::::::::
There is a theory, and right now, it is only a theory, that may become an accepted reality. However, probably only if some energetic Justice Department lawyer decides it is worth his time. However, aside from chasing environmentalists and ATETA violators, fascists have enough to do trying to ke American boys, girls, men and women, fighting, dying and being maimed for life, protecting oil pirates. Yes, so that a handful of publicly traded companies and an even smaller number of billionaire executives can get even richer.At any rate, for added entertainment value, this summer, watch baseball very closely on TV or in person. Particularly watch ball and strike calls. Watch close plays and some that are not so close. Watch key hitters and key pitchers. Watch assiduously and diligently. Watch, also the really good looking females with halters and short-shorts, in the crowd, too.
Watch with an open mind, perhaps if you are a fan of a particular team playing an away game, this will be the time to have pad and pencil available and perhaps Pepto-Bismol, if you are eating chili-dogs and beer. If so, bring a photo-phone, or a pad, writing and drawing paper, to make detailed notes, (and perhaps drawings or photos of the girls wearing those halters and short-shorts, as we have) and mark down also all the bad calls and then figure the percentage that go to the home team. Season long; we got a ratio of 5.6:2.56 (or about 69%) favoring home team.
Watch because you may learn a dirty little secret or two about "Professional Baseball", which few, if any, field managers or players are aware, though they may suspect it from time-to-time, especially when the owners send the trainers boxes of "NEWSPORTS RUB with a New Secret Ingredient that will make the players feel Swell!"
If you are going to fix something, the fewer people in on the "Fix" the less chance of being caught-the umpires are more than enough and even they probably are not clear on what they are being asked to do, because the way it was allegedly put to them, it seemed to make sense. A lot of generals who once served in Iraq, lately probably are feeling the same way about what they were asked to do, and they probably didn't know what exactly is going on either. I'm not even sure the president knows, but I am relatively certain his understudy does. If I had such an understudy, I'd be damned sure that all the Secret Servicemen are on my side, and that I hire someone like Condi Rice or Anne Coulter as my food and drink taster...on second thought, maybe the pope, or Sean Penn, instead.
The alleged smoke screen is drugs, the scapegoats are players which the powers in charge, aided by an anti-minority National Administration-the people who gave us the destruction of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and a bogus war, may well be accessories before and after the fact, helping to hide a massive fraud.
If they really want to increase ticket sales, why don't they ask, Jennifer Alba, Monica Bellucci, and Carmine Electra to create a Supermodel/Actress all star team to play in each league?
The drugs, as I mentioned above, were not all illegal, the one they are trying to hang on Barry Bonds, Bovine Growth Formula, is eaten every day by tens of millions of American, men, women and children, because it is fed to every non-organically raised food chain animal and therefore consumed by everyone who is not a vegetarian in America and I hear it has leeched into our water supply. So, if it carries a criminal use charge, I hope they have enough prisons for 300,00,000 Americans and millions of fresh water fish.
What are the dirty little secrets? Well, one of them may be that there are at least two drugs, which use by athletes, pales that of steroids, they would be Viagra and Cialis.
However, there are allegedly at least two other secrets. One is that some keen-eyed, observers, say that games outcomes are being manipulated. The game being manipulated are: Regular seasons games, League Championship Games, World Series Games and even some games in the school yard of PS-537 on 53rd and Broadway.
Soeaking of games outcome manipulation, several times last season, a person who claimed to be the Commissioner of baseball gained access to the scoreboards and was seen lurking about the scoreoards all day, with collar up, hat pulled down, Groucho Marx glasses, nose and moustache in place; and every now and then he would tiptoe out, change the scores on the score board and dart away giggling, with the numbers he switched for, under his coat. That was his simplistic way of manipulating game's outcomes, but some say he steals the numbers, because he likes to flash them at the hotdog vendor before he leaves the ballparks. To this day no one knows who he really is. Maybe he is Jose' Canseco?
From the evidence I saw, noting ball/strike calls and other critical umpire and league decisions, I wondered who I trusted less, The president of my country, the umpires, or the President of the Board of Directors of the bank in my neighborhood, a guy named Vito The Widow Maker, and his VP, who is his cousin, Daryl, the Donut Dunker.
