Everyone has been talking about it. It has sent baseball into an amazing frenzy, which has been intensified even more with the NHL debacle — the steroid issue. Believe it or not, baseball will survive with or without the steroids, and any allegations Jose Canseco made.
Here's a message to Mr. Canseco, or shall I just call him Jose? Jose, you think we didn't know it? Fans across the world have known for quite sometime that baseball players have been "juicing it." We still watch, we still follow. Do we care? I believe so, but the world is run by rules and regulations. If Major League Baseball isn't going to regulate it, it isn't going to stop. Nobody is going to care. What good is a speed limit if the police don't enforce it with speeding tickets? You want to put an end to steroids? Put a formal testing policy in place. It's that simple, period.
Moving forward, without hockey, sports fans are limited to what is available to watch right now. Sure, we have college basketball, but nothing really counts much until March Madness begins. So what is left? The NBA, which is showing signs of plenty of young and rising stars, and baseball. Once summer hits, we are down to one major sport. Major League Baseball needs to take advantage of the NHL strike and I expect them to. Potentially, either college or pro basketball could snag these fans, but I anticipate neither of them to take away from America's pastime.
This is to all three Montreal Expos fans that still remain: "Show your ID at the gate of RFK stadium in Washington and you'll get free admission and hot dogs for the rest of your life." This is true, seriously, just try it.
I can't name one player on the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals and I don't know the three remaining Expos fanatics, so I did a little research on the team. Turns out there is a team that the Pittsburgh Pirates can actually beat! The Nationals will certainly thrive in the D.C. metropolitan area. It won't be this year, but there are several reasons to believe they'll be around for a long time to come. Here's what I am thinking:
1. Some partial fans have recently given up their Baltimore Orioles season tickets, having grown tired of the drive to Camden Yards and watching a team that hasn't had a winning record since 1997. It is more than you think.
2. Frank Robinson.
3. Even the Orioles loyal fans wouldn't mind seeing the best players in the National league face each other on a regular basis. Now all they have to do is jump on I-95 for 45 minutes.
4. Eight proposals have been made to design their new ballpark. Once the park is built, the organization will settle and so will their fan base. I expect something sharp to sit in the backyard of the nation's capital.
5. I already see the battle of I-95 turning into a great rivalry.
6. They can't possibly draw any less of a crowd than what they got in Montreal. I'd bet the house on that.
Overall, the baseball season is too long to always come down to the same teams. How can I really sit down and watch 162 games if I realistically know that my team has as much chance of winning it all as I do of winning a Nobel Peace Prize and get struck by lighting in the same year? Do we really need 162 games to determine the Yankees are the best? I have an idea, let's shorten up the season by half and make these guys play hockey, too. Why not? I would love to see Randy Johnson come down on a breakaway only to get knocked out by an Albert Pujols crosscheck, but maybe that's just me.
So here it is, my prediction for the 2005 MLB World Series:
The New York Yankees beat the Houston Astros in six games. Boring, isn't it?
Leave a Comment