Dear Professional Baseball
DISCLAIMER: Before all of you baseball purists and 'America's Pastime' thumpers come and turn a Baseball Fury (100 e-points if you get that reference) on me, just know that I do watch baseball, and quite often in fact. I've just grown weary of summers dominated by baseball. It's as if the rest of the sports world takes summers off and we're stuck with an old, traditionalist of a sport. Check out these reasons for why professional baseball grinds my gears...
What about this was really exciting? #shoutout to the homie @JRSportBrief
1. Home runs suck. Don't deny it. Home runs are the most pointless highlight to ever flash before my TV screen. There's nothing particularly special about any particular home run, other than the fact that it clears the fence. Home runs are the same, every single time. It's a mystery to me as to why they even require the hitter to circle the bases. Doesn't the home run count as soon as it goes over the fence? Whatever the case, the crown jewel of the sport of baseball has grown less and less impressive as I've gotten older. And with the steroids era not yet in our rearview mirror, its still hard to give the nod to the home run's validity. Don't get me wrong. The feat of blasting a ball that far is impressive... But after seeing it once, I think the wow-factor wears off...
2. There's no parity in professional baseball. And that is coming from a born Yankees fan. As a betting man, there really is no reason to bet on baseball (sorry Pete Rose) considering the same teams are always winning, give or take a few that are declining. The lack of a salary cap has essentially made the MLB two leagues: the Haves and Have-nots, not the AL and NL. Squads like the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, White Sox, Braves and Mets are continuously the cream of the crop, while teams like the Royals, Astros, Padres, Pirates, Athletics, Indians and Orioles are always bottom-dwellers. Even when those sucky teams manage to find a diamond in the rough of a player, he gets scooped up by one of the bigger teams because his original squad can't afford him. It's almost hilarious, because you have to wonder why those small-market teams even try anymore. Professional baseball has no appeal because there's never any chance of one of the lesser teams making a run, or even improving enough each year to challenge one of the big teams...
3. Can anyone tell me what the manager of a baseball team does? Seriously... I want to know, because every time I see a shot of the manager on TV, he's either speaking to one of the coaches under him, sitting down looking disinterested (probably eating sunflower seeds), or yelling at an umpire. Oh yeah... and he gets up in the dugout only to call the bullpen. Other than that we see him making signals and staring off into space. Sounds like one hell of a job. And what's with the manager having to wear the uniforms as well? Most of those guys don't look as though they've lifted a weight in decades. Why would you want them squeezing themselves into those near skintight pants and jerseys? All in all, the idea of a baseball manager boggles my mind. The permanence of that position will never make sense...
4. The game takes is too long and too slow. I've yet to sit down in front of a television and watch an entire baseball game, from first pitch to the last out. Nor do I know many people who can, unless they're at the game life. To do so would be nearing brutality. Between the commercials in between innings and pitching changes, and the time between actual pitches, baseball is a sport made for time wasting and lazy people. That's especially considering how little actual play is going on when they do play. It takes over 3 and a half hours for one baseball game to be over, when there might be 45 minutes of actual playing. And then the 7th inning stretch? What exactly are they stretching from? When you're not batting, you're in the dugout clowning around with your teammates. And when you're in the field 9/10 of the time, you're just standing there hoping for the ball to get hit into play near your area. The result of this is a long-winded, low-action, BORING game...
EDIT: Add to that, the fact that the baseball season is 162 games long. 162 games!!!!! That means 4,860 4-hour games, which is a number I don't even want to attempt to multiply. A long season of long games equal bored fans, which explains why the postseason is so short. It seems like the MLB has it backwards. But hey, who am I to judge?
There couldn't be a more accurate picture in all of the internets...
5. Baseball is just active enough to be called a sport, but is too lazy to be up there with basketball, football, hockey and soccer. As I said in previous points, you really don't have a lot of on-field action, except when the ball is in play. That lends itself to a lot of baseball players being on the less athletic side. But has anyone ever taken a look at some pitchers and designated hitters? Do the names David Wells, Prince Fielder, Mo Vaughn, Carlos Zambrano or David Ortiz ring any bells? If they don't then just picture a fat man wielding a baseball bat or pitching a baseball, and you've got the gist. Seriously, baseball is the only sport where you can be legitimately FAT and still play. Never mind football where even the heftiest of lineman can run the 40 in under 5 seconds. I'd be surprised if any of the guys I listed above can run to the bathroom in under 5 seconds. Baseball just lends itself to being unathletic, yet very athletic in certain capacities, which makes me question it as a sport...
6. The rules in baseball are completely fudged. Only in the MLB can you hit a home run in one park and not hit one in another. Only in the MLB are the fences different heights in different stadiums or the outfields different areas. Only in the MLB is video-evidence eschewed because of the umpire's