Last week’s KSK-style draft and roundtable analysis was such a raging success, we decided to dip our toe into those waters again.
We decided for this one to draft people in baseball that we hate. This includes all levels of baseball…owners, agents, players, managers, ball boys, concessions, ushers.
Draft Order – Bearcat, Max, ZJ…go!
Bearcat
#1 Bud Selig
Just a short list of his accomplishments: Ending an All-Star game in a tie, then “fixing” the issue by “making it count”, November baseball so as to increase ratings and revenue through a protracted playoffs, Realignment with three divisions, Interleague play, expansion in the late 90’s, instant replay (fuck, I really hate that one), combining the league offices thereby graying the operations between the two leagues, by my estimate nearly a dozen new stadiums built at tax payer (your) expense and the Wildcard. And most importantly he sat by while players, agents and managers ruined the game by failing to do anything while everyone juiced up to no end there by destroying the record books and creating a statistical anomaly so glaring yet so random as to thrash the one great and differentiating feature of his sport, statistics. So tell me… is your baseball better since Bud took over?
Max
I really thought the Nuttings would top his list…damn you for stealing my top choice.
#2 Scott Boras
Not many people know this, but The Devil’s Advocate was based on Boras’ life as the son of Satan. He is one of the main reasons baseball has become haves and have-nots in the last 20 years. Every out of left field contract (so out of whack with the norm – think Zito or Werth) that he has negotiated has been one more nail in the coffin of competitive balance. Teams draft-day strategies revolve around AVOIDING his clients instead of selecting the best players available. He wields power and control over entire organizations…in the 90s it was the Dodgers, now it’s the Nationals (as he represents Strasburg, Harper, Werth, Pudge, Ankiel, Danny Espinosa, Alex Cora).
ZJ
Rest easy, Max – this list would be historically inaccurate without Selig at the top. He’s the Pujols of this draft.
#3 Major League Baseball on Fox
This is one grudge I will hold onto forever. I love baseball but I loathe baseball in November. Baseball is not supposed to be played in single-digit weather. Because of Fox’s dictation over the postseason schedule, I now have them to thank for those ridiculous caps with earflaps. And World Series’ start times after 10pm on the East Coast. Additionally, Fox is solely to blame for shoving the nauseating tandem of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver down our collective pie holes. I would prefer an ice pick for my aural canals, thank you. And though this will be the fifth glorius anniversary of the death of Scooter–that criminally inane, animated talking baseball–I hate them for spawning that abomination in the first place.
#4 Peter Angelos
I know some of you guys hate other owners more, but this guy has been Public Enemy #1 for me for a long time, and I’m not even an Orioles fan. As the owner of one of the former crown jewels of the American League, he perpetually hamstrings his GMs’ abilities to do their job and is far more concerned over making a profit than fielding a competitive team. After opposing the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington, DC, MLB compensated the petulant Angelos AND gave him majority interest in MASN, which broadcasts both his Orioles games AND Nationals games. On top of that, he re-negged on a promise to raise the wages of clean-up workers at Camden Yards to Baltimore City’s official living wage. It’s no wonder that a Sports Illustrated article in May 2009 rated Angelos as the worst owner in baseball.
Max
Great call on #3, McCarver was at the top of my draft board…Truly an upset at #4 – I so had ZJ pegged for another team’s ownership making the cut
#5 John Sterling / Michael Kay / Suzyn Waldman
At risk of pissing off the 8 people that read this blog…yes, I’m a Yankees’ fan. In my family, it’s passed down from father to son and I’m now the third generation of the legacy. And as much as I want to watch and listen to the Yankees’ game, the Three Stooges make it impossible for me to sit though a broadcast. I willingly turn on the opposing team’s radio feed if I’m listening to the game on satellite radio. I have been known to turn channels after a Yankee home run just to avoid Sterling’s contrived, histrionic call (“Another A-Bomb for A-Rod!!!”). Kay loves nothing more than hearing his voice and thinking he’s the smartest guy in the room. And Waldman…god, where do I start with this train wreck? Look I’m not some scotch-loving, cigar club good ol’ boy who thinks women have no place in sports broadcasting, but this specific woman shouldn’t be allowed within 50 feet of an open microphone. If you appreciate a fawning simpleton mouthpiece for the higher ups in the Yankee organization then Waldman’s your gal, otherwise you are SOL. While other organizations lament the recent losses of excellent broadcasters Harry Kalas, Ernie Harwell, Ron Santo, and Dave Niehaus, I’m still stuck with these three roaming the earth and inflicting their own version of waterboarding on the listening public
ZJ
I have most teams’ ownership at #4.
