Yeah...That joker is a big reason why....Bud suffers from permanent, cranial, anal, insertion...
And lately these guys haven't been helping much lately either...The Joyce call wasn't the only bad one this season...Hell it wasn't the only bad one that night...This season has been full of bad calls, and pissy umps tossing people at the drop of a hat...
And no matter what people say...This kid isn't gonna save Baseball...
The reason for this blog, well it all started with Umpire, Jim Joyce being a dolt...Followed by Bud Selig being a dolt, which Bud being a dolt is par for the course...I have read countless blogs, and articles on the blown call...I have disagreed with many, and voiced it on many...Fell free to check out some great blogs at YouGabSports ...(shameless plug)
So I thought I should take some time and let my temper cool down, and then post my thoughts...
Baseball is something very special to many Americans...Hell I would even say that's true of myself...There's something about Fathers and Sons, and Baseball...Learning other sports is easy compared to learning Baseball...It's just different...As Tom Hanks said in "A League of Their Own"..."If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."
But now it seems we have less and less kids interested in Baseball...Hell, we have less and less adults interested in Baseball...There are numerous reasons...We live in a 24/7 instant media world...We get everything quick...Baseball is slow...In general, we have gotten lazier...There are more and more kids growing up without fathers, or at least growing up in a household without two parents there...TV and Video Games are the babysitter too often...Kids don't get outside and play like they use to...When I was a kid, the whole damn block was warming up in front of our houses, then we'd all head to the park and play for hours...F**k now you gotta get a permit from the city...'screw it will play the video game instead of the real thing.'
But it's not just social issue, or an economic issue...Major League Baseball hasn't done much to help itself...And these people that call themselves Baseball Purists, they need to get the hell out of the way...They fight everything that could make the game better...They fought against the wild card...Holy shit, the wild card has made baseball so much better...It actually keeps a few more teams in the hunt, and gives the playoffs a little more excitement...They hate the DH...Well many of us hate pitchers going up there and swinging like Nancie's...(yes there are some that can hit a little, but not many)
Now the big fight is against Instant Replay...It's being used in limited, home run situations...But after the Joyce blown call, many people, like myself, want replay to be able to be used in close plays...The purists hate that...Them, along with Selig, are in love with "The Human Element"...If you can fix the mistakes from "The Human Element", why not use that technology...It makes the players and fans happier...Why wouldn't we want that? Every other sport has replay...Why is it so hard for baseball...This is just another thing for baseball to drag it's feet on...You could limit it like they do in Football...You could add another ump to the crews rotation, and each night there's an ump in the booth that handles the replay...That way the umps aren't losing any of their power, and it's not some suit looking over their shoulders...But the purists just want to stay in the dark ages...
After Joyce's blown call, that cost Armando Galarraga a Perfect Game, there was an outcry for Selig to change the ruling...Of course he said NO...And the Purists didn't want it changed either...It would open a can of worms...Then people would want them to go back and change a bunch of old blown calls, and that can't happen...Oh, except it did...Did you know at one time, there were 48 perfect games in the MLB record books...But then e=they went through with a fine tooth comb, and overturned more then half of them...Right or wrong, they did it...So let's stop acting like overruling a umps shitty call would be the end of the world...
I have a friend, a fellow blogger, who is a teacher, when writing about the Joyce call, explained how he used the incident in the classroom to teach the students some life lessons...I thought that was very cool, even though I didn't agree with all his points...His final point was this..."It doesn't really matter if Joyce called him safe. It doesn't matter if it isn't in the record books either."
I 100% disagree with that...Baseball has always put so much stock into it's numbers, and it's record books, that has been what they have always prided themselves on...So there is no way, that it doesn't matter to a pitcher who just got screwed out of a perfect game...And it should matter to us as fans too...Players get their accolades and get into the Hall of Fame based on their numbers, and what's in the record books...So it's only okay to change the books sometimes?
Do mistakes happen...Yes, in Baseball and Life...If we have a chance to fix mistakes in Life, we take it...Baseball should do the same...If for no other reason, then to save Baseball...Because Bud, and tight ass purists, are holding it back, and pushing people away...Baseball lost it's purity long, long, ago.
That all said, I can't wait to watch Strasburg strike out 20 Indians on Sunday!
Now before I say goodbye, look at this deliciousness...
Later, The Beeze.