A wonderful day to get outside. I apologize in advance for today’s rant. See what happens when I don’t get enough sleep. Anyway, the first thing I see today is the news about MLB canceling what looks to be the first week of the regular season and I guess that means all of the spring training.
Support your little leagues
Instead of going to Major League Baseball games (oh you can’t anyway) why not check out your local ballfields. I bet you will find the concession stands a lot more reasonable. You will see people enjoying the game and cheering for their team much harder than at The Yard. You will see the players enjoying a GAME and respecting the GAME and playing by the RULES of the GAME. You won’t have owners treating their employees like crap and disrespecting them in order to get richer yet. You will have the best seat you ever had for a ballgame. The seat won’t be cramped (bring your own chair or blanket, we do not cover grass stains). You can easily catch a foul ball or chase one through the parking lot. Yeah, you might lose a windshield once in a lifetime at these events but you will have the souvenir of the baseball still in it as opposed to your car stolen or vandalized downtown. Plus next week you can walk up and have the kid sign the ball.
The level of play might not be the best but you will see the same effort. The same joy of victory and agony of defeat and maybe even more pronounced than you have ever seen at the major leagues. As Its players learn about life and the ups and downs for the first time.
You are less likely to get in a fight or be trampled over by others fighting. The chances of having a beer spilled on you are pretty nill. The walk to the parking lot to your seat is easy even if you are an old man. It’s likely you might see someone from your neighborhood or community or maybe better yet someone you knew when you were younger and their kids are on the field.
MLB is proof in life that a few can F it up for everyone. I’m pissed, yeah that is right because I like the game. I liked playing it. I liked coaching it. I like watching it. I like going to it. I like my team and follow it. And now I can’t, AGAIN.
And people wonder why there are unions around. It’s because greedy people do exist. Greedy people do get in power. Greedy people know no bounds. Greedy people don’t care if it collapses.
What bothers me also is how unfair this is to someone who lived and grew up next door to me. His father and he were out at a very early age with a baseball and uniform and practicing all the time. He played little league, he played high school, he played college and got drafted, he played in the minors for a few seasons and last year he caught on and played for the Baltimore Orioles his home team. He is being robbed of his lifelong passion and dream. He is missing opportunities on the field in his prime. He is missing out on the earnings he has worked hard for. He is being shown the sometimes ugly realities of how people run businesses.
Well, the only way I’m going back to a stadium is if the owners are willing to meet me at the gate and allow me to bitch slap then each without pressing charges and then be verbally abused for about an hour or so like they have never been before and not like this easy stuff above. And while I’m doing that arrange to have their spouses donate 95% of their wealth to charities because the only thing they have pain from is losing money.
So many innocent people was what I was going to say next. But maybe we all are at fault. The money we spend to allow them to get so arrogant. The false worship of humans who make the same mistakes many of us in society make. Showing our children unbalanced importance on a GAME. I remember coaching and teaching players how to deal with disappointment was always made harder by parents. Not all of them but a lot of them. Winning isn’t everything and some people believe it is. Yes, it’s the object of the game. But if you did your best, left it all on the field, your teammates did the same. Your coaches encouraged and improve your game. You experienced the excitement of playing the game. I’ve had that, I’ve felt great about it. And I’ve lost and still maintained a love and passion for the GAME. And I learned lessons from losing, that winning doesn’t teach you. And you don’t win at everything in life.