A fellow I know bet a bundle that the Cubs and the Dakota Buffaloes are going to meet in the World Series in 2007. Of course, when he heard America was attacking Iraq, he also bought Iraqi War Bonds and shorted EXXON OIL at $10.00 a barrel. He has now, between bankruptcy court appearances and his psyciatrist's office visits, become an affirmed Hari Kirschna advocate and can often be seen at airportsselling tickets to the Republic National Convention in 2008 to be held at Dachau and Auschwitz.
For a period in the mid-to late 1990's, it was Sosa and McGuire capturing the attention of America, and pumping gate receipts. Now, I think, it is time for Janet Jackson to be the center of attraction. I thought I was the only person who missed the expose', because I blinked, but honestly I would rather see 1 million naked breasts, than GW Bush's or Dick Cheney's face on TV. I far prefer lust to smirking, hubristic, Avarice anytime.
In the explanation of alleged games outcome manipulation, one must first look to the umpires who consistently make incredibly bad calls and ask, why? Perhaps their dentures are loose or their wives are going through Mid-life crisis? When a man goes through mid-life crisis, he buys a red sport car and dates college cheerleaders, when his wife isn't looking. When a woman goes through mid-life crisis, she discovers her husband's indiscretions and opens fire on him at the dinner table, when he isn't looking.
If incompetence is/was the problem with the umpires, here are four tried and true methods of controlling or eliminating it. The first is retraining, or that failing; suspension or firing of the offending umpires. The third is letting those umpires eat dinner with your wife if she is packing her six-shooter. However, the last is giving the umpires better Vision care benefits packages, so they can buy thicker glasses. However, perhaps the league executives could trade thicker heads for thicker glasses also?
Why games manipulation, you might ask? To keep the home team fans coming back to the games. The TV cable crowd is addicted to successful conclusions to everything that must be why some of them are still supporting the Iraqi war. I hear that those who still support the Iraqi war and the "Surge Policy" are the same people who bought ENRON stock at $90.00 per share and whose parents bought Japanese War Bonds in 1944.
There is nothing as effective as a winning record at home and that is what brings fans back to the ballpark time after time. However, if the team is on a losing streak, for attendance sake, I highly recommend having a MEN's NIGHT at the ballpark with Jessica Simpson as the main attraction.
Baseball, home versus away games, wins and losses percentages may be shifting strongly to favor the home team, no matter how bad they are. However, often, if this theory is correct, perhaps misinforming the umpires as to just who the home team IS might be helpful. For instance, just before a game in St. Louis between St. Louis and Chicago, a Cubs executive could tiptoe into the umpires locker room and casually let it slip that the entire Cubs and Cardinals teams have been traded to each other, so that starting tonight, Chicago is the St. Louis Cubs. Then we'll see who gets the calls! After all, the Chicago Cardinals football team moved to Missouri and became the St. Louis Cardinals a score of years ago.
There may be another monstrous reason why the league is looking for scapegoats to deflect the five-second attention span of most sports fanatics. The racists want a pliable Great White Hope to break Aaron's record, or at least an Uncle Tom, not the likes of Bonds or Sosa, two guys who will speak-out, so they are thinking of nominating another minority player, Winnie The Pooh (who would Break the Bear Barrier, in baseball, as the first bear to play pro baseball!), and the first to chosen Most Valuable Player this year. Well, Racism has to stop somewhere, no?
However, above it all, the major reasons for the sharp increase in long-ball hits, were several:
1)- First, the balls were a made a little differently to encourage long ball hitting. Instead of making the balls round, they made them long, like bananas. This proved to be a conceptual mistake, typical of Neo-con thinking.
2)-The owners were betting that if they had the balls juiced they could offset a player's strike, because if the players were embroiled in a race for home run and RBI records, as in 1991 and 1994, players would opt for immortality and therefore play rather than strike. The owners were wrong; the players went on strike anyway. With baseball, losing credibility the owners opted not only to keep the balls juiced, but also to juice them even more. Sounds a lot like the "Surge" mentality of the Bushites.
