Baseball Schmaseball

First off, I know that posting a million links in my posts can be annoying, but they just add to what I'm talking about. Not everyone that comes on here is going to be a sports fan and I don't want to confuse them. The blogosphere is so crowded with crap, yes, including mine, that I want to be sure that people have some background before they start reading. Anyway, I just saw this story on ESPN showing that Pacman Jones is going to be joining TNA, one of the wrestling organizations here in the U.S. This guy is a bigger idiot than I ever could have imagined. It's not technically wrestling, it's just soft-core porn (I mean, dudes in tights?) and for a guy that makes really bad decisions this is actually right in line with his thinking. Aside from that, he stated that he wanted to do something that would "keep him off the streets and out of trouble." I've got news for him, the world of wrestling is more depraved than any other sporting event. There are girls, drugs, steroids, and everyone looks like a cartoon, and that's what the fans pay to see. More wrestlers have died from narcotic or steroid related deaths than any other professional sport and for someone that enjoys the over-the-top lifestyle he should have kept wrestling off his radar. Oh well, keep an eye out on the obituaries now for him.

Anyway, why I'm writing this article is for two reasons 1. To avoid editing my thesis and 2. To comment on this all of a sudden love affair with Major League Baseball. On ESPN.com they were saying how baseball was having a really "great weekend" because of A-Rod, Barry Bonds, and Tom Glavine's 300th win. PLUS, on a personal level the Arizona Diamondbacks just swept the Dodgers giving them a full game and a half lead in the NL West. Here's the problem. I still REALLY don't care. It is midly interesting? Yes, these guys are Hall of Fame legends despite their troubles and the milestones are absolutely incredible. The saddest part is that as a major sports fanatic I still care more about how my grass is growing in my back yard than any of these things. This signals a couple of very obvious things to me about Major League Baseball in addition to the problems I posted earlier:

1. Younger fans can't bring themselves to care
Although my extent of being in the media involved working at the school radio station when I was in the 8th grade I still learned a thing or two about demographics. Most of that came from a guy who worked at 99.9 KEZ here in Phoenix who I believed was sleeping with one of our teachers in the student council. He let us know that attacking demographics basically between 19 and 50 years old is key for several reasons. The first is because the younger part of the demographics may not have a lot of money, but they've got a lot of money to WASTE which is key and the older part of the demographics doesn't have a lot of money to waste, they've just got a lot of money, which is a good thing for advertisers. Baseball, who is in desperate need of fans who are 50 years or younger, simply can't bring us in with these milestones that are just clouded in controversy. Personally, Barry Bonds could have hit his 12,000th home run and I would still watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition before that at bat.

2. Roids, roids, roids, roids, roids, roids, roids, roids, roidy roid roid roid rooooids, ROIDS, CHARGE!....or something like that
I'll admit that the steroids in Major League Baseball is not exactly a total out rage. This is for two reasons. 1. Steroids are more pervasive than people would have ever imagined, especially the older fans, so to many of us younger people, we're not exactly surprised. I think we were more surprised at the coverage it received. I knew at least 6 guys on my high school football team and at least 10 others on teams we played my senior year that were on the juice. Hell, I know a guy who is on them NOW. But older fans aren't usually aware of that so it WAS an outrage to them. The second reason is because I JUST DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO BE OUTRAGED. If there was a major steroid probe in the NFL I would be terribly saddened on the other hand. I know guys are on the juice in the NFL, but with the checks in place and the penalties put forth I'm confident the cheaters are being caught as much as they can. Major League Baseball has that now, but it's just too late to make up for any issues in the past. With all of that aside, I have to admit that the more I listen to people in the sports world the more they're saying things like they actually are "rooting for Barry Bonds to get this home run chase over with." That's where I begin to have a problem. Just because we haven't had any books published this year about steroids, just because it seems like it's old news, and just because this is just a great record does NOT mean that steroids have all of a sudden become mostly excusable. I think too many people are just fed up that they actually haven't caught any big name cheaters so they're tired of speculating, but to treat it as no big deal I think is a mistake. It's one of the reasons that I won't go back to baseball with all of my love, and as a guy with money to spend on sports, all of my love is good for their bottom line. Does baseball still have a place in my heart, of course it does, but I won't buy jerseys, I attend maybe one game a year, and I hardly watch on TV. As far as the NFL goes, I have season tickets, 8 jerseys, am considering NFL Sunday Ticket, watch all the games on Sunday, and have bought my kids a ton of merchandise. To prove this, look at the revenues of each league. For MLB, their revenue in 2006 was $4,733, 000,000 For the NFL..., it was over 6 billion dollars. For the NFL, it just makes cents.

3. Football is starting
I'm not going to lie, August is owned by football at the college and pro level. I couldn't tell you when the next game is in ALL of MLB, but I can tell you that at 5 pm PDT, The Colts play the Cowboys on FOX. Right now, I don't care about anything else. I don't care about cycling, hockey, basketball, or baseball right now. This is because football is starting. I'm even considering getting Arizona State football season tickets on top of my Cardinals, just so I can be guaranteed some football every weekend. I can't say the same for baseball. D-Backs tickets are about 15 bucks, but I REFUSE to spend my hard earned money on them. Cardinals tickets are 25 bucks apiece and I think it's a STEAL! The worst part is that the Diamondbacks play big time rivals like the Dodgers and Padres for the division title and the Sun Devils are scheduling schools like Pomona Junior College and I'm already in line to get my ticket. Let's go MLB, convince me I should care. Right now, I'm going to watch NFL Live on my DVR and skip the next baseball game.


one last thing, check out espn.com and look for the story called "Bottom's Up" It's about southern, east and west, dominance in college sports. I JUST posted on my blog, it's called "East Coast Influence Fading, Southern Influence Gaining" and its about how warm weather schools are beginning to change the landscape of college football. 19 year old kids. Check it out!