Kuzul

It’s events such as these that proves my frustration towards Philly fan haters is justified. To those who may complain that Philly inhabitants are rude, reckless, and front-runners, read on.

Phillies fans proved they’re just as phanatic as ever at the 26th annual Phillies Phestival Monday night. Over 7,000 fans, the most in phestival history, showed up to Citizen’s Bank Park for the sold out event which raises money for the ALS Association for the fight again Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Though this year’s event could not beat last year’s outstanding total, the phestival successfully raised $801,615 for the ALS Association, according to a press release.

The 2010 team and coaching staff, as well as their wives, and the broadcast crew attended the night’s events to show their support for the cause. In addition, over 30 ALS patients and their families were present, some even lucky enough to have a special meeting with players Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins.

Entertaining phestival-goers was an autograph station, games such as the “Wheel of Phun”, and three photo booths featuring Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and manager Charlie Manuel.

The top bid of the night was for a set of six World Series baseballs which were signed by the 1950, 1980, 1983, 1993, 2008, and 2009 teams. The set went for an inspiring $4,100 at a live bidding. Ellyn Phillips, president of the Greater Philadelphia chapter of ALS Association was stunned by the growing support for the cause.

“It has been critical to our success,” Phillips said. “We’ve met sponsors that have become more involved with us, the Phillies help us get sponsorship. Believe me, they could pick other charities. We’re fortunate.”

Since the first phestival in 1984, the charity autograph and auction party has raised over $11.8 million for the cause. All the auction proceeds, ticket sales, and sponsorships go to the ALS.

For those who think that all the ‘phanatics’ are good at is booing other teams, and yes, even sometimes their own, hopefully you can realize that beneath the perceived rough exterior is just another city full of people who love their sports teams, and are eager to lend their hand to a good cause.

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The Arizona Immigration Law is undoubtedly stirring a lot of emotions.  If you have not heard of it, then feel free to go back to sleep. Your government will take care of you—that’s a promise—well, from them.

In 2011, Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is scheduled for Arizona.

This has people in a tizzy, calling for the MLB to move it, cancel it, have all the players wear pink berets instead of ball caps, hold special ceremonies honoring the vast number of Hispanic ball players, etc.

None of that will happen.  Especially the pink berets—that was just made up. 

In fact, it would not be at all surprising to see MLB’s commissioner, Bud Selig, fine players who boycott the game on the grounds that the law is unjust.

If the Arizona Diamondbacks had a non-sponsored baseball stadium like, for example, Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, the commissioner would relocate the game in half of a hiccup.

Even if it were corporately sponsored by, say, Target—like Minnesota’s new stadium, it is fairly likely that Mr. Selig would move the game.

So why won’t the 2011 MLB All-Star Game be moved from Arizona?  Simple two-word answer: Chase Field.

It may as well be called JP Morgan Chase Field.  The Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with JP Morgan & Co. in the year 2000, forming the third largest financial institution in America.

It is known as one of the “Big Four” banks in the United States—along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.

For all the power and money that Major League Baseball is worth, comparing the wealth of MLB to JP Morgan Chase & Co. is sort of like trying to buy a new car with couch change.   

Major League Baseball and Selig are way too smart to even entertain or suggest moving the game for fear of repercussions that would assuredly arise if they went against the will of any of the “Big Four.”

The entire situation has been called a political issue—not true.

It’s an economic issue.

Take the 2008 Presidential campaign, for example.  The investment firm Goldman Sachs was the largest contributor to the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

And, get this; Goldman Sachs was also the largest contributor to John McCain’s run for office—talk about hedging your bets.

What does Goldman Sachs have to do with the “Big Four?”  They act as the conduit so Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo can keep their hands clean.

It is a common misconception that politicians actually run this country.  While they do wield power, big decisions come down to money and the “Big Four”—a pickle in which Major League Baseball finds itself concerning the 2011 All-Star Game. 

Selig knows that to move the game from Arizona’s Chase Field would infuriate JP Morgan Chase—and JP Morgan Chase has the power to bankrupt baseball faster than the speediest typist in the world can put “qwerty” on their screen.

There is one unlikely scenario that would make a move from Arizona possible: if the faltering bank were allowed to go bankrupt itself, like Houston’s former Enron Stadium.

But Enron was an energy corporation, whereas the “Big Four” are financial institutions—the heart and soul of what keeps this country running, albeit on life support.

Given Washington’s propensity to lend the “Big Four” trillions of dollars makes it even more unlikely. 

There is a lot that could happen in this country over the next year and two months. 

The “Big Four” could all go bankrupt.

