Something I’ve Observed: Jobs are lost, economy sucks, we still love baseball !
Cheap seats to the game are $400 bucks for standing room only, good seats will run upward of $1000-$1500 bucks!
Unemployment is 9.5% which is the highest in years, the economy is trying to rebound slowly…and yet Americans still flock to the ballpark to watch their favorite players.
BTW, most of these players are earning most of our country’s money but we cheer them on anyway. Good to see happy, drunk people throwing down a lot of cash on the All Star festivities. Gives me a glimmer of hope that the money is still moving around!
Ken Griffey Jr pays a subtle tribute to the King of Pop
Griffey was acting “cutesy” during his first at bat in the Mariners game last night. “Billie Jean” blared over the sound system during his first at bat as he displayed one white glove.
He normally wears two, dark batting gloves.
Funny.
Manny Ramirez…scratch another tally mark on the “why baseball disappoints” board
Manny Ramirez will be having a true summer break now that he will be sitting out for 50 games, yep 50, for testing positive for a performance enhancing drug.
Ramirez recently signed a $45 million dollar deal with LA and has led them to 20 wins already. He’ll now be taking a break.
According to the Ramirez camp, he visited his personal doctor for another health related issue and was prescribed a drug of which neither he nor the doc knew was banned. Bullcrap!
If there is a banned list of substances, then every damn baseball player and their respective physicians should know what they are.
Either the league does a crappy job of passing out that little leaflet that says: “Here are things you can’t swallow”…or the players are arrogant, self-serving bastards that push the boundaries of league rules over and over and over and over again.
There is a lot of competition to be a performer in MLB, but jesus christ this is getting old.
So it’s technically three days worth of food…it still sounds awesome!
I would say you probably shouldn’t eat a 4 lb hamburger more than once or twice a month (or a year) but it’s probably the best 45 minutes you’ll experience. A minor league baseball team in Michigan has introduced a 4 lb hamburger sold at the games for $20 bucks. What is even more sad is I bet people buy this thing for only themselves, not the kids or the wife, or the guys in there row…nope…this is a solo burger which requires a pizza cutter to slice it. Oh Yeah! (Actual picture of burger posted on link)
Why are we obsessesed with making hamburgers the size of VW bugs? Well, it’s the novelty and exploitation of food. Both of which are not a great thing considering kids starve in underdeveloped countries but maybe that’s the sign of a great (and self-indulgent) country we live in.
A country with huge waistlines, high blood pressure, heart disease (my personal favorite), no desire to exercise, high medical costs, and an assortment of other health related issues that nobody takes seriously.
We do, however, take the art of hamburger making seriously. Food has become an obession for Americans. We have reality shows about chefs, shows about people losing weight, BBQ contests, BBQ teams, cooking shows, nutritionists, caterers, street vendors, online grocery stores, and free sample Saturdays. The food industry is not interested in your health, rather your money. If you want to eat a 4lb hamburger and feel like a hot air baloon for 3 hours afterwards, that’s all on you sunshine.
Baseball, beer, and red faced belchers stuffing their hole with half a cow’s rump between bread…now that is just plain fun!
I sadly admit I would probably partake in this gluttony fest. The sheer irresistable lure of a fat, juicy burger is hard for the mere mortal to resist. On the flipside, it makes that run on the treadmill feel all that much better…if you wait at least a half hour.
Ladies and Gentlemen YOUR BALCO RANGERS!!!
Please make this up to us Rangers
I love baseball. I hate cheaters. I live in Texas. I’m screwed.
The Ballpark in Arlington recently lost its naming-rights sponsor so I propose the BALCO Park in Arlington. Why not? Either them or any other manufacturer of anabolic steroids. They’ve made plenty from our players, who have made plenty from us. Might as well just make the circle complete.
With the admission by Alex Rodriguez today of his steroid use while he was here in Texas, I think we now have enough players that have either have admitted to taking the substance or just got caught and couldn’t lie their way out to make a full starting line up.
Lets go through the lineup:
Ladies and Gentlemen, YOUR BALCO RANGERS:
1 – Kevin Brown
2 – Pudge Rodriguez
3 – Rafael Palmeiro
4 -
5 – Alex Rodriguez
6 – Ken Camineti
7 – Juan Gonzolez
8 – Gary Matthews, Jr.
9 – Jose Canseco
Yep, thats him - The Lone Star Great
We used to joke that Texas was like a minor league team – we’d pay huge bucks for a player who could find his groove, make mistakes and really beef up and get really good here on the Rangers, then BAM! we’d trade him for one BIG name player who inevitably lets us down and is on the DL before the All Star break.
Now we know why – they have a swim through Texas to get the good stuff, let it settle in their system, learn to control the hulk so to speak, then once they get a good grasp on this new body, new “talent”, we trade them away for a new bunch of non-hulks to ‘train’.
In fact, their conditioning coach said in an interview Jon Daniels, the 20-something manager of the Rangers, several years ago asked him if he thinks A-Rod was juicing, the conditioning coach said “yes, I’m suspicious of some sort of chemical use”. Daniels has said publicly many times that he had no idea at the time.
Players had the substances mailed to them at the Ballpark in Arlington. Right to their locker. Right there, under the stadium with the the fans – kids – sitting right above them. Saves them the hassle of having to bring it with them to their job if its already there.
In his apology, A-Rod sounded like he was trying to be accountable while giving excuses. One of his reasonings was that he was young and new to the league. Keep in mind he was in Seattle for 5 or 6 years, right?
If you’re in the D/FW area, you try to be a fan of the Rangers, but they make it very difficult. Poor player choices, poor management choices…there are enough complaints and excuses out there to fill a week of Sports talk radio.
But we, as fans who really really want to try to be a fan, aren’t getting anything in return. The prices are incredible, parking, food…yeah ok its expensive to go. Bad check mark.
The players do not want to be here. The organization as a whole cannot keep even its ‘franchise players’. Michael Young, who last year was touted as the savior of the franchise, had a moment this off-season that no, he did not want to move to third base to make way for another up and coming short stop, and maybe there is a team out there who would want me (sounds famliar). He decided he’d be a team player after all, presumably after having the fine print of his contact pointed out to him.
We haven’t had a fun team to really get behind – win or lose- this millennium. Even when A-ROID was here he didn’t do much community involvement and shied away from being a face of the team. Maybe because his voice was going up an octave. Truly, he gave off the impression he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Anywhere at all.
Maybe this year we can have a clean team. A team of up and coming hot shots that just love playing their hearts out and appreciate the fans. Then, MAYBE, they’ll get some fans back slowly but surely. This latest news just isn’t helping.
Rangers front office – please make this up to us.
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