THE DEMISE OF AMERICA'S PASTIME

BASEBALL F%#KING SUCKS NOW!

Is anyone else sick and tired of New York teams signing every top free agent baseball player every single damn year? The Yankees just signed the two best free agent pitchers this year, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett, and the top offensive player in Mark Teixeira. All three received enormous $100+ million contracts. This is over-the-top ridiculous!

New York’s other team, the Mets, signed the two best relief pitchers for enormous contracts. Most teams would kill to have one dominant closer. The Mets just signed two! Is major league baseball trying to lose loyal fans? Remember how exciting it was when the team you followed signed a big name player out of free agency? Remember how you and the entire city looked forward to the upcoming season? Remember when baseball was competitive?!

What if this happened in football? What if the New York Giants signed Ray Lewis, Champ Bailey, Larry Fitzgerald, Albert Haynesworth, and Jared Allen. Would we enjoy watching the Giants beat the Browns 42-3 every year? Would we tolerate the Giants and Jets taking every good free agent? Would we enjoy a Giants/Jets Superbowl every year? Hell no! That would ruin football, right? Well, that’s where Bud Selig has baseball headed.

Does anybody else feel the way I do? I grew up as a baseball lover. I grew up a baseball player. Baseball was a religion to me and my friends. Baseball was clearly our #1 sport. Now, it’s not even #2. Football and basketball are much more exciting and competitive.

What will it take for Major League Baseball to understand how they are ruining America’s pastime?

Here’s what it will take. It will take 3 or 4 consecutive World Series of the Yankees versus the Mets. Every year! Then it will be clear as day, and finally there will be hope for a change.

So what if teams like the Devil Rays or Twins get lucky once every 10 years? Their best players will be playing for the Mets or Yankees a few years later! It’s just not fair and something needs to be done.

While we’re on the subject, here is another problem contributing to the demise of baseball. The Yankees playing the Red Sox forty times every year! Enough is enough! Remember when you’d get pumped up for a big Giants/Dodgers, Cubs/Cardinals, or Yankees/Red Sox series? Now these teams play each other so often, nobody pays any attention to a Red Sox/Yankees series. Well, at least not until late September. Baseball got greedy. They know these rivalries sell tickets, so they tripled the number of times these teams played each other, and cut out most of the other non-rivalry series. They found something the fans loved, so they marketed the hell out of it. Now it is oversold. The Yankees play the Cubs once every three years. Can't we see that more often?! I get much more pumped up nowadays for a Giants/Angels series, or a Cardinals/Dodgers series, or two random teams playing each other! I want to see Ichiro face CC Sabathia, or Albert Pujols face Tim Lincecum. I’m sick of seeing Derek Jeter face Josh Beckett. I’m sick of seeing the Mets play the Phillies all the time!

Teams should play each other an equal amount of times throughout the year. That would maintain the sacred luster and lore of heated rivalries. That would give baseball fans something to look forward to.

Baseball, do ya hear me talkin?



~ Cat