However, if that were to happen, it is unlikely that baseball would exist as we know it today. 

Baseball fans would probably be looking at John Rocker coming out of retirement and named the starting pitcher, possibly the only pitcher, on the National League’s staff.

Long story short: Don’t mess with the “Big Four.”

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“Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples’ physical integrity and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as physical or mental disability, gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, age, and individual rights such as the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, and movement.”

That’s a definition of civil rights from Wikipedia.

On Saturday night Cincinnati hosted it’s second consecutive “Civil Rights Game.”

Both the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals dressed in 1947 throwback jerseys and donned caps that read “Civil Rights Game” in honor of the year Major League Baseball broke it’s color barrier.

Should the “Civil Rights Game” be a big deal in big league baseball?  Absolutely.

But why does it solely focus on African-Americans?  To give baseball credit, this year they did include female tennis icon, Billie Jean King. 

Billie Jean King is also gay.  No one commented on that part.

If a sport is going to hold a “Civil Rights Game” it should not limit itself.

Gender and race are only two of the scores of unjustifiable civil rights issues human beings have overcome, and are still overcoming. 

Baseball simply does not get it.  Or maybe, Gillette, the game’s corporate sponsor just wants to keep it simple…and pretty.

Right now there are many more Hispanic players in the game than African-Americans. 

Were they cited at all?  No.  Neither were any of the other players who come from foreign soil to play “America’s past time.”

To not even note the Cuban ballplayers who have risked their lives (some have died) escaping Communism in small boats is disgraceful.

Bud Selig, Major League Baseball’s current commissioner, grew up in a Jewish family.  Where was his name—or the 154 Jews who have played ball?

Curtis Pride was born deaf.  He ended up playing 11 years in the big leagues.  Were the physically challenged mentioned during the game?  Nope.

Buddy Bell, a former member of the Cincinnati Reds, suffered a seizure disorder.  Chicago White Sox first baseman Greg Walker once had a seizure on the field. 

Jim Eisenreich had Tourette syndrome.  Again, why weren’t the physically challenged acknowledged? 

Standing at only three feet and seven inches, Eddie Gaedel, had a plate appearance during the 1951 season.  Were little people (formerly known as midgets) recognized?  Again, no.

There have been loads of fat guys who have played the game.  Where is their credit?  According to the 2010 “Civil Rights Game” they must not exist.

Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige was 59-years old when he finally hung up the cleats.  Why aren’t people who are eligible for the senior citizen discount at Applebee’s included during this so-called “Civil Rights Game?” 

By the way, the Reds beat the Cards 4-3 on Saturday night in one of the most exciting games of the year.  Sure, it was very cool to see some of the guys who once played in the old Negro Leagues.

It was just unfortunate that the game itself served as a backdrop.

If baseball wants to continue this silly charade, they should rename it the “African-American and Female Rights Game.”

That…or allow an umpiring crew which would include a 500-pound transvestite at first base, a midget Asian female at second, a Hassidic Jew over at third, and a one-legged war veteran suffering PTSD sitting in a wheel chair calling the balls and strikes.

The crew would include a blind person, but since it seems many umps are already blind that would be redundant.

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This may seem like a strange idea to think of in the land of the free (and the home of the brave), but the wide world of sports in America could be termed as the land of supporting Communism.

Could a country that is based on free market economics and laissez-faire attitude be equated to be the same as the dreaded “reds under the bed”?

Just look at the definition of Communism (from Latin communis = “common”): a socioeconomic and political ideology, that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian and stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general.

Well, egalitarianism means equal, and I must say, the draft is a system by which this is attained.

By allowing the weaker teams each season to draft first, it allows them the chance to gain an advantage over the better teams. Thus, equaling the playing field over time.

The NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA all have common ownership of the raw resources that enable the means of production. By controlling the draft in the way that they do, and not letting market forces dictate which teams have the best players, it means that American sports ultimately become a mediocre parody of the United States and the idea of the Capitalistic American dream.

The USA is built on the idea of the meritocracy. The idea that only the best is good enough, but that isn’t the case in American sports. If you look at the world of soccer in every country except the United States, there is the concept of relegation and promotion throughout.

In the English Premiership, and almost every European football league next weekend, there will be many relegation battles. These are battles are for survival in the top division (or any of the other three professional divisions in England) to maintain playing against the best teams.

The relegation/promotion system is based on the bottom three (for example) of a division being relegated to the lower division. Then the top three teams from that same lower division gain promotion taking the bottom three’s place.

Losing is not an option that any team sees as a good thing; it is the gaping maw of an abyss that can take years to get back from.

