TERRY MOSHER
DAVE ORTIZ
I have heard complains that baseball is doing the All-Star Game all wrong, that giving the league that wins the game home field advantage in the best of seven series for the world Series championship is stupid at the very least.
I disagree. The All-Star Game – and I scored the 2001 game at Safeco Field – was a joke before Major League Baseball in 2003 with agreement from the players union decided to give the winner home field advantage in the World Series, and it has remained so since.
Before that happen, the game became non-competitive and just became a grand chance to show off the best talent and make as much money as possible. It still makes money, but now there is a reason to be competitive in the game because home World Series home advantage hangs in the balance, and I like it that there is that competitive nature to the game.
I can tell you that in the 2001 game that I scored for MLB I ran out of paper to put in the players who entered the game. It was sloppy scoring at best and it didn’t take me more than one or two innings to realize this was dumb. It was a circus and not a good one at that. It meant nothing more other than people were paying to see it and TV and radio were there to air it out to those who couldn’t be there.
It was dumb, dumb, dumb then and is much better now, although to be honest with you when MLB introduced interleague play in 1997 that took away from the All-Star Game because before then you might never get to see players from the other league and the game was the chance to see them.
The NBA All-Star Game and the NFL Pro Bowl are two more games that are really, really dumb. I haven’t watched either one of them in years, and never will. There is no competitive edge going on; it’s all a glittering show meant to bring in more money to the billionaires, plucking hard-earned dollars from those of us that are loyal to a fault. I’d rather watch grass grow.
You know, don’t you, that all of this is headed for a big fall. Professional teams in baseball, basketball and football have a dangerous addiction to the money that they receive from TV and Radio. It’s just as bad, or even more so, than a drug or alcohol addiction. Those huge contracts players are receiving – the recent ones dealt out recently to average players in the NBA are scary – just fuels an addiction that sooner or later will come back to bite them all in the butt.
There is in economics a law of diminishing return and when the TV audience is saturated to the point investment by advertisers starts to diminish the return to them, as it will, TV contracts in professional sports will shrink and those teams who get dependent (addicted) to them will collapse like an alcoholic or a drug addicted person.
It has to diminish and it will and when it does the turmoil it will cause will be huge. This will also apply at some point to the loyal fan who works most of the week to raise enough money to attend a Seahawk or Mariners’ game. As teams continue to raise ticket, merchandise, concession and parking costs at some point there will be a diminishing return to that loyal fan and he will turn to something else for his entertainment.
My oldest son has been visiting, I got him tickets to a Mariners’ game and he purchased four beers at $12 each and I just shook my head. His $48 dollar could have brought several cases of beer (I’m guessing here, because I haven’t looked at beer prices in years). That, though, is the price of being a loyal fan.
The stupid controversy of deflategate may have finally concluded when a circuit court denied Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension by the NFL. Brady could take his appeal to the Supreme Court, but I believe it is highly unlikely the Supremes would hear it.
I have two opinions on this case. First, I think Tom Brady is acting like he’s entitled to win. In other words, he’s a spoiled brat. So I’m happy that he might have reached a dead end and will now serve his four-game suspension.
But get this, and this builds on my case that he’s a spoiled brat (a smart spoiled brat, if you want to side with him), he renegotiated his contract at the start of his year to take a $1 million base salary for this coming season. Which means he loses just $250,000 in salary for the four games of a 16-game regular season.
See, Tom is not dumb Tom.
On top of that, Tom got $28 in guaranteed money when he signed the new deal, which is not affected by the suspension.
So do you think Mr. Brady is not spoiled? He covered his butt in case he lost this case.
Now, for my second opinion on this deflategate case. I played a little quarterback when I was young kid and I know that not all footballs are equal. Some are inflated more than others and a lot of how I handled the various sizes affected how well I could handle the ball.
So I say have a range of PSI that the footballs can be. Each NFL quarterback then can ask to have a game-day ball the PSI that suits his hands, because not all hands are equal. That makes it fair for everybody and a guy like Tom does not have to go to surreptitious lengths to get a competitive edge.
Justice for all, after all.
That’s it for today. I soon have to go pick up my oldest and youngest sons so they don’t have to walk home. If I don’t get there in time I might be suspended without pay. And zero deducted from zero is about, well, zero.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
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