Bud Selig Strikes Again

It’s a sad day for baseball. The All-Star game was Tuesday night, and I was excited. It’s not often that there’s a baseball game on regular TV anymore. I can’t afford cable at the moment, and I was happy to sit back and watch my favorite sport. I couldn’t wait to see who would win, and which player would win the Most Valuable Player award.

The game was good, too; Twins center fielder Torii Hunter robbed Barry Bonds of a home run, and the game went into extra innings with the score tied, 7-7. And then, right before the bottom of the eleventh inning, Commissioner Bud Selig made a decision: if no runs were scored in the next half-inning, the game would be cancelled. He said there were no pitchers left, and that the managers didn’t want to tire the pitchers who were in.

So there was about a five-minute pause before the bottom of the eleventh inning. The crowd started booing once the announcement was made. Then the crowd started chanting, “Let them play” and “refund” over and over again. It was beautiful.

The brainless announcers, slaves to any pinheaded baseball executive with a suit, were shocked that the crowd didn’t understand. The rest of us, however, were shocked that the announcers, players, coaches and commissioner couldn’t understand.

If there’s one rule baseball should have learned after years of losing fans, it’s the old business creed of “the customer is always right.” Apparently, Bud Selig and the rest of major league baseball doesn’t care about what the fans want.

Apparently they also don’t care that the people who went to see that game paid hundreds of dollars for tickets, only to have the game end as if it never happened. Apparently they don’t care that the rest of us stayed up late on a work night to see a game end with nothing but utter failure.

I can understand that the managers don’t want to wear out another team’s pitcher, and then have to explain why that team can’t use their star player once the season resumes. But what I can’t understand is why things can’t be changed so other pitchers can be put back in.

All ethics and structural rules of the game are already being broken when the game’s called because “the players are tired”. What’s so bad about allowing other pitchers to go back in? Surely, the starting pitchers there that night wouldn’t have minded pitching for an extra inning each.

The 30 pitches or less that are thrown in an average inning constitute less effort than a second warm-up session. Hell, put one of the coaches in to pitch. They let Jose Canseco pitch in an official game once, and he’s a self-righteous deuschbag. But to send 41,871 people home disappointed–and leave hundreds of thousands more at home feeling disappointed as well–is just not right.

The only joy I got out of the game was watching Bud Selig squirm in his front row seat while the crowd booed him. Selig, our spineless commissioner, made things worse by running away after the game. He didn’t address the crowd, or even the FOX television reporter before the station went off the air. What a stinking jerk.

By the way, Mr. Selig, here’s a little reminder for you: Ted Williams died on Friday. He was quite possibly the greatest hitter that ever lived. This year’s MVP award, which wasn’t given out, was to be renamed and given in his honor. He must be spinning like a top in his freshly dug grave.

Technically, this is the second time in history that the game has ended in a tie. A game in 1961 was stopped because of rain. But this is the first time the game has been called for such an atrocious reason. Five other All-Star games have lasted longer than 11 innings, and none of the commissioners in power back then cancelled them. Even in 1987, when the game went 13 innings, fans left knowing whom the winner and the MVP were.

All the more reason Selig should have allowed the teams to put some of their pitchers back in. Perhaps baseball players, managers and commissioners need to toughen up a little bit. It’s one thing to “watch out for the health of the players”, as Selig said, but it’s another thing to watch out for the health of the fans. And we’re dying a very quick death.