An example of this is Leeds United; a team with years of tradition and success.

In 2002/3 season they were battling it out at the top of the Premier League and in the Semi Final of the European Champions League, the preeminent club football competition in the World. It has taken this long for them to get back to the division below the Premiership after being in the third tier of English Football (They were deducted points for financial irregularities that caused by their relegation to the English second tier).

It is like the New York Yankees or the Philadelphia Phillies getting relegated to AAA, then getting relegated again to AA after being in the World Series.

Relegation means that it is harder to draw the better players that you need to gain promotion, so it all becomes that little bit more difficult. Attendances gradually fall and then sponsorships follow suit.

Could you ever see one of the NFL, MLB, or NBA owners ever letting their prized cash cow lose all that money this way?

In American sports mediocrity is rampant. Teams that just make up the numbers with very little chance of success, but will always fill out a stadium. This allows the chance of their franchise been sold to another city being slim to none (think of the Cleveland Browns; no offence intended to you Browns fans out there).

The draft system in America just helps to keep the status quo by awarding the best options to the worst teams. This just allows the American version of communism to continue.

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The parents of Mets catcher Rod Barajas came to the United States from Mexico, and he lives in Arizona. So Naturally, the new immigration law passed in that state has drawn his attention, and his ire.

Barajas was born in Ontario, Calif., three years after his parents moved there from Mexico. His father is from Mexicali and mother is from Michoacan, and his older brother was born in Mexico, too.

“It’s disappointing,” Barajas said. “I have a lot of family born in Mexico. You would like to hope there is no stereotyping going on, but it’s hard to see that there would not be. If they happen to pull someone over who looks like they are of Latin descent, even if they are a U.S. citizen, that is the first question that is going to be asked. But if a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian gets pulled over, do you think they are going to ask for their papers? No.”

Barajas addressed an issue that is important to him and his family. As a U.S. citizen, Barajas has less to worry about than many other major league players who came here from other countries to work legally as baseball players.

Some have not been in the U.S. very long and do not speak English fluently. Barajas wonders if they, too, could be singled out or harassed along with illegal immigrants. On Friday, the Major League Baseball Players Association issued a statement criticizing the law.

That made Barajas very proud. “I’m 100 percent behind the union,” he said. “There’s got to be a better way than this. It’s just not fair. It’s not fair to us.”  Or no group at all.

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Bottom of the ninth and two outs. There was a runner on first and a ghost runner on third, and Moose, the neighborhood meathead and opposing team’s best hitter, was at the plate.

Filthy, drenched in sweat, and a tightly wound bundle of nerves, I stood on the mound (which was actually just a chalk line drawn on the ground)—the loneliest kid on earth.

All the catcalls of “Heeyyyy batta batta batta” or “pitcher’s got a rubber arm!” had coalesced into a deafening cacophony of white noise, yet I could distinctly hear the rhythmic “thump, thump, thump” of my heart as I stalled the inevitable, wiping my clammy hands on the front of my shorts.

Moose (real name escapes me) was the biggest kid in the neighborhood. No one believed he was only 10 years old, and my friends and I often joked that his dad must have been a Sasquatch. He clearly had the small brain and massive fists to make this theory plausible. However, if there was anything he could do well, aside from hand out random beatings, it was hit a fastball.

I thought long and hard about this very fact as Moose sneered at me from the plate. Maybe if I just tossed him a grapefruit and let him annihilate it I could avoid his ire for a few extra days.

But then again, how sweet would it be to strike this behemoth out? I’d be a king, the local David slaying the big dumb Goliath. However, I had barely escaped goat horns as Moose had hit my two previous pitches a mile, though just foul. So what now, tempt fate again? The decision was clear.

The knuckleball.

I’d been working on this pitch ever since I watched Tom “Candy Man” Candiotti completely baffle my beloved Blue Jays when the Indians came to Exhibition Stadium a few months previous. Since I spent so much time at the school library hiding from Moose and his goon squad (they NEVER went in there; books were like kryptonite for those idiots), I read up on the knuckleball and about guys like Phil Niekro and Eddie Cicotte.

David had his slingshot; I had my knuckler.

Now, with my foot set on the mound, I gave the obligatory look off to the runner on first. Fingers firmly sunk into the ball, I then lifted my lead foot, swung my arms behind my head, and, in an exaggerated arching motion, threw my wrist forward, releasing the ball.

Time slowed to a crawl as I watched my pitch dance and jig its way home like some kind of drunk butterfly. Moose’s eyes went wide with glory lust as he tightened the grip on his bat and lifted his elbows.

