Why am I a fan of baseball? Besides the fact that I was practically raised a Yankee fan growing up in the Bronx, my Italian side of the family made it almost a ritual on Sunday afternoons to bring out the peanuts and Ginger Ale (I was too young for alcohol at the time) and spend time watching Phil Rizzuto on Pix-11. Mickey Mantle was hobbling through his final playing days. Joe Pepitone, long hair and all, had the support of the Italian community. I sat through season after season watching Ralph Houk manage losing teams.
Horace Clarke manned second base and Jerry Kenney utilized a hop, skip and a jump to propel balls from third base to first. I've seen Ron Bloomberg catch a fly ball with his bare hand and then become the first official Designated Hitter. I lived through two Yankee pitchers (Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson) pull off the swapping of their wives. And who can forget the Gene Michael hidden ball trick?
We are currently in the middle of a baseball off-season and also in the middle of a lockout. Player's images were wiped clean from their websites. Injured players are not permitted to communicate with their trainers. Rob Manfred has lied to us! He had stated in a letter to the fans that they will be working around the clock to resolve the issues standing between the players and the owners. All news reports indicate that they aren't even talking, except for one brief day!
One of the best parts of the off-season is keeping track of the hot stove activity. During the lockout, Free Agents cannot speak with clubs and trades can't happen. Thank God for the Minor Leagues (who aren't part of this exercise in greed)! I even tried to watch the television program Hot Stove one morning to see if they were reporting on the lockout, but instead found some repeated program on the channel. There was a flurry of trades and signings before the December 1st deadline, which was when the current contract was expiring. The Yankees weren't playing any part in this mad dash instead electing to take a wait-and-see approach. News broke the other day that the talks broke down, but as far as what I read, the talks haven't even happened yet.
Each side is great at blaming the other, but how about the fans? We are the real losers! We fork up our hard earned dollars to watch millionaires play! I don't care how much they earn, just play the damn game and make sure the season starts on time. You have never seen the superstars of the WWE walk out on strike so that the fans can be made to bleed some more!
