'If that ain't a crock'

Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer was going to enter the witness-protection program to escape the homicidal Sideshow Bob? Of course you do. That was the one where the feds were quizzing Homer on the intricacies of the program, but for the life of him, Homer couldn’t grasp the idea of becoming Homer Thompson instead of Homer Simpson.

Here, this should help:



Anyway, lately it seems as if Major League Baseball has had as much trouble grasping what its fans want in much the same manner as Homer had in wrapping his head around the concept of a different surname. Actually, there is probably a laundry list of complaints that the regular baseball fan can levy against MLB, but for now we’ll just focus on a pair starting with the DirecTV/Extra Innings fiasco, which was enough to earn the league a spot on Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” feature.

In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that after a few years of subscribing to the Extra Innings package on cable, I gave it up in favor of version offered on the Internets. The reason, of course, is that my laptop is typically within three feet of me at all times and if I can do a small part in making sure the revolution will be streamed instead of televised, then viva la revolucion!

By now most baseball fans who like to watch games on TV know the details of the DirecTV/Extra Innings flap and MLB’s so it should e understandable that the group who wanted to claim such public information as baseball statistics as intellectual property has no trouble taking out-of-town games away from the people who want to pay to watch them. As Olbermann said on Wednesday’s edition of Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

The bronze to Tim Brosnan, executive vice president of Major League Baseball, today rejecting the bid to keep the package of out-of-town games on cable television and satellite, rather than shifting it just to satellite. As we all know, no business strategy works quite as well as refusing to sell your products to the customers who want to buy it from you.

Indeed. But perhaps the best example of where MLB’s focus is comes from an item in Paul Hagen’s column in Friday’s Daily News. According to the story, the commissioner’s office noticed that Giants’ pitcher Barry Zito was photographed in Sports Illustrated using a burgundy-colored glove with laces of a different color…

Yeah, can you believe that? The laces are not burgundy!

Forget that Zito has used that glove for the past two seasons, MLB sent out an investigator who took pictures of the glove and forwarded them to the league office on Park Avenue in Manhattan for further investigation.

Said Zito: “I’m like, 'If that ain't a crock.'”

Here’s Hagen’s laugh-out-loud conclusion:

Watch it, Barry. You never know who might be listening.

You just can't be too careful these days. Why, if you aren't careful, next thing you know players might be trying to beat drug testing with HGH or other undetectable substances.

Yes, because we all know that using a multi-colored glove is a gateway to more self-destructive behavior. Maybe even anarchy.

***
Finally, I’d like to thank Ben Miller of the Wheatland Avenue Millers for pointing out an error in a previous post. It appears that I had claimed that Roger Waters and Syd Barrett were responsible for writing The Wall when in reality, as pointed out by Ben, Barrett had left Pink Floyd a decade before the opus had been composed.

Now if we could just get Ben to pick up on the grammatical errors in these posts.

Regardless, I regret the error and thank Ben for being both a diligent reader and a true arbiter of useless information. Thanks, Ben.