fall.

It's becoming so not about the players or the game.

And I guess that's what pisses me off most of all.

I just want to watch the fucking game. A game that is happy to have me there, loyal and smiling.

But everything I see shows me that Bud Selig thinks I'm not the most important thing to the game. Because I can't belly up the most dollars for his pockets.

This is why I don't pay attention to the numbers aspect of the game.

Thanks to Bill McCabe for the link to the NY Post story.

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