The Major League Baseball season is already a week old and guess what? I couldn't care less. It's not that I'm anti-baseball. I'm just not one of those people who gets all warm and gushy inside when I think about April baseball.
I haven't always been this way. There was a time when I got excited about Opening Day. But now, I'd rather spend my time rearranging patio furniture than watching professional baseball.
The other day, while talking to my brother Sam, I just said it, \Sam, I don't like baseball anymore.""
""Wow, Joe, that's quite a statement. You got anything to back that up?"" he asked.
And that got me thinking. Why don't I like the 'ol ballgame anymore? What happened to turn me against the sport? The more I thought about it, the more things popped into my mind. It suddenly occurred to me. There are so many things wrong with baseball that I can't even justify enjoying it.
Let me elaborate.
The newly dubbed Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are one reason. You may or may not know that Anaheim and Los Angeles are two distinct cities, separated by about 25 miles.
But really, the Angels' naming farce is small potatoes when it comes to baseball's grand blunder, the steroid problem.
In case you were living under a rock, or in Mark McGwire's house, you might have missed the fact that the national pastime has some issues with a little something I like to call ""the juice.""
So far as we can tell, every major home run record established over the past decade probably came with the aid of some kind of steroid, be it the cream, the clear or any other variation.
It's just that aside from media darling Jose Canseco, almost everybody is keeping tight-lipped on the subject. McGwire refused to talk about it. Sammy Sosa conveniently forgot how to speak English when asked about steroids. Jason Giambi basically apologized to fans for taking steroids without ever actually saying he used them. All in all, it gives baseball the legitimacy of a Coney Island dice game.
And if 'roids weren't enough to turn me off the game, there's that whole arms race on the Atlantic coast between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. At first, the whole thing was mildly interesting. It was a entertaining game of one-upsmanship.
But now the Sox have their World Series, everything seems played out. Things can only get worse though, as the movie ""Fever Pitch,"" chronicling the dating life of a tortured Red Sox fan, hits theaters this week. What's next, a 24-hour cable channel devoted to the Sox-Yanks rivalry? It's almost impossible to get away from it. My only option is to get out of the house.
Anybody need help with their patio furniture?
-Joe Hasler can be reached for comment at jphasler@wisc.edu.
