All Star Break Offers No Break from Incessant Hand-Wringing

Holy shit. Enough. Three more days of hystarical overreactions, of baseless speculation, or woe-is-me-ing? I think I'll pass. Should we be taking this opportunity to realize how lucky we are to have Roy Halladay now and the past 10 years? Shouldn't we celebrate his becoming just the third Jay to start the All Star game, meaningless as it may be? I can't take any more of this horseshit, from either side.

The first letter from Griff's "emergency Halladay bonusbag - now with more D-bags" was all I needed to see before quickly closing the tab.

Could you tell J.P. Ricciardi for me that if he trades Roy Halladay, I will never attend another Blue Jays game? And no, I don't care if the package he gets includes Tim Lincecum, Ryan Braun, and Hanley Ramirez put together.

Now nobody likes Roy Halladay more than I do, nobody else puts for the same crazed "ironic detachment" front like I do, but even I wouldn't suggest that trading Roy Halladay would be the end of my Blue Jays fandom. What did this clown from Oshawa do before Halladay arrived? Apparently nothing, as Roy Halladay is the beginning and end of his attachment to the team. It is this type of hyperbole and idiocy that keeps JP's job from being possible. In this fan's eyes, trading the franchise cornerstone is akin to committing commercial and public relations suicide. It just isn't so.

The news of Scott Rolen being quietly shopped cuts me to the core, but that doesn't mean I'll be off the Jays forever. The lack of internal replacements will hurt the team on the field, and the lack of greatness before my eyes will be impossible to replace, but don't fit me for a Red Sox hat quite yet. This is part of the deal. If you're a sportsfan, you take the ups with the downs. The sense of entitlement is sickening. Get a life.

It Gets Worse

Update: here's the link to the show. Farraway goes off 3/4 of the way through.

Speaking of entitlement and idiocy, I was unfortunate enough to hear the WORST quasi-populist appeal to the lowest common denominator of my young life on the Fan this afternoon. Sports Director Doug Farraway went off on a thoughtless tirade clearly and cynically aimed at firing up the kind of people angered by other men's successes.

With Gary Bettman's salary figures going public, the Director saw fit to tee off on Bud Selig and his exorbinant salary. His ridiculous platform included some relativistic gems like "ZOMG! The President of the USA only makes $400 000 yet Bud makes $18 mil!! " and quoting at length from Selig's wikipedia page. Really? I won't even address the obvious differences in the public and private sectors or the editorial morass of Wikipedia, but Farraway really got going when he stated baseball is "suffering" from the steroid scandals and cancelled World Series. Yup, the owners currently watching their franchise values approach 10 digits are clearly suffering and should be quick to oust Selig. Yeah, the owners must hate the wildcard for the extra TV and gate revenues it generates. The players are struggling too. Not to mention MLB as a business entity itself, with its incredibly valuable advanced media arm and wildly successful new television station.

The entire exercise was such a waste of time and energy. It was so blatant and insincere, I had a hard time listening. His elimination of American and National league offices and presidents as well as separate umpiring entities really did the game a disservice, eh Dougie? I know I long for the days of petty provinciality and warring factions among the game's guardians. The blind eye he turned to steroids? I remember so fondly when you broke the story to tear the cover off baseball's hidden shame. I'm sure were you sports director in 1998 you'd have sent a TEAM of reporters chasing the mere sniff of a one-on-one interview with Mark McGwire's bat boy, gardener, shoe polisher or jockstrap washer. High farce as the steroid policy may be, he DID toughen it from "none" to "some."

This is how inane this rant was: I'm forced to defend Bud Selig! He may not do much right in the fan's eyes, but he certainly made a lot of people rich. Rich people LOVE being rich, and will often give you some of their riches in hopes you will continue to make them rich. Which is why Bud makes a lot of money and will continue to do so. If you're going to attack him head of radio station guy, maybe ask him for some cash so you can rent a leg to stand on.

It's the last extension, just ask him.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says he won't accept another contract extension after his expires in 2012. Wait a second, he said the same thing after several other extensions, so pardon me if I have a little trouble buying it.

Selig has been commissioner since 1992 and since late 2006 had said that following the 2009 season, he'd retire, going so far as saying nothing would change his mind. Once again, he says, "this is it, I can say that without equivocation". He blathered on about being 78 years old when this contract was done and then had to sit down as he was clearly winded from standing for more than 8 minutes.

Look, do I care? Not really. Has there been an explosion of steroid use and other performance enhancing drugs under his tenure? Probably. Did he turn a blind eye to this glaring issue in the league? Most likely. Finally, wasn't Selig the very man who provoked the 7 and a half month strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series (which incidently, would have been won by the Montreal Expos)? He was.

True, he did push for Inter-league play (who the hell cares), change the playoff format to include wild cards (oh no, there was no complaining over this past season's, shall I say, lengthy, playoff format) and spend the better part of the past decade talking about his great vision of internationalization (next stop, Puerto Rico and some exhibition games in CHINA!!)

Bud Selig isn't young. The owners are by and large just as old. I'm not saying he does a good job (because he doesn't) or a bad one either (you be the judge.) But isn't it time for Bud to step aside and make way for a younger, more pro-active person to run the show? Bah, you probably don't really care...but maybe you should.

Bud Selig made $14.5 million dollars in the 12 month period ending Oct 31st 2005.