Spring Training


It’s a sad season for fans of the SF Giants. Sad. I have no idea who these guys are—I read that they have employed 17 big-league coaches. Jeebus...17 coaches. The general behavior of the club is the same as an expansion club that’s trying to decide who it wants to be when it grows up. I also read that they’ve signed so many players and coaches that they’ve run out of jersey numbers and have issued “0” and “00”. Now, I don’t know if all that’s true, but I do read the McCovey Chronicles, and one of their pieces on the web site this week is entitled “ Which Fictional Character Do You Want To Manage The Giants?”.
So it’s not just me. Fictional Character to manage? One of their suggestions was Elle Woods, and I think that’s just dandy.

Even at that, baseball in general is in trouble…..Currently over-regulated and over-sanitized with way too many “metrics”. Players are over-paid causing ticket prices to rise out of the range for a regular guy (such as myself) to go to games regularly. I went to ONE live game last year, and none the year before, all because of the 11 dollar beer, the 9.75 hot dog, the 50 dollar parking, and…..I just don’t have that kind of money.

Then you’ve got the Rob Manfred issue—A Commissioner without meaning or courage. The Astros got off essentially scot free even after admitting that they cheated their way into the 2017 World Series title. And that’s not the core of the Manfred problem—Attendance has fallen every year for at least the last 7 years. Manfred offers to change the rules will-nilly, without considering that the essence of baseball is it’s longevity and consistency—I mean really, now….

In his defense, Manfred's a fargin’ LAWYER for Christsake. I don’t see that he actually has any love for the game, it’s history, or it’s soul. He thinks baseball is a series of television contracts and labor peace. He’s wrong about that.

I’ll hang on with MLB and the Giants for now, but……...Give me a game where the decisions made by the Umpire were final…..Where a manager could go to the plate and kick dirt on the umpires shoes out of anger…..Where it was warfare with rules…..Where you could slide into second with bad intent to break up a double play. You know…..Baseball.

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