Bearcat
#6 The Nuttings
First let me thank my fellow DSB writers for deferring the Nuttings during the prior four draft slots. The Nuttings are mine. I must draft them. I considered drafting them number 1 over all but this is about the worst in baseball as a whole and while the Pirates ownership has been detrimental to the league they are not alone in their actions.
The Nuttings have had a stake in the Pirates for over 15 years. In 2007 they bought out enough owners’ shares to have a controlling interest. Under the Nuttings and during their entire ownership the Pirates have never had a winning season. They have promised to retool, to invest, to be building a foundation, and to being committed to winning. The only commitment they have is to making a profit. I am okay with being committed to profit. No profit = no baseball.
The fact that they profit more from losing than they would be fielding a winning team is bad for baseball and bad for Pittsburgh as a city. The Nuttings have learned to maximize profits by pocketing the luxury tax and by accepting the premise that they will be a pawn in Major League Baseball’s creation of competitive imbalance by repressing the bottom feeders and paying them to stay bad. Every owners earns more by paying the Pirates not to compete. They don’t compete for players which saves the other teams money on free agents and they don’t compete wins which boosts the other teams product. The Nuttings are bad for baseball. Period.
#7 Joe West
This is mostly just a place holder for bad officiating in general. I am regularly surprised as how bad the umpiring is on the MLB level. The blown calls, the fucking gall of these men when addressing matters with players, the press or the public and sweet Jesus above the self aggrandizing… the self aggrandizing! Joe West can’t shut the fuck up. The Bailey Brothers Circus wishes they has the self promoting power of this guy. Even when this fat bastard is right about something (like his comments about the pace of Yankee/Red Sox games last season) I want to punch him in the neck. At least robot umpires would not talk. That is the only benefit I can see but it is a huge one.
Max
#8 Pink-hatted, bandwagon-jumping women
Sure, the Red Sox might be the most recognized for this fan demographic, but almost every team has them nowadays. Look, no one loves breasts and opposes cancer as much as me, but don’t try to pass off the pink hats as supporting the “cause for a cure”. 98% of these women are only concerned with a) the food b) the promotional giveaway and c) the cute player she believes he has a shot with (see Jeter, Utley, Longoria, etc) and not necessarily in that order. Learn the infield fly rule and the intricacies of the double-switch and we can talk…until then, don’t act like you’re the team’s #1 fan.
ZJ
#9 Red Sox Nation
Contrary to what ESPN would have you believe, the world does not revolve around you. You lost any kind of cache by 2005 and nobody cares about you anymore. Now we just want you to go away. You are annoying and self-absorbed like Exhibit A – Ben Affleck, and Exhibit B – Jimmy Fallon. You are both pompous and whining at the same time. Each and every one of you should be marched off the top of the Green Mon-stah. Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so many Yankee fans? It’s because of you.
#10 The Major League Baseball Experience
In my mid-20’s, I flew into Denver to meet a good friend and go to a Dodgers-Rockies weekend series. He pointed out to me that we were no longer struggling college kids and that we could afford better seats than the nosebleeds, a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before that point. So we scalped some prime seats about eight rows off the field and it was pure bliss.
Fast forward to now. Today, I deserve those good seats. I’ve put in my time and earned them. After all, I’M A MAN! I’M (almost) 40! But the prices for those seats just keep skyrocketing out of my reach. Just look at all those ridiculously-priced empty seats behind the backstop at the new stadiums in New York. How many mortgage payments do I have to skip to afford one of those? But it’s just not the seats – I’m being nickel-and-dimed at every turn by MLB, the owners, and the city itself. For instance, you’re lucky to pay less than $20 for parking today. Need a hotel room? Guess what – rates are higher when the home team’s in town. And let’s not even get into concessions, when you need two bills to pay for a beer … and one of those bills is a $10. I live within 200 miles of six Major League stadiums but I’ve been to exactly one Major League game in the last five years. I’d much rather mute the thunderstix and vuvuzelas from the comfort of my own home than pay for the “privilege.”