3)-Thinly stretched pitching staffs, strained by the expansion of s from 16 teams to 30 teams, and then lowering of the mounds from 18 inches to 15 inches and finally to the 10-inch height, hitters currently enjoy, would give hitters several legs up on pitchers. It did and the percentage of sore armed pitchers straining to get men out, burgeoned along with homerun totals.
Can you even imagine what Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Ralph Kiner, would do with a pitcher throwing off a 10-inch mound, with a souped-up baseball, and umpires squeezing the strike zone? The mounds were lowered when Bob Gibson (a black pitcher) had an unprecedented year (1961 when everyone was hitting homeruns with the frequency of singles) of 13 shutouts on his way to a 1.12 ERA. Great pitching and 1-0 scores do not bring in the crowds. High scores, lots of home runs... and of course, Janette Jackson, do, so they lowered the mound to almost half its previous height. Goodbye low ERA's! I called 1961, The Dave Cash Phenomenon, Season.
What about the contention that steroid intake allowed players to break records? Really? Well, there were a lot of mediocre players who had convincingly mediocre years after taking steroids, so why didn't THEY all hit 73 home runs?
One thing is clear, only a fool or a blind man would have trouble understanding the simplicity of new strike zone. It is simple, like poetry, and a politician's speech, the strike zone was open to each individual umpire's interpretation. No longer. Here is a guide to the new strike zone: If the home team is up, the strike zone is from the top of his belt to the bottom of his belt, and half as wide. When the visiting team is up, the strike zone is from the ankles to a foot above the bill of their caps, and from one foot behind them to the dugout.
Now back to the physical aspects of long ball hitting.
The surge of long ball hitting has more to do with mechanics of the game like ball/strike calls (and several other factors).
Contrary to speculation, by blabber-mouthed, sport, talk-show hosts, steroids and bulging, fat muscles, do not improve the skills for consistently hitting 100 MPH sliders and fastballs, either consistently or far. The skills needed are: Extremely fine vision, like 20/10 or 20/05, superhuman reflexes, and superlative eye/hand (SEHC) coordination, not weight or bulked-up muscles. Bulking up on steroids actually slows neuro-muscular reaction time and makes swings herky/jerky, plodding and inaccurate.
Steroids can make a person stronger, and even make them bray like a donkey, and constantly bump into water coolers, but cannot improve bat speed, vision, or the other requisites, and they, most certainly, cannot help a person hit major league pitching any better or with more frequency, nor can they help a pitcher place his pitches on demand, on the spot more often and with better "stuff".
However, a livelier baseball can cause a hitter to increase his home run frequency about 68%, from one homerun each 21+ at bats to 1 every 6.5 at bats- (Barry Bonds in his 73 home run year). However, if that lively ball hits a player in the head, he most certainly, then may begin to bray like a donkey anyway, and maybe even dress like one, but with a sillier, permanent, toothy grin on his face.
However, no one ever complained about the fact that every single player who ever appeared on a Wheaties cereal box led his league in hitting or pitching, so why aren't Wheaties on the banned list? (Although my cousin ate Wheaties every day for six months, and hit only his shoe size that year, but on the bright side, he never was constipated.)
Bonds intake of Bovine Growth Formula (if that isn't also a fiction), makes him equal to the rest of us (In Bovine Growth Formula intake, at least). As I said earlier, here are Bovine Growth drugs in all beef and most other non-organic meats, placed there by cattle growers with no objection from the government, and in our water supplies as well. If the Bonds ever have another child and it appears mooing then we will know he is guilty, but until then, he is innocent in the eyes of the law, and he is probably innocent anyway. Anyway, I like Barry Bonds, he knows how to handle the press.
A friend who tried steroids and was arrested recently for dressing like an Ocelot and trying to sell celery to a wooden, Tobacco store, Indian, upon St. Crispin's Day.
Thus, the sharp increase in power numbers is due far more to the liveliness of the SuperBall-baseball, the increase in teams in the leagues, thus dilution of available talent, and the lowering of pitching mounds and perhaps to an extra bowl of Wheaties every day, at least it will keep one regular.
