By my count, this is thread number four in the pit about this, but I’m going to take a different aproach. I am going to talk about how this meaningless tie has effected me, a baseball consumer.
I grew up on baseball, here in Baltimore, we’ve got a pretty good tradition. Our original Orioles became the Yankees, the greatest franchise of the 20th century ( and, oh, how that hurt to type, but let’s be honest, dopers, they were. ) The current O’s have a pretty good record, IIRC, from the mid 60s to the 90s they had the highest winning percentage in the game. The last few years have been tough. King Peter has run a once great franchise into the ground, and then he started digging. Couple that with the assinine players/owners feud, which all boils down to greed that would make Donald Trump ashamed, and I haven’t really cared. I’ve noticed baseball for the last few years, but not taken much interest in it. This year has been different. The O’s have an exciting young team. They’re competative. They won’t challenge the Yanks or the Sox for a playoff bearth, but they’re in every game. I’ve slowly come back to paying attention to baseball. I actually listened to the home run derby last night on the radio, and watched the ASG tonight. Except for the game my boss bought tickets for earlier this year, it’s the first full game I’ve seen in several years.
It was a good game. Back and forth, I got into it. This COULD have been the rehbilitation of baseball in my eyes. When the lone Oriole, Tony Batista, knocked in a run I cheered. When he came up in the 11th with a chance to knock in the winning run, I had visions of a third team player winning the MVP.
Alas, it was not to be. Tony flied out, and the game was called a half inning later. WTF is MLB thinking?? The pitchers in were starters, limiting them to 2 innings was absurd. No starter that can only pitch 2 innings is worth a damn, never mind an all-star. The excuses were legion. " We didn’t want to deprive a team of it’s pitcher for his next start". Selig: " I had no choice". I ask any Phillies or Mariners fans: would you really have minded if Garcia or Padilla mised their next start to pitch in a thriller?
It’s bullshit.
The all-star game is for the fans. Calling it as a tie, and even refusing to name an MVP, shows where the mindset of the game is. Fuck the fans, just give us your money. I, for one, am sick of it. Tonights debacle pushed me away, and killed the budding love for the game I was redescovering in my heart. When baseball finally dogfights itself into oblivion, July 9, 2002 will be know as the day when the crash became unrecoverable. Just as the Orioles will never compete for the crown as long as King Peter is in charge, baseball will never recover with Selig/Fear hissing and spitting at each other, nurturing their egos while the game goes down in flames.
A pox on both their houses.