Streaking Sideways Somewhere

Shall we finish with all the bad baseball news, and get on with something else?

Best Sanctimonious Freak Award: Kurt Schilling (calling out Rafael Palmiero)

Best Fall From Grace Award: Mark McGuire (Congressional testimony performance)
Runner up: Rafael Palmiero (losing his starting position on the roster)

Best Recovery Fall From Grace Award: Jason Giambi (steroids)

Best Poor Me Self Pity Award: Barry Bonds (drug testing avoidance: DL immunity)

Best Bad Behavior Award: Kenny Rogers (thuggish assault x 3)

Best Collapse: Baltimore Orioles (worst results from off-season player acquisitions)

Okay, so much for bad news awards. Off Base recently discovered that a minor league team from Salt Lake City is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1987 the Salt Lake Trappers won 29 consecutive games, which stands as a professional baseball all-time winning record. No members of the team went on to play at the major league level.

It’s unlikely that anyone will win a triple crown this year, but 6 or 7 players may hit 50 home runs. Why is this good, readers may ask? These aren’t, for the fist time in many years, chemically assisted statistics. Andruw Jones, Derek Lee, Alex Rodriguez, Adam Dunn, Russ Ortiz, & Albert Pujols are the contending leaders. Real accomplishment!

Writing a (so-called) clever sport column weekly, which wasn’t so frequently planned, is difficult in these times. Generally the concept develops Friday, is hashed out over the weekend, and updated with late-breaking relevant news by Tuesday’s afternoon deadline. This week the 35th largest city in the US was virtually tipped out of existence by a hurricane. For a bit of perspective, consider that New Orleans sits between Long Beach and Cleveland statistically. Usually sport takes a respectful hiatus during times like these, but not this time.

The New Orleans Saints (football) and Hornets (basketball) organizations have begun quiet inquiries into alternate venues. These are businesses, after all, but perhaps their continuity may be of emotional benefit to their displaced citizenry. However, your generally neutral observer and opinion generator has to ask a burning question. Was the suspension of the baseball schedule in September 2001 a respectful nod to a national tragedy, or only a logistical issue forced by the grounding of aviation?

Clearly the media has demonstrated a more efficient approach to reaching emerging hot spots than the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, and the National Guard. While local and federal officials prevented the Red Cross from entering New Orleans to discourage people from staying, the media arrived to perform their work with efficient logistical preparation, while maintaining crucial communication links. In other words, they saw what was brewing (a 500 mile-wide hurricane) and simply drove their SUV’s in, set up, and got to work, something our high-level government emergency and relief agencies did not accomplish for nearly 4 days.

Base hopes that these profit/entertainment organizations (ball clubs) and their highly paid performer/athletes at the very least donate until it hurts. Marketing and public relations folk could make a significant argument simply on the basis of fan appreciation, and promote much good relief for the refugees. These folks won’t be fans at the gate anytime soon, but just might they be the reason for a franchises’ existence?

Base is impressed that sport arenas are being repurposed for humanitarian use. The Super Dome provided lifesaving emergency shelter for about 20,000 souls. These facilities usually belong to the citizens, anyway, since the public largely finances them. Major sport franchises routinely shake down the citizenry for new stadiums by threatening to leave. The People pay to build another Big Dome, and then pay $50 to get in.

Base wonders if singing ‘God Bless America’ will ever end in the 7th inning of MLB games. Send your recommendations for our new National Tragedy Theme Song to off.base@gmail.com, and hope that gas stations will not need to purchase additional 4’s for their price signage.