The idea that ties go to the runner, may have been the seed for the owners allegedly instructing the chief umpires that ties go to the home team on close calls, and then later amending that to say, as soon as a weakness is spotted in the visiting team, exploit it to the home team's advantage unless we say otherwise, or that failing, start spiking the water cooler and pumpkin seeds supplies of the visitors with Prozac and their towels with Chloroform.
No wonder the league refuses to use an electronic strike zone to call pitches. Doing that would remove game outcome control from the league. The lameness of the excuse, "we don't want to remove the 'human element," is ludicrous. Do they keep the human element by counting the gate and the profits on their fingers and toes, or do they use computers? Or when one of the owners, spends a weekend with his Latex skinned and stuffed, Candy Girl, Electronic full-sized sex doll, why doesn't he use a real human?
Meanwhile, people blame the umpires, who never are fired for incompetence-they, cannot be fired or the fired umpires might expose the "Home-team wins" concept. They are accessories before and after the fact, beside the fact and perhaps, at times, even under it. Besides, who cares?
Is, then, the emphasis upon attacking the players for steroid use, a smoke screen hiding the real (alleged) fraud and the need for an asterisk covering the following periods: 1930, 1951, 1961, 1987, 1991, 1994-2006, all of which were tied to sinking or growing revenues? That fraud was that the owners were paying big bucks to drug the opposing team's Mascots, to walk and quack like a Penguin, thus hoping to confuse and distract the opposing players, however, they were stunned to find that all of the other teams Mascots were penguins, to begin with.
Over the last 45-years, there was increasing power numbers and reduced pitching mound height. This season, they are going to try reducing power numbers and increasing mound height, to at least five feet. This should allow complete, pitcher domination. It would also pose barriers to line drives through the box, which often hit and injure pitchers, but may also cause difficulty in pitchers fielding bunts. I think they would often trip running down the hill.
Now that the owners are aware of the mortality of the game because of several strikes, sagging revenue, burgeoning salaries, and other competing sports, they have a new idea! They have a plan to end strikes and high salaries by training Seals, Walruses and Gnu's to play baseball. Of course, this will not necessarily stifle sagging revenues, but it may stifle sagging Designated Hitter's bellies.
They plan to deal with competing sports by hiring the Mafia to do what they did in the twenties to opposing breweries, which was offering coupons for one free beer with every one a person buys, and then tricking the buyer into drinking effervescent iced tea which looks like beer, but is much cheaper, instead of the free and more costly, beer. That has, however, in tests, backfired because the buyers liked effervescent iced tea so much they began to order the cheaper and better tasting drink, which did not leave the bitter after taste or cause non-stop peeing.
Neo-Con businesses often bring surreptitious corruption to whatever they undertake-witness the Bhopal disaster, the entirety of the War in Iraq and the lies told to get us into it, the No-Bid contract corruption in Iraq, the oil prices in America at $3.00+ a gallon while in Iraq before the war prices were $00.05 a gallon (5 cents a gallon) and right now in Venezuela is 12 cents a gallon, Iraq, and gas per gallon can be had in Iran and Syria, for the price of a Chocolate Bar in the USA. Now the Neo-cons and the fornicating TV evangelists are sweating and wracking their brains trying to figure out, how the Liberals, always get better looking, blond mistresses with bodies that send even Eunuchs into fits of carnal desire.
In baseball, like all other avarice-based ventures, the employees always carry the burden of the blame, and most of the heavier boxes when moving, like the bats and balls, but their bosses, despite their poor choices of female companions, still manage to steal more money than the players make, however, despite their incredible salaries, the players are always wondering why they are broke. Few of them realize they are being paid in Monopoly Money.
I used to have seasons or media passes to both major league parks, but I haven't been to major league sport in nearly 22 years. If I want to watch planned outcomes, I can always watch wrestling on TV, and at least they have great looking girls in Bikini's and you know who is going to win before the match even begins, so you don't start swearing at the Umpires.
Well, I have an old fashioned electric football game I can play whenever I want to get some sports action, if I could only figure out why the little plastic players, who look like He-Men, but take every opportunity to start dancing in circles, arms locked, with each other! Oh, brother, is nothing sacred?
I have an idea I'll send my game to Cheney!
