Here’s why...

BOO-HOO BARRY AND 73

The game’s most disliked player surpassed perhaps its most respected player in the past quarter century as single-season home run king. We at Bucketfoot still can’t eat, sleep or have regular movements. We are really, really upset. Boo-hoo Barry is such a cancer to the game that his immediate, outright banishment is warranted (more on that in a coming article). He is repugnant. He admits to not hustling on routine plays because he is "saving himself." Saving himself? For what? His wedding night? When Boo-hoo Barry hit number 72 out of the pathetically homer friendly bandbox that is Puke Ball Park, he surpassed Mark David McGwire. You remember him. He’s the guy who always tried, never cried, and somehow managed to live despite having only one little locker in the clubhouse. Boo-hoo Barry requires three lockers. It’s as if Satan finally won.

YANKEES BEAT MARINERS, ATHLETICS

It’s another year and the boorish Yankees buy another trip to the post season and end up in the World Series again by breaking the hearts of baseball’s two best feel-good teams–the Athletics and Mariners. Though, in truth, the Mariners were closer in form (and payroll) to the Yankees than they were to A’s. How did the Yankees do it? Simple, they trotted out a starting rotation that featured three high-priced free agent pitchers. Clemens, Mussina (gee, didn’t he pitch a game or two for Baltimore), and El Duckee Hernandez. Pettitte is the lone system product. I guess if you don’t have the brains to build a champion, you just steal everybody else’s players and call the collection of rodents a team. Are we bitter? No. Bored with the Yankees pathetic ways? Yes. To make matters worse, or consistent (you know, a little salt in the Game’s gaping wound), the Yankees sign the A’s best player, Jason Giambi. This only shines a light on the loss of Ripken and Gwynn. These two guys could have left for more money but they stayed in their cities. Because they stayed, Ripken owns Baltimore and Gwynn San Diego the way Brett owns Kansas City. Giambi will own a lot of stuff but never a city. He could have owned Oakland and had more money than he’ll ever need. Instead, he’ll own a spot as one of Derek Jeter’s teammates and have more money than he’ll ever need. Of course, if he would have stayed in Oakland he would have had more money than he would ever have needed and been king of a city. Oakland offered him a King’s ransom and a place in Baseball lore. With Oakland, Giambi would have been alongside George Brett, Cal Ripken, Ernie Banks, Tony Gwynn, and Mike Schmidt. Instead the Yankees offered him a little bit more money and a role as a cog in Derek Jeter’s machine-of-expensive-yet-replaceable-parts. Nice move Jason, into the spotlight and obscurity at the same time. Oops, we’re ranting again.

ICHIRO "ROOKIE" OF THE YEAR

For the second year in a row a seasoned, All-Star veteran of Japan’s professional leagues was named recipient of the American League’s Rookie of the Year Award. In 2000 Seattle’s Kazuhiro Sasaki claimed the award and in 2001 it was the fascinating Ichiro, again for Seattle. There are only four tiny problems with this developing trend.

1) Players such as Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki were not rookies. Sasaki was Japan’s ALL-TIME saves leader and Ichiro had won something like seven batting titles–not in Japan’s minor leagues but in their major leagues.

2) True "rookies" were denied the career-highlighting award. In 2000, Oakland’s Terrence Long was the favorite among "rookies" and in 2001 Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia had a rookie season for the ages. These terrific players will find little solace in having been ripped off. While they both showed class in not screaming "injustice has been done and revenge shall be mine as I shall smote my foes," (one still chuckles at the pouting done by the then-California Angels’ Wally Joyner after he deservedly finished second to Oakland’s Jose Canseco in 1986) Long and Sabathia certainly earned better.

3) Now that it has been established that seasoned veteran all-stars in other nations’ top level professional leagues can do very well in Major League Baseball, these players (who come here as unrestricted free agents) will be offered contracts beyond the reach of most franchises–in other words, the Rookie of the Year will now belong to the Yankees, Diamond Backs, Mariners, Red Sox, Dodgers and other few fiscally blessed and equally fiscally irresponsible large revenue teams.

4) Calling Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro rookies (see point 1) is an insult to the Japanese leagues and their high level of competition. While on the whole they are probably inferior to American Major League Baseball, they are anything but MINOR league, which is where rookies are supposed to come from. True, the gentleman after whom the award is named, Jackie Robinson, really wasn’t a rookie when he arrived on the scene, but that was a whole different set if circumstances.

