A numbers game, replete with shame

By Jeff Glauser
The Phanatic Magazine

The Phanatic Magazine would like to welcome back acclaimed columnist Jeff Glauser from his self-imposed hiatus (okay, Jeff would like to welcome himself back, but others are more than welcome to concur).
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It’s a numbers game.

It used to simply be America’s game.

Now it’s just a farce.

300 (wins), .400 (average), 500 (home runs). Name another sport with so many significant benchmarks?

You can’t. Because it doesn’t exist.

No other sport can threaten the employment of a fellow fan by sapping hours of his productivity because he spends them crunching numbers for his upcoming fantasy draft.

No, not even football – not even close.

So, if baseball is such an exact science, so tangible, so cut and dry… how come it seems as if only the outsiders seem to have a clue?

Explain the logic of the owners granting – almost unanimously, mind you – the commissioner who has overseen the most inept and embarrassing era of any sport in American history a contract extension for an unfathomable amount of money.

(And, on that note, does L.J. Smith share the same agent as Bud Selig, because, man, explain that one, too. Franchise tag? Really??)

But I digress.

Maybe someone can enlighten me on the (alleged) thought process on arguable the two most accomplished baseball players of this generation, if not history. And why, while already en route to a cakewalk toward Cooperstown, they (allegedly) cheat their sport, (allegedly) cheat their fans and (allegedly) defecate on some of baseball’s most cherished records?

Or, speaking of the Hall of Fame, can somebody make it clear to me how a player who has been retired for almost 20 years can gradually accumulate more votes over time to the point where he becomes eligible to be enshrined?

(Frankly, I’m hoping something similar occurs with me: You may think this column sucks now, but hey, give it 20 years and it’ll look like a friggin’ masterpiece.)

Or clarify the sensibility of the already filthy-rich owners – most of whom, I presume, were once simply innocent fans of the game, sans ulterior motive, like you and I – making a conscious decision to turn the other cheek when it was blatantly apparent to them that the ultimate integrity of the game was being threatened in epidemic proportions.

Next week’s showdown between Roger Clemens and Tom McNamee in front of Congress will make for some good tabloid-esque entertainment. Like the reality television whores we’ve become, we’ll tune in, hoping for some good, wholesome, catty drama, perhaps some name-calling, maybe even a disingenuous finger wag to pay homage to the Days of Rafael Past when our tax dollars once before, inexplicably, went toward this crap.

In a year where it seems that the general American population is finally awaking from a seven-year brain fart and acknowledging the need – as grossly belated as it might be – to shift gears, make a drastic change and embrace logic, it’s time for America’s game to do the same.

The writing is on the wall.

Unfortunately, it’s written over numbers. Numbers which used to mean something.