Max
I let ZJ have this one until now, but I can’t wait any longer…
#11 ESPN’s presentation of the Home Run Derby
Look, I know watching the HR Derby is prisoner of war painful. The only real joy I got out of it was reading ZJ’s masterful recaps here on DSB every year. But then I watched a HR Derby at the Double-A All-Star Game in person last season and realized it’s not the event itself, but it’s ESPN’s production of it. Where do I even begin? Chris Berman. The amount and length of commercial breaks. Chris Berman. Celebrity guests popping up on the panel. Chris Berman. Product placements best exemplified by the batters being toweled off by a Gatorade boy. Chris Berman. Broadcasters ignoring the action. Did I mention Chris Berman? ESPN takes maybe 20 minutes of action and suspense and spreads it out over an interminable 4 hours and in the process has taken the fun completely out of the event.
ZJ
The steal of the draft. Look at that value sitting there at #11!
Bearcat
#12 Barry Bonds (drafted in accordance with the Jeff Kent Clause where if the guy is such an asshole that even his own mother hates him he doesn’t need to be an active player)
After America watched his head swell up to the size of the Goodyear blimp and watching him pound hundreds of juiced balls out of the park it is pretty easy to forget that Barry Bonds was the first salvo in the death march that is Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball. It was his refusal to step up during Cabrera’s at bat that eventually saw Sid Bream slide into history. He quickly cleaned out his locker before shaking the dust from his feet and leaving Pittsburgh’s bloodied remains behind. Barry famously went to San Francisco and it’s fans became a sanctuary for him as no one else (except ESPN) would ever love and protect him. He fought teammates (Jeff Kent most famously, try picking a side in that fight), whined and fought the press, got his own private locker room, he got ESPN to make a reality show about him, he lied about using PEDs and pretended he became super human on flax seed oil and B12, he ruined the record books without a care and then blamed everyone around him, he compared his hundreds of millions of dollars career to slavery and in the end when his knees could no longer support his steroid sized body he bitched about the fact that teams would not sign him and tried to play the race card one last time as part of some big conspiracy or collusion by owners to bar him from a game that no one wanted to see him play. Thanks Barry…
#13 George Will and “Baseball People” like him
I hate the term “Baseball People.” George Will is the one that always comes to mind for me. The man is a political columnist but he never wastes and opportunity to try to use a baseball reference or experience to teach a broader life lesson. “Baseball People” think that baseball is a euphemism for everything. “Baseball People” treat the game with a holy reverence that it HAS NEVER deserved. They talk about respect for the game and its long traditions and how it is woven into the fabric of America. Horseshit. The game has always been played by lowlifes, the owners have always been unethical money grubbing millionaires and the only difference is that the cost for this Americana has gone through the roof. They make the game less enjoyable for me because instead of watching the game they expect it to be a life defining experience that is a touchstone for every other event happening in our lives. Historians and English Professors say that the truly great novels from an era define in prose the experiences of that generation. “Baseball People” say that a game can do the same thing. What crap.
Max
Damn you Bearcat…I had Ken Burns at the top of my “Best Available” board
Bearcat
I was going to reference him under baseball people but you want to draft him… do it… do it!
Max
No…if you look up the term “baseball people” in the encyclopedia there’s a Wall Street Journal-type dot drawing of Ken Burns giving George Will a blowjob
#14 BBWAA
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America is an antiquated, bloated network of good ol’ boys that refuses to leave the false remembrances of pastoral images from baseball’s heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. In today’s world where 68% of America gets their news from the internet (yeah, I completely made that number up), they have been slow to embrace the new medium because they are too busy clinging to their bylines in the rotting corpse of newspapers. They cling to statistics (like wins and batting average) that are archaic and don’t accurately portray the true value of a player. Their individual Hall of Fame votes are kept secret and all-too-often an indictment of a player’s relationship with the media during his playing career (see Rice, Jim) or their caste system of a deserving first-ballot HOFer (see Alomar, Roberto). These men (and let’s not kid ourselves that they are mostly comprised of white men in the 60s) are more concerned with the buffet offerings in the press box than accurate information. If you don’t believe me, this is the same group that had Edinson Volquez finish in fourth-place in the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year voting. One small problem…Volquez wasn’t even a rookie that year!
Bearcat
BBWAA at 14! Someone call the police I need to report a robbery… that is a steal!
ZJ
#15 Any player who wears body armor
Or more particularly, any player who wears armor on their arm. I’m okay with leg padding if there’s a documented pre-existing injury to a weight-bearing joint. I’m not okay with ANY player who wears padding on his arm at the plate. I don’t care if you got plunked on the elbow in your previous at-bat; them’s the breaks, that’s part of the game. If you have a problem with getting hit by a pitch, your only recourse is to charge the mound. End of discussion.
Bearcat
Boom!
Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Daddy's Sugar Ball 