How do we fix this? Simple. Come up with a new award. Call it the "Import of the Year Award," or the "Best New Old Guy Award." Baseball could even go the extra 60-feet-6-inches and link the award with the always-dignified-always-popular-with-the-fans corporate sponsorship, to wit, the Noxema Fresh-Face Award, or the "New-Kids-on-the-Block-New-Hardly-a-Kid-on-the-Block-Award."

FAKE WHINES OF NEED BY MEDIUM REVENUE TEAMS (ESPECIALLY THE GIANTS)

Not only the team but their fans and radio announcers are all infected by the "woe-is-me-despite-reality" affliction. The Giants franchise earns a hefty revenue. They don’t spend it very wisely (see Marvin Benard’s contract among others) and then the team, its poor fans, its radio announcers and pathetic beat writers all cry "boo-hoo, we can’t compete with the big money teams." Strange, they only need look across the Bay to see how a club with far less resources has been able to field a competitive team on a much smaller revenue stream. But then, it’s tough for the Giants, their announcers, and their fans to look across the Bay. For when they do, they see the glimmer of four world series trophies garnered in a stay that is 10 years less than the Giants have had in the Bay Area. That is four more world series trophies than the Giants have earned since moving to The City in 1958. Little wonder the Giants could afford such a nice stadium, they didn’t have to spend any money on a trophy case. The fact is, despite their annual $20-million stadium payment, the Giants can afford a payroll that is at least $25-million more than teams like the Athletics, Twins, Royals, and others can afford.

What would the 2001 Athletics or Twins have done with Mike Mussina (the top 2000 free agent) in the rotation and a $10-million bat in the lineup? Imagine a 2001 Athletics rotation of Mussina, Hudson, Mulder, Zito and Lidle. While Giants’ fans whine incessantly about their annual $20-million stadium debt (uh, who made you enter into that deal and besides, who cares, your revenues are WAY up thanks to it). They also are desperate enough to be delusional. How so and why? They actually rave about what a what a wonder-boy GM they have in Brian Sabean. Helloooooo? The Giants payroll is around $20-million higher than the cross-bay Athletics. Give that extra $20-million to true Genius GM Billy Beane and the A’s would have rolled to 120 wins and the title. Sabean is good. That’s all. The Giants are a (continual) disappointment.

The Giants farm system has failed to produce a true star player since, well, since Bonds in 1986. Ooops, my bad. Bonds was signed as a big-money free agent from the small-market Pirates. Well then since Joe Nathan. Oops, my bad again. Sabean told us, nay, promised us that Nathan would be a star. Last we heard Nathan, the next Marichal we were told by Crusty Baker, was being used as a batting tee. OK then, the Giants’ minor league system hasn’t developed a star player since, uh, um, well, hey, did you hear that they’ve got this kid Aisnworth that Crusty says is gonna tear up the league. Sabean says Ainsworth has more promise than any Giants farmhand pitcher since Joe Nathan. What the heck, when you haven’t won a world series since 1954, you get a little desperate.

The Giants are one of several monied teams that want to have it both ways. They want to have enough money to compete but be allowed to cry poor when they don’t spend it wisely.

STILL NO COMMISSIONER

Would a true Commissioner of Major League Baseball look America in the face shortly after September 11th and tell us that Baseball needs to resume its schedule because Baseball has a social responsibility to America as the nation’s National Pastime only to look America in the face a month later and tell us that the fans in two cities will have to lose their teams under the ruse of contraction because the teams can’t afford to play with the rich teams? No.

Would a true Commissioner of Major League Baseball sit as though powerless to affect change while the sport’s richest teams siphon off the talent, hope, marketability, and competitiveness of the lesser-revenue teams year after year without taking drastic action under the Best Interests of Baseball powers afforded a true Commissioner of Major League Baseball? No.

Baseball doesn’t have a commissioner, it has Butt Selig.

For all of the above reasons, 2001 was one of the worst seasons any baseball fans ever had to endure. Here’s looking to 2002 and the hope that the Padres, Athletics, Royals, Expos, Twins or Pirates can win it all. Or, that Butt Selig bans himself, Boo-Hoo Barry, George Steinbrenner, Peter Angelos and artificial turf for life, as it would be in the best interests of the game.