You know what? Fuck Baseball!!

Yeah, I said it! Fuck Baseball!! (Just in case you didn’t hear it the first time)…

Where did this come from, you ask? Well, today Mark McGuire came out and admitted to using steroids during his record-breaking homerun season and during many other seasons in his career (we can only assume that he used them his entire career).

(http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/mlb/article/749451--griffin-sorry-mark-but-you-ll-never-get-my-vote)

Mark McGuire was my favorite ball player growing up, and this just breaks my heart -even though I stopped watching and following baseball a long time ago…

Thinking back to when I was a kid, I remember playing baseball (or our ghetto version of baseball, box-ball) everyday after school and on the weekends. We would be out there for hours, playing even when it was dark outside, when it was raining, and sometimes –just for fun, even when it was snowing. We loved the game back then, and use to eat-sleep-and-dream baseball all the time.

Though my buddies may not admit it, I remember being our homerun champ every year, hitting over 70 myself one season, 13 on one day once. Those were the good old days. I have many other stories of this time, but I’ll save them for my “stroll down memory lane” segments.

My favorite team was the Toronto Blue Jays, though those pesky Oakland Athletics were pretty awesome back then. Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, Ricky Henderson and etc (I can’t remember all of them anymore), but I had a solid love-hate relationship with them, as every year they made sure the Blue Jays got screwed before or during the post season. Anyway, every time I would hit a homerun, I would do the fore-arm high-five (if you will) just like Mark McGuire and his Athletics did every time they hit homers.

Anyway, thinking back now, it just pisses me off to realize that the A’s entire team was on steroids, and had they not been, the Jays may have won the World Series much earlier than in ’92 and ’93.

You see, it’s the fair playing teams that always get screwed in baseball, I’m finally learning.

Now, when the Jays finally made it to the World Series, they didn’t disappoint. With the entire United States against the team (as it was their national past-time, and though they didn’t mind us when they beat us, as soon as we were contenders, we were hated by the entire US country), they overcame the obstacles and stole 2 World Series Championships! It was the greatest feeling ever being a Jays fan at the time. It’s like we were the proverbial David, taking down Goliath. The memories I have from those victories will say with me forever.

I remember being at home with my entire family over watching the game. And when we won (especially that time when Joe Carter hit that World Series winning Homerun), we all went nuts! We all got in the car, and my Dad took us downtown to celebrate with the rest of the city of Toronto. It was amazing.

Anyway, my attitude towards baseball changed soon-after when the players went on strike in ’94. At the time I didn’t understand why it was happening -only that one of my favorite games was no longer going to be played due to the greedy players... They stayed on strike for the entire year, and by the end of it, I was so angry with them, that I -for the first time, said Fuck Baseball!! I still played box-ball, I just didn’t watch baseball anymore. Slowly thereafter, I stopped playing box-ball as well. I never forgave them for that.

Nowadays, with all of the steroid allegations and yada, the entire game is a sham. I could have been playing in the MLB if I was on steroids, so I why should I be impressed with these guys?? Fuck them. And I don’t blame just the players, the Management had to know that this was going on, but as long as nobody made it public, it was great having the fans come in to watch Jose Canseco blast baseballs out of the entire park. (They sure raked in enough dough turning that blind-eye).

And when I think that if Canseco hadn’t written that book that blew the whistle on it all, that these players would still be happily on steroids smashing every record in the book, it just disgusts me even further.

Lately, I haven’t been as upset about the steroids, as I am about the Team Payrolls. It’s fucking bullshit what’s going on. How can you have 2 teams in the same league in 2009, where one, the NY Yankees, has a payroll of $201,449,189, and the other, the Florida Marlins, has a payroll of $36,834,000????? I mean, are you fucking serious??? This is considered a REAL game with TRUE competition? Here’s the entire MLB Team Payrolls for 2009 (for your reference):

If you’re not in New York, Boston or Chicago, then what’s the point of even watching the sport?

I know, I know, "sure, they have the highest payrolls, but they don’t always win"… Yeah, but they always make it to the post-season, don’t they?. You see, like probabilities in cards, in the short-term anything can happen, but over time, you will see the teams with all of the allstars winning most of the time. Therefore, over a season of 162 games, the allstar teams (New York, Boston and etc.), will inevitably have the best records. But in a short term post-season, anything can happen.

My problem with this is that when your team is in the same division with the NY Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, then what’s the point?.. I mean, for the post season they take the top team from each division and have 1 wild card spot to complete the set. I wonder who takes those spots every time in the AL East?…

If you guessed the Yanks and the Red Sox, then you are right!

I don’t know how NY Yankee fans can even look themselves in the mirror and be proud that their team won the World Series. As much as they hate hearing it, they bought the World Series, and that’s the truth.

In a sport where the players have no honour and are pumping themselves with steroids, and where there is no equal competition between teams due to their team payrolls, almost every aspect of the game is tainted.

So, if you’re wondering why I say “Fuck Baseball”?? I hope you can now understand why.

--jackandcokewithalime