Just as every party seems to have its guest who outstays his welcome in spite of the host's hints (yawning, beginning the clean-up after all the others have left, turning out lights, etc.), this year's Baseball season has reached that point, even for this most ardent of Baseball fans.

 

The World Series isn't slated to begin until Wednesday, October 28, well after most Baseball seasons have ended.

 

Should form hold, and the season continue to last through a seven-game World Series, the final game wouldn't be played until November 5. 

 

And that's barring any more rain-outs.

 

While most of my post-season predictions (Angels/Tigers v St. Louis in the Series) printed in a prior post here were last seen swirling counter-clockwise down the porcelain pipes, I have managed to be partly right in my Yankees predictions --- a break-through post-season for A-Rod. The other half of the prediction was for an epic bullpen meltdown by the incomparable Mariano Rivera that would prove fatal to the Pinstripers.  Fear not, there's still time!

 

As to the very reason why we're discussing the beginning of the World Series on this late date, and not dissecting its conclusion, the responsibility for this can be placed at the money-grubbing hands of Bud $elig.

 

$elig is no more a traditional Commissioner of Baseball than I am a heart surgeon, body builder, male model, or world-class athlete.

 

The depths $elig has taken the game in the name of lining the pockets of  team owners can be attributed to pure out-and-out greed, nothing more or less.

 

Baseball, more than any other sport, has sold its soul and sacrificed its virtue (what used to be called 'the best interests of the game') to make everybody the most money possible.

 

The Fox TV network pays the money, and they tell $elig and Baseball when playoff and World Series games will be played.

 

Heaven forbid ballgames get played that might interfere with the fine programming offered by Fox.

 

There's a line from an old John Prine song about a concert promoter trying to convince the musical artist to stage an epic performance for the ages --- 

                    “We can rope off an area and put on a show,

                     From the Grand Canyon down to Mexico;

                     It could be the most – potentially gross

                     Thing we could possibly do”.

 

Along those lines, Baseball has chosen (under the 'leadership' of Bud  $elig) to forego the sporting values espoused by his most noted predecessors (Judge Landis, Happy Chandler, Bart Giamatti). If their kind still ruled the game, we'd have no more inter-league play with its inherent competitive unfairness to some teams. There'd be none of these days-off-for-no-good-reason during the post-season, and we'd doubtless see the return of Sunday double-headers during the regular season and daytime World Series games played well before the frost is on the pumpkin and the game has overstayed its welcome.

 

Instead, Bud $elig has opted to whore the game out to the highest bidder.

 

Which makes Bud $elig a pimp, in my book.

 

There's no question about it.

 

FtheM

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