Selig’s All-Star Fiasco and Other Lessons Learned

by Geoff Young on Jul 11, 2002

I missed the All-Star game because I didn’t want to witness what I thought would be Bud Selig’s moment of glory. But just when I think he’s reached the pinnacle of stupidity, he digs down deep for a little more and surprises me. The man’s incompetence knows no bounds. Honestly, it’s gotten the point where I don’t even take pleasure in poking fun at the guy.

Anyway, now that we’re midway through the season and the Padres are going nowhere fast, what have we learned?

  • Selig and his cronies are stupid, incompetent, and untrustworthy; MLB has no idea how to promote its product, nor does it appear to act in the best interest of the sport. But this is not exactly breaking news.
  • The Padres were overhyped coming into the season.
  • It is exceedingly difficult to overcome the loss of three starting pitchers and a primary power bat for extended periods of time.
  • Ramon Vazquez is an excellent defensive infielder, Deivi Cruz is not.
  • As expected, the loss of Ben Davis created a huge organizational gap behind the plate; the acquisition of Vazquez and especially Brett Tomko appears to have offset that gap.
  • Ryan Klesko can hit lefties.
  • Ray Lankford can’t hit anyone.
  • The Padres have some really good young arms.
  • Bruce Bochy and Greg Booker may not be the best people to work with those young arms.
  • Phil Nevin’s absence from the lineup is a bad thing for two reasons: first, it leaves the Padres without a legitimate power threat from the right side; second, it leaves him with too much time on his hands, which leads him to opening his mouth and saying stupid things.

I’m sure there are many others, but these are some of the critical lessons I’ve learned so far.

Speaking of idiot owners, I finally watched Eight Men Out the other night. As a baseball fan, that is one of the most heartbreaking movies I’ve ever seen. During the trial scenes, I broke out my Total Baseball to see what Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver did during the series. If you go by the numbers, Jackson had the best series of any hitter on either team. Weaver wasn’t far behind him. If those two guys were trying to throw games, they sure did a lousy job.

If nothing else, the movie gave a good look into the owners’ abuse of power and poor treatment of players. When I see Selig and company repeatedly make asses of themselves at the hands of the union, I like to think that the 1919 White Sox and a bunch of other old-time ballplayers are cheering wildly in some kind of afterlife.

That’s about as far as I’m going to go with that. It’s not that I couldn’t go on for pages about it, just that I do like to stay on the right side of that boundary between genuinely interesting and painfully self-indulgent. Not that I always succeed, mind you, but that is the goal. Usually.

The only thing I regret about missing the All-Star game is that I didn’t get to see the Milwaukee fans boo Selig in his own stadium. That must have been beautiful.

Finally, I leave you with some articles that have caught my eye over the past couple days:

More as it happens…

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