No longer able to watch, I closed my eyes tight and waited for the inevitable crack as the ball was hurtled into the cosmos to join its brothers. If God created Heaven and Earth, then Moose created the stars with poorly located fastballs.

Then, nothing. No cheers, no jeers, not even a distant car horn. Just silence. Was I dead? Did Moose hit my pitch so hard that it came back and slammed into my skull? I dared to open one eye, just one, and take a peek.

What I saw was perhaps the most beautiful thing I could possibly imagine. The ball was sitting on home plate, and Moose was crumpled on the ground with his legs twisted like a corkscrew and a look of profound astonishment on his big dumb face. I did it—I struck him out!

Screeching with the kind of joy only a child could muster, my friends and I danced and jumped and yelled like fools for what seemed like hours. I knew I’d most likely take a beating from Moose for this, but I didn’t care. I’d take a thousand beatings if that was the cost of feeling what I felt then. It would be worth it.

———————————–

In my neighborhood we called it Birby, although you may recognize it as Stickball or Wallball. Wherever you grew up and whatever you called it, this game was a rite of passage for thousands of kids when I was growing up in urban Toronto.

As an adult, it’s easy to become jaded with professional sports. Million-dollar athletes who refuse to sign a child’s ball, small-market teams relegated to mediocrity, greedy owners holding cities and fans hostage for stadium deals, etc.

However, remember that around the corner from your house there’s a group of kids playing Stickball for nothing other than the sheer joy it brings. No salaries, no agendas—just innocent childish fun.

Once upon a time that used to be you. It may be time for some perspective, a cleansing. Call some buddies and dust off that old Darryl Strawberry Rawlings glove you have in the basement. Now all you need is some road chalk, imagination, and a lack of ego.

Go break a sweat, and remember: Above all else, baseball is still just a kid’s game.

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As many of you know, I hate fans who act idiotic and ruin things  for the rest of us. Last night, A Philadelphia Phillies fan got what was coming to him. 17-year-old Steve Consalvi ran onto the field at Citizen’s Bank Park on Monday, where he was Tasered by a police officer. 

Now instead of going to class today, this moron has to stand in front of a judge and be charged with criminal trespassing.

There are some bleeding hearts who are whining that the use of a Taser was excessive, I could not disagree more.

I think the officer did the right thing, using non-lethal force in subduing a fleeing suspect. The way the world is today, officers do not want to take any chances in dealing with suspects.

Tasers are actually quite safe in taking down a suspect and are preferred to using pepper spray. Before an officer is allowed to use a Taser, they must be Tasered themselves. Consalvi was not injured at all and 90 seconds after he was subdued, he was up and walking off the field.

I personally hope this use of a Taser at a sporting event will keep other stupid fans from trying to run onto the field.

As I have said before, 99.5 percent of sports fans act like civilized human beings, it is the other .5 percent, who give the rest of us a bad name and are part of the reason prices go up at events.

Maybe this event will change some minds in morons, however I doubt it.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The impact of the new Arizona immigration law on baseball is far-reaching and potentially could cause a problem between labor and management. Of course, this is only a mirror of the effect it will have on society, in general, in Arizona.

I’ve spent some time in Arizona on business trips in the past. It doesn’t take long to figure out that this is a serious and overt problem for the legal residents of the state.

I understand, and agree, with the notion that the people that are here in the U.S. should be here legally. If they’re not, they should be deported. That’s not a groundbreaking idea. But the implementation of the law in Arizona is absurd.

The police are required to check the legal residency of anyone they think is here illegally? And do so without profiling? It’s beyond comprehension that this can be implemented without racial profiling. “Show me your papers” will be the new mantra in Arizona.

Mets catcher Rod Barajas , an Arizona resident and son of Mexican immigrants, talked to the NY Times about his opposition to the law.

“It’s disappointing,” Barajas said. “I have a lot of family born in Mexico. You would like to hope there is no stereotyping going on, but it’s hard to see that there would not be. If they happen to pull someone over who looks like they are of Latin descent, even if they are a U.S. citizen, that is the first question that is going to be asked. But if a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian gets pulled over, do you think they are going to ask for their papers? No.”

Mike Lupica of the Daily News thinks that MLB and the players union will stand together on this one in opposition of the law. I’m not so sure about that, but he does make a good point in the column. The 2011 All-Star game is scheduled to be in Phoenix. MLB could threaten to move to another venue if the law is still standing. The NFL did the same with the Super Bowl when the state of Arizona wouldn’t recognize Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.

You can read the statement from the MLBPA .

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com