Thanksgivings &Turkeys

Dave Paisley

Yes folks, it's that day when we all drive a little too far and eat a little too much. If you're spending the holiday with family, then you already know that there are good points and bad points about that. You have to take the rough with the smooth, the soap with the rope. Whatever. Anyway, I got to pondering about what I was thankful for this year in the baseball world, which inevitably led me to consider those things that I'm not particularly thankful for. So here goes with this year's Thanksgivings and Turkeys...

Thanksgivings

1. Wild Card

   Hey, I like the wild card. Some people hate it, to which I say "tough luck." And my liking of it has little to do with the fact that my hometown Mariners made the playoffs because of it. I also like the fact that eight teams make the playoffs. With 30 teams in the two leagues I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have the second half of the season be meaningful to more than a handful of clubs. And it's not like this is the NHL or NBA, after all.
   

2. The Oakland A's

   Smart GM, low payroll, young team. The A's are to the next decade what the Cleveland Indians were to the '90s. The A's refute all of Bud Selig's claims that Major League Baseball is going to hell in a handbasket. The one point Bud seems to miss is that you can't be a low-budget team and be stupid about it.
   

3. Local Radio Broadcasters

   Some you love, some you hate, but whatever the combination you have in the booth these guys are the audio conduit to a game that continues to be just as magical by radio as it ever was. Sure, some of them are morons, but at least they're our morons.
   

4. Cable TV

   It's hard to realize that just twenty years ago (even as few as ten) TV coverage of the baseball schedule was just pathetic. I hate to give too much credit to Ted Turner, but his blanket coverage of the Braves on TBS (and the Cubs and White Sox on WGN, but I've never had that channel, ever) certainly paved the way for uniform, almost blanket TV coverage for every team.
   

5. The Trading Deadline
   
   Coupled with the wild card (that keeps most teams in some semblance of contention up to the end of July) the couple of weeks leading up to the trading deadline are a maelstrom of tension and possibilities. Offseason moves are also very cool, but they don't have the tension of that make-or-break time of the year.

Turkeys

1. Bud Selig

   Do I really have to elaborate? Do we really need to ask who the greater fool is? The guy seems singlehandedly intent on driving the game into the ground based on erroneous assumptions.
   

2. Bob Costas

   Again, do I really need to elaborate? If, God forbid, Costas ever did become baseball commissioner, he would actually be worse than Selig because he has all of Selig's bad points plus the smug and sanctimonious "I'm Bob Costas and you're not" vibe going.
   

3. Al Martin/Bobby Chouinard

   Bigamy, wife beating and threatening with a deadly weapon are enough to get these two guys on my list. Role models be damned, how about just settling for being decent human beings?
   

4. Darryl Strawberry

   Darryl is starting to make Steve Howe look like a piker in the drug abuse/life screw-up stakes. It's really hard not to feel sorry for Strawberry in some ways because he continues on a road to self-destruction. Watching the remnants of his life unfold is like watching a car wreck in slow motion. You can't look away, but you can't do anything about it either.
   

5. Fox's baseball coverage
   
   Between the ultra-hip overdone effects and the way-too-loud crowd noise, this is just wrong. Wrong, I tell ya!

So there's a little extra turkey for your eating pleasure. Sure you can't squeeze in just one more sandwich before that final X-Files marathon episode on FX?

Dave Paisley is better known as the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Do not, we repeat, do not confuse him with Marge Schott, as the latter does not answer mail sent to drdjp@strikethree.com.

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