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Baseball
{November 7, 2002}

The World Series is over. The Denver Dingleberries beat out the Austin Egomaniacs 4 - 3.. or something. I don't know. Honestly, I haven't given a crap about baseball in years. It's like wrestling - it's something you love when you're a kid, but eventually find better things to do with your time. I used to watch the WWF, but at some point you realize you're staring at enormous oily men wearing really tight clothing roll around on each other. Some men are ok with this, and continue to watch. The rest of us date women.

Baseball is kind of the same way with me. When I was a young little smart ass, the only thing that kept me in school every day was the perfect attendance incentive program. I grew up in the Chicagoland area, and the school system would give you tickets to any professional baseball game in Chicago every semester as long as you didn't miss a day. I spent most of those days in the Principal's office, but I was in school just the same.

While other kids were learning silly things like math and science, I was learning to hate authority figures and steal clay from the supply room. I've kept in touch with some of my elementary school buddies, and they're all well-educated intelectuals with important, high-paying jobs in respected fields. I'm a jackass comedian with lame mean-spirited jokes who gets thru the day by scamming free meals and drinks.

If I'd have known then what I know now.. I.. I woulda.. well, I guess I would have started performing comedy a lot sooner. Heck, by now my career could have already run its course. I could've done the "live fast, die young" thing and already be a legend! Then again, I could've done the "live fast, get old" thing and become Chevy Chase.. so maybe I should just take my time with this. I've digressed.

Baseball strikes me as one of those things that has forgotten why people liked it in the first place. Fat asses like Babe Ruth used to play good enough to rule the game.. now the sport is full of enormous cyborgs who, by this point, are more of a product of steroids and pampering than they are well-trained, talented athletes.

Remember jocks in highschool? Dipshits, right? I recall losers who banked their futures.. their entire existence on the possibilities sports could offer. Players who were mediocre - even at the highschool level - who thought maybe they had a chance. Sad thing is.. some of them did! All it takes is a ton of highly concentrated hormone supplements and a little bit of practice, and you too could be in the next home-run-race. That is, until you take that one swing that causes all your back zits to pop simultaneously.. creating a spine-crushing blast that leaves your uniform flapping in the wind atop your vaporized, drug-riddled carcass.

I don't know.. maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe I'm just a jealous punk who's lashing out. Yeah, perhaps Darryl Strawberry isn't a crack head.. maybe he's just misunderstood. Maybe they don't drug-test within Major League Baseball because if they did, there wouldn't BE Major League Baseball.

I just can't watch it. I don't have time. If they removed all the crotch scratching, jock adjusting, and spitting.. maybe they could play a game in less than four hours (but would it be as fun?). Baseball could learn something from Basketball and Football: put a timer on the scoreboard. You've got 10 seconds allowed for each pitch. If the batter isn't ready, he's out. If the pitcher is still shaking no to a signal, it's a run. Speed it up, keep the energy going and get John Tesh to write some riveting theme music.

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