The Brooklyn Trolley Blogger: Lipstick on a PIG; Bud Selig's Solution

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Lipstick on a PIG; Bud Selig's Solution

I know!! Instead of stopping the bleeding I'll devise a way to best clean up the blood. Instead of seeking to remedy the root cause of sickness, perhaps we should all just creatively medicate ourselves to mute the symptoms. Instead of cleaning a cut on your arm and applying a proper dressing, let's just wear a long sleeve shirt and hide the on-setting infection. Instead of fixing the big hole in the floor, I'll just throw a rug over it and no one will know it's there. Forget the shooting pain emanating from that infected tooth you choose not going to the dentist for. Just chew your food on the other side of your mouth and chase it with a shot of Johnny Walker Black (the official idiot juice/stupid water of the NYY by the way....C'Mon! I haven't taken a cheap shot at them all winter. Cut me a break, will ya?). Now hold this thought until I finish scratching this AROD itch I have.

Today's post could have very easily been about A-Rod. I've been trying to avoid him. I've RANTed myself silly over the years about him. Frankly I'm bored with it and him. I'm not one of those who think now that he has a ring the scrutiny he has historically received should now somehow dissipate like smoke in the breeze. Sorry, it's not that simple and he is proving why. ARod did not quit his addiction to controversy in one October detox. We all know where I'm headed with this. The story has been out for days and you know the names of the doctors, the Yankee's statement regarding, and all the speculation why ARod was involved with Dr. Galea in the first place without any one's authorization.....(I'm bored already!). Why ARod and not Beltran and/or Reyes? Why am I being a biased Met fan? I'm not. Beltran and Reyes acted out in the open for the most part. Beltran had issues with the Met's Med Staff etc but everything was out in the open; Reyes ditto. Trust me though, - I'm upset they're mentioned and involved. ARod has priors. And we are finding out that no one connected in this still developing blister is on the same page of music outside Dr. Phillipon and Brian Cashman. Further speculation is probably best left unsaid until ARod talks to the Feds, then the Yanks, then ultimately the media and us. (quack-quack...sounds like a duck?)

This is not Yankee Hater talk. This is ARod hater talk. The Yankees have nothing to do with this. Alex Rodriguez played with my cousin in Seattle. I was a fan of his...once, and of that whole mid-90's Seattle team by default, obviously. It's AROD I do not like! ALEX was cool. ARod is a Monster in the classic Greek Tragedy sense, or the tragic Frankenstein's Monster motif. It's you're choice. A monster by any other name is still a monster (or was that a rose?) ; )

But like I said, this isn't about the Yanks or ARod although my want is to stay on him.. This is about another one of my most frequent targets; Bud Selig - Mr. Of-the-Owners By-the Owners For-the-Owners himself. This is about Bud and his little goofy band of 14 Special Committee Members for On-Field Matters. C'mon, just the title alone sounds so goofy! Bud the Dud and his crack staff are toying with thoughts of re-alignment. Tom Verducci's Sports Illustrated article details MLB's On-Field Staff's goofy little plan for realignment based on team payroll and a team's degree of commitment to making the playoffs in a given year in a musical chair division format. Did you hear that? Really? Is this what 14 Baseball people came up with? Who are these people? I want to know because I don't think I'd trust them to mail a letter for me.

HUH? Put me in the D Division cause I'm not paying for a playoff team this year? Normally that would have been a cheap shot at the Marlins for pocketing revenue sharing and not increasing payroll by 2 cents. But this is just too much. What's happening to our game people?

GOOFY (there's that word again). Honestly, I can't think of another word to use. I know what I want to say. Decorum doesn't permit me to do that here. This all goes back to the way I started off this post before I digressed about ARod.

Don't go after the heart of the problem; the root cause....Buy it a new suit and stick it in witness protection.

I've never used this term before. I never thought I would.

But this is just putting lipstick on a pig!!

Remember Kenesaw Mountain Landis? He refused to be Baseball's Commissioner if he didn't have full autonomy to preside over Baseball as he saw fit in accordance with Baseball's best interests.

Remember Fay Vincent? He warned the owners a work stoppage wasn't in the owner's or Baseball's best interest. He warned the owners about a looming problem called Steroids and wanted to proceed forward with reasonable suspicion and present a grievance to the Union. Fay also approached MLB about re-alignment that was clearly & obviously in need. The Chicago Cubs wound up suing Fay Vincent in a local Chicago court as Fay Vincent, Commissioner of Baseball, for even suggesting the St.Louis/Chicago rivalry be tampered with. Atlanta was in the NL WEST. St. Louis was in the NL EAST and Houston was a proponent of both teams changing divisions.

Short version...The owners fired Fay Vincent because they tired of Commissioners with backbones and have re-formed the greedy little brat pack that will lead themselves over the cliff like lemmings. But it was OK to address realignment when it came time to expand and look forward to the expansion fees they'd be pocketing. Right?

The owners begged Landis to protect them from themselves then. Just like in life, the newer generations of owners are bed-fellows with gov't and the owners finally have had someone they can stick their arms up his back to speak their bidding. Selig is one of them folks. Everything put forward in Tom Verducci's article sounds absolutely ludicrous to me.

There's two things I have an eerie feeling about. The first thing my Spidey Sense is telling me is the owners are on the same self destructive path they were on before they were put on a leash by Mountain Landis. They are literally off the chain now. Selig is merely part of the pack. Secondly I sense this is just a build-up to MLB expanding by two more teams. They will use the excuse of having 16 teams in the NL and only 14 in the AL and the need to balance it out. BULL!! They have an itch for more expansion fees. They've been like clockwork. Whenever they start grumbling about unbalanced vs. balanced schedules and realignment, expansion has always followed.

In my next post I hope to show a little more life because quite frankly this post bored me. These were two items that I felt needed to be thrown out there. I'm just a little blunted because it seems this is becoming a yearly ritual of Spring; having to put up with all these sideline items and having the game itself take a back seat.

In my next post I will play Commissioner, TSAR of Baseball and actually give a pragmatic assessment of the situation. And who knows, I may actually make some sense and best case scenario..

..Save Baseball from Selig!