Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for February 28, 2022

I tried to get a shank of pushmepullyou the other day…

Who the @#$% cares….

Stopped watching Baseball in 1974. There was a lock out or a strike or both. Since the players were make about 50-100 times more than I was in a year, I got fed up with the greed on both sides. Hasn’t changed much, except the players now make millions more a year than I do.

Did players lose any salaries when the ballparks were closed and the only fans were cutouts? Today, I can barely justify going to a game. Getting seats for less than $40 bucks each is not likely. Then to top it off, you have to find a place to park and there goes another $20. Heaven help you if you decide you want a beer and a hotdog. And if you bring a couple of kids…I have to travel over 200 miles to visit our closest team and since that team’s town has bought into that Defund the Police nonsense, I don’t feel safe going there anyway. Hard to justify.

Baseball players and Owners: 4.05 billion dollars? Ew poor!

I’d forgotten about the unicorn steaks. Are those ethically sourced or are unicorns still endangered? :)

We get played millions of dollars to play a game kids play for free. Waaaaaah!

Both Chicago teams went to cable last year or the year before, that was it for me.

Baltimore has a lousy team,but Camden Yards is still the best place to watch a game.

Grass fed unicorns. MmmHmm! I’m drooling.

I have really loved the game for years but this may be the last straw for me. Bunch of over-indulged, entitled jackasses on both sides.

Well, we got the NBA, March Madness, and NHL Playoffs on the horizon. The only folks who will miss baseball are the talking heads on MLB TV. Plus, we won’t have to watch the Yankees and Bosox 4 days a week. A Pox on both houses, but Mr. Manfred is a lyin’ sack of doo-doo when he apologizes for the owners and their “risks” in team investment.

NBA, NHL, March Madness. CFL training camp in May and season starts in June, Grey Cup in November and NFL until February. Baseball just messes up the schedule.

As Casey Stengel once said—“I’ll autograph anything but veal cutlets.My ball point pen slips on veal cutlets”.

The owners will “win” this…the players are the faces of a product that Manfred and his bosses own. Teams are owned by corporations now (no Calvin Griffiths or Horace Stonehams left) and these corporations can afford to wait a looooong time if they have to. Shoot, they can write everything off against the taxes on their main businesses.

Meanwhile, what options do the players have? They’ll never make that kind of money in Japan, where the average salary is one-tenth the MLB average and only four foreigners are allowed on a 25-man roster anyway. They could try forming their own league but history (1890 Brotherhood League) is not on their side.

In a staredown between billionaires and millionaires, my money’s on the people with more digits between the dollar sign and the decimal point to outlast the others. Not saying it’s right, but it’s being realistic.

Another reason to let MLB slip away, a great article today about Baseball under Manfred’s watch has let the covers off and showing how the owners (in the last 8 to 10 years) are making money decisions not pennant motivated decisions as their prime movers. To mix metaphors, MLB has “jumped the shark”.Good luck players.

I’ve moved on thanks to the MLB players, owners and Bally sports. Don’t care.