Topsy Turvy

ACT I

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO WE ARE


In it's infinite wisdom, MLB has decided that the first game of the 2003 season will be played in Japan . In 2001 MLB opened in Japan, as well, with the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs squaring off (do you think it hurt that Sammy Sosa played for the Cubs?). The teams will be the Seattle Mariners and your Oakland Athletics. Of course the Mariners have a few players from Japan (do you think that is a coincidence-you're wrong if you think it ain't).


Ichiro Suzuki, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Shigetoshi Hasegawa all hail from Japan after many years of laboring in the leagues of Japan.


Bud Selig, our great Commissioner, virtuous man, is in a precarious position. The New York Yankees are thought to be in the lead for the services of Hideki Matsui possibly the next great Japanese player in MLB. After the near strike situation and the brave front Selig put up, all of the inclusions in the Collective Bargaining Agreement are falling out like the fillings in an elderly man's mouth.


Selig has long professed the disparity of the lack of parity of major league teams. With Japanese players being freed after seven years service to enter MLB as Free Agents, it smacks of racial discrimination . Latin American players arrive by the bunches often signed for very little money . Many of the players lie about their age in order to be younger just for a slim chance. MLB seems willing to look the other way since their minuscule investment often pays off before a player's age and performance level catch up. Oh, to be washed up at 25 years of age (28 actual age).


It is the success that teams like Seattle, a middle market team with deep pockets , has had in bringing foreign players into MLB without a draft that led to the inclusion of a worldwide draft in the last Collective Bargaining Agreement . Of course, recent events have led MLB to scrap just about everything from the CBA and it is in danger of leading to a situation worse than we have experienced in the last ten years of Seligula .


Selig defrays interest in racial discrimination in players, but takes great strides to spout off about racial discrimination when it comes to managers. It displays Selig's inability to balance any issue on ethics or morals and shows him in the light for what he really is . An incompetent, stubborn man in charge of the soul of many of us. Until the Commissioner is an actual leader and does not dance with the owners or the players will MLB be the sport it can be.