Barr-oid symbol of sad era in baseball history
By the Heckler
Must be something in the air, but the Heckler still has a few more heckles to throw around before the week is through . . .
- The steroids monster just continues to grow into more and more of a nightmare for Major League Baseball. Already no doubt giving more than one baseball exec sleepless nights, a recent poll has found 53 per-cent of fans feel that the game is not doing enough to rid their sport of performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball can only blame themselves for this ever-growing problem, as they simply chose to cover their eyes (like children attempting to shoo away the boogeyman) to the obvious problem as it emerged in the 1980s. This public relations disaster is only going to get worse. Thank God Barr-oid Bonds looks like mere shadow of his former self, and won’t be challenging Hank Aaron’s record anytime soon. In fact, the way things are going (Bonds having hit a mere two home runs thus far) he may not even pass Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time home run list. Now that would be justice.
- Don’t look now, but the Detroit Tigers have two of the most jaw-dropping young pitchers in all of baseball, earning rave reviews everywhere they have thus far been. Starter Justin Verlander and reliever Joel Zumaya have already left many a batter completely amazed at their velocity (both can get it up there more than 100 mph) not to mention their knee-bending off-speed selection. “They ended the game with two closers there,” Seattle’s Richie Sexson said recently of Zumaya and Todd Jones. “That guy (Zumaya) could easily be a closer on any other team.” This was after Sexson took a nearly 100-mph heater down the heart of the plate for strike three following one of the forementioned curves by Zumaya. Meanwhile, Oakland’s Nick Swisher had to this to say about Verlander: “You blink and it’s in the mitt. He struck me out with a 101-m.p.h. fastball. I didn’t really see it. I kind of heard it whiz right past me. Very select few people can throw the ball that hard. He’s going to be a tough one. You’re going to have to bring your ‘A’ game every time you see him.”
The only heckles here are for those who are still leery that the Tigers can actually produce a top flight prospect after years of futility. In the words of former Detroiter & Dodger Jose Lima, Tiger fans – believe it!
- It is any wonder that that more and more fans are viewing baseball as a sport consisting (like no other) of the haves and have-nots? With Forbes magazine recently valuing the New York Yankees worth at more than $1 billion, and the Boston Red Sox clocking it around $600 million, can you really blame fans of smaller-market teams for sometimes feeling that their franchises are playing in a different league altogether? Granted, the Yankees kicked in an estimated $77 million to MLB’s revenue-sharing kitty, but – c’mon – surely baseball needs to do even more (this side of a salary cap) to ensure the discrepancy does not continue to expand. How much longer do you think fans will continue to support teams that continue to not win the World Series year after year after year? Then again, scratch that - see Cub fan for the logic behind that one. It has to end sometime, though. All is sunshine and lollipops now for baseball, and attendance is soaring - but even the greatest of parties eventually have to end sometime.
sources:
scoreboards.aol.com
Detroit Free Press
Sportsillustrated.cnn.com
kplctv.com
April 28th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Yankees = Big Bucks, Boston = Big Bucks and look at the results. The Tigers wouldnt cough up the money for Johnny Damon cuz they dont have it. Ya they spent some money for Pudge, Magglio (booooh!) and a few others but it just goes to show you that the teams with all the money can still buy a World Series. The Tigers will have to settle for the Little League World Series.