Foghorn
Selig Strikes Again
This
website made a bold prediction late in the 2004 season, that the
Astros would ever win a playoff series under Phil Garner. Obviously,
the prediction was wrong. The Astros beat the Braves (in what must
have been a karmic contest of negatives) and nearly beat Saint Louis
for the National League Championship. The Astros promptly folded
up for the 2005 season, so the tiny minded team with the itty bitty
park can still provide satisfaction to all of us who gave up on
baseball greatness from Houston. Jose Cruz and Larry Dierker still
work around the fringes of the organization. Jeff Bagwell and Craig
Biggio will probably eventually find their way to Cooperstown, and
many years from now, after the Cubs have won a World Series again,
people will talk about the Curse of the Astros. I would like to
take credit now, if that is possible. The team that fired Dierker
after he won the division four of five years as manager does not
deserve better.
This
website began on the premise that Bud Selig is part of the same
group that includes Foghorn Leghorn, Congress, Paris Hilton and
the Cowardly Lion -- noisy and annoying but basically ineffective.
In particular, the list of reasons Selig must go included the promise,
without delivery, of drug testing. Foghorn Selig has delivered now,
maybe too little and definitely too late. Still, players are being
suspended for the use of steroids. When a real star tests positive,
we will know Major League Baseball is serious.
Still,
progress deserves mention.
Finally
baseball has returned to the nation’s capital, and the Washington
Nationals managed a respectable beginning after struggling with
naming problems. Meanwhile, an established team that was the California
Angels and then the Anaheim Angels now refers to itself as the Los
Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which is roughly parallel to
referring to the Big Rio Grande River or avocado guacamole. Someone
should send the front office to a Spanish I class.
Jeff
Cox, would-be baseball commissioner
