What A Disaster

Clearly, last night's World Series game was a disaster.

I don't really believe it was anyone's fault, but a disaster none the less. Blaming this on anyone, would literally be blaming them for the rain. I don't know that I'd like to give anyone that power. We can blame it ON the rain, much like Milli Vanilli did, but I don't know that I'd like to blame the rain ON anyone.

In retrospect, perhaps things could have been handled differently.

If there was a meeting with Bud Selig and the teams before the game discussing the possibility of dismissing rules in order to play a full game, I think that probably should have been public before the game. I think it was the right decision, no one wants a World Series game to end after a 5 inning game, but I think probably people could have known that possibility existed.

Maybe they could have shut things down an inning early. If the weather is too messy for the infield fly rule to exist, perhaps it's too messy to play the World Series. Just a thought.

In any case, it is what it is, and what happened, happened, and we'll finish it up Wednesday it looks like.

That's not how we see it here in Philly though. I love this city, and I love the people, I do. The passion is truly unmatched. Anywhere. In no place do people live or die with their teams like they do in Philadelphia. The problem, is that it comes at the cost of perspective and reality.

The thought that the announcers and the officials are always against us is funny. I've got no problem with that. In no way, in any case, is it true, ever. Regardless, it's a fun thing to think. In addition, everyone here is SO convinced of it, that there's no convincing anyone otherwise anyway. The same people who are so convinced that the umps are against us, apparently missed the strike zone that Scott Kazmir had to pitch to last night. I guess they missed that call where Jimmy Rollins was clearly tagged out in a rundown but ruled safe. Maybe the umpires are bad, but they are surely not biased. They're a bunch of fat, old guys. Anyone who thinks they're the most qualified to officiate a professional sport is out of their minds anyway.

Back to today... I expected to wake up to a dissapointed city. A city hoping to celebrate last night was left with nothing. Just to wait another couple of days. I was hoping though, that we could just wake up dissapointed and not angry.

Boy, was I wrong.

"We got screwed." "Bud Selig is a moron." This is what I wake up to.

Again, sure it was messy. But did I miss something? Did we have to play in the rain while Tampa played in the sun?

From Philly.COM:

"Major League Baseball is all about [sportscaster] Joe Buck and the ratings - they don't want to see Philadelphia win a championship," said Michael Hughes of Holland, Bucks County, in a comment that seemed to capture the sour and even conspiratorial mood at the rain-drenched ballpark.

Um, what? Why doesn't MLB want Philadelphia to win a championship? To what end? We're a bigger market than Tampa. We buy more tickets than Tampa. We have more money to spend than Tampa. If this was about money, they'd be favoring Philly. I have ZERO idea where the Joe Buck part comes in. Maybe that's the big twist of the World Series. Maybe the fix it so Joe Buck wins.

Also from Philly.COM:

""The fact that Major League Baseball, with all the weather reports and all the technology, went ahead with this game just points to money and greed," said Jeff Sherry of Havertown, who came with his son Danny. "Just another chance to suck the money out of the fans.""

Ok, well first of all, I don't know that they did this because of "money and greed." They still play the same number of games. They're not secretly adding games. Maybe they made a mistake, but I don't think it was a calculated decision based on greed. Also, they won't be selling more tickets, and you can park with the same stub that you parked with, so additionally, they will not be "sucking any money out of the fans."

In addition, I don't know if you've noticed, Jeff, but the weather reports and technology fail us on a pretty regular basis. Whatever Doppler 85,000 that the local TV stations use are generally wrong about 86% of the time. I'm not going to blame MLB for the fact that we can not now, nor have we ever, been able to accurately predict the weather.

Be bummed, sure. Be dissapointed, sure. Just leave the notion that people are trying to keep victory from the city out of your head.

Let's save our energy for the parade.