WOW - long time no waste time...

...been a while since I wrote last. I suppose that has to do with having to actually do things like work and videogames as opposed to boondoggling here.

I kid...

In all honesty, I have been almost AVOIDING the news lately, so I really have not had much to say about anything in the world that does not directly affect me.

With that said, I hope that the media is happy. They have successfully emasculated Barry Bonds home runs record (most home runs by a left-handed batter in history) and reduced Mr. Bonds to cameos on Hollywood Squares later in life...

And to be honest, that is certainly sad. Whether Bonds used steroids or not is really not worth anything as the reality is that the drug wasn't even illegal in baseball until 2003 (oddly, MLB thought it would be good to ban them AFTER they saw Bonds hit 72 homers in the prior season - no motivation to do it after McGwire hit 70 though). As far as ANYONE should be concerned, Bonds' numbers are legit and unless someone has PROOF that Bonds was juicing after the 2002 season - again, when steroids actually became illegal - the scrutiny that Bonds is under is nothing more than a bullshit stunt to discredit yet another black player who has surpassed the "Mighty Whitey" Babe Ruth...

Yeah, I said it.

The problem in baseball is the SAME problem that is affecting all American sports, namely, there has been a massive paradigm shift in the amount of people that watch and play these sports. Baseball is predominantly played, both in the stadiums and in the playgrounds, by minorities. However, the group of people that most regularly watches these games is still the typical corn-fed white American.

This is a problem as the question invariably gets asked "What happened to the white players?" Compounding the issue in baseball is the large amount of Latin American players that have made their way into the league in the last decade, as well as the reality that Asian players are also having an impact on the league.

For pure fans, all of this amounts to the MLB being the best league in the world, and it is a cetain boon to the game having the best players...

...however, for a good deal many more fans (of which there is a certain percentage that is still mad that blacks can sit anywhere on a bus) they want to see their kids playing for the Yankees and not Mariano Rivera or Hideki Matsui. These are the people that refuse to acknowledge that while Hank Aaron holds the MLB record for home runs, Sadohara Oh holds the record for lifetime home runs in ANY league having hit nearly 100 MORE HRs than Aaron (ironically, these people will also be the ones that debate the point that Aaron had more at-bats than Ruth, and that Ruth is still the best home run hitter ever).

This is the same issue that has recently surfaced in the NBA. David Stern has made every effort to remove the "hip-hop" element from basketball in an effort to sell more tickets at games. Dress codes, Andrea Bocelli, et. al. have all been an effort to get more people into the seats at games.

The answer to all of this is simple - "red" Americans need to grow the fuck up. These two leagues are the two BEST leagues in the world. Here in the United States we have the BEST to view, which means that we are not always going to have teams full of white guys - get over it!

There is always minor league baseball and college baseball if people want to watch white players - but based on the attendance of these games, I would have to argue that maybe people are not as concerned about the color of the skin of a player when they consider the value of the entertainment...