There were over 500,000 new unemployed Americans in November alone and possible double-digit unemployment by the end of 2009; the Big Three beg for a bailout from Congress; over 250,000 home foreclosures are in progress; billions of dollars in budget cuts in every state of the Union...the list goes on.
About the only silver lining in the dark clouds is the $1.65 for a gallon of 87 octane. Americans who have jobs better not lose them; Americans without jobs—good grief, what are they feeling and thinking?!
We arguably are in the toughest economic struggle since before World War II. And yet there are a lot of people who seem untouched, unaffected and immune to it all. Home sales are on their way up, slowly. RV sales incredibly seem to be on a different planet. And then there are some owners and certain players in Major League Baseball who seem to be living in a time warp.
Who is going to pay the salary of those guys who will be hauling in over $150 million? Is there really that much money out there? And why, for crying out loud, doesn't ANYBODY on SportsCenter have the stones to call these owners and players out?!
Instead, the talk is about who out-maneuvered who, why this team is a better fit for "X" player than that team, and the fans blog to their hearts' content about how happy they are that "Y" is inking the contract, while their child's school is wrestling over budget figures that simply do not add up.
We're in deep, folks...so deep, we need a snorkle and mask. And as millions of Americans wake up each day wondering how to spread the little bit of butter over the entire loaf of bread, Major League Baseball is lathered in butter, slip-sliding away into a land from which they may not be able to return.
Baseball successfully recovered from the 1994 strike by endearing itself to the fans it had shunned. The 1998 home run race seemed to erase the bad memories, only to be cemented by the 73 home runs record in 2003. (Names of players and teams will not be mentioned in a vain attempt to not rip the scab off the gaping wound inflicted by the juicing and lying and corking and unremembering.)
Baseball is timeless. It has a history...a sound and smell unlike any other game. It is the purest game. There will always be time to score a run, to double off a runner at 2nd, to "squeeze" out a tie in the top of the 9th, to handcuff the league's best hitter with three peas on the black while the go-ahead run is stranded at 3rd...there is no clock in baseball.
(Contrary to the movie line, there is crying in baseball. Just ask the 18-year-old kid who saw his throw to the plate arrive just a hair after the runner...or the parents in the stands as they watched their boys/players collapse to the ground, sheilding their wet eyes from the throbbing mound of opposing celebrants just a few feet away from home.)
When your football team is down 41 - 14 with 1:37 left to play, it is over. When the opponent's point guard makes a steal that leads to a lay up to go up by 13 with 25 seconds left, the seats start to empty. When the puck hits the empty net for a two-goal lead with five seconds left, Elvis is leaving the building.
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