While baseball has managed to stay atop American Sports for the better part of one and a half centuries, the fact that baseball has lost some of it's luster to America's other sport, football, is indisputable. When was the last time andybody said anything along the linees of "So and so might have saved football?" Meanwhile, in the late nineties, baseball was in need of saving, and the unprecedented home run battle between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire arrived just in time. Don't let anybody fool you, while baseball's stadiums were and still are getting filled at a very respectable game, the game is nowhere close to where it should be, or where it, for the most part, has been. TV ratings are way down, and even during October, when the football season is still in it's infancy and baseball is in the thick of the playoffs, TBS and FOX recorded putrid viewing numbers, some of which were all-time lows.

          Now imagine a game where pitching is dominant and 60 home run seasons are as unlikely as undefeated seasons are in football. With today's instant gratification mindset and the way fans crave the long ball, the casual fan would be extinct. Now imagine what Bud Selig and baseball's owners were up against when the allegations and accusations came about in the early part of the twentieth century. They could do like other sports and set up a real steroid policy at risk of losing the casual fan base, which would devastate a game already reeling from it's losses to the NBA and NFL, or they could turn the other cheek and hope steroids went away. In hindsight, the decision looks pretty easy to make, but was it, and is it, really so? Selig, as it is right now, has put himself in a position where he has no choice but to beef up the steroids policy and severely punish violaters. Ten game game suspensions will become 50 game suspensions and two time violaters will get one or two year bans. Selig has no choice anymore. By setting up the Mitchell investigation, which finally gave real, documented evidence pertaining to the undoubtebly enormous influence of steroids on baseball, Selig has cornered himself and is now forced to do what he didn't do a number of years back. The question now isn't whether or not Selig will toughen up the doping policies. Rather the question is, will baseball be better off for it?

This is just gonna be a pure rant. Some nutjob called up the MJH(A hell of a show by McNeil, Jurkovic and Teinowitz) show in Chicago and exploded on the radio, and i cant tell you how right he is. The Chicago Cubs suck, their culture sucks and everything else about them sucks. There is something about the Cubs that changes people, for the worse. Lou Piniella, one of baseballs most notorious hotheads, blows up once. And then after his team gets swept in one of the most disgusting playoff performances in baseball history, Piniella shrugs it off and says "This is just the beginning," which is just a different, more elegant way to say "wait till next year." Kiss my #### Lou Piniella. The guy's brain has turned into oatmeal. No manager in all of baseball could botch a double switch like Lou does.
Jim Hendry is a whole different animal. With the Cubs in the thick of a playoff race and on the verge of their first post-bartman playoff appearance, he acquires Steve Trachsel. Steve #### Trachsel. Is Jim Hendry retarded? Bring back a guy that blows like Trachs does for a playoff race? His cracked out minor league scouts and developers havent churned out a good position player in the last decade. Every decent offensive player on that team didnt originate with the Cubs. Jim Hendry can go to hell.
Now to the players. Carlos Zambrano is a freakin nutjob. He drives the Cubs best offensive catcher in the last 15 years out of town. After Barrett was shipped out Zambrano played great and it started to look like Barrett was the problem. Uhh.... no. Zambrano went back to the BB Era(Before Barrett) and pitched like a schoolgirl when the Cubs needed him most. But at least this kid showed up in the playoffs. The same cant be said for pussied like Derrek Lee, Ryan theriot, Mark Derosa, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, just to name a few. Geovany Soto, a chubby rookie in the playoffs for the first time did more damage than Lee, Soriano and Ramirez combined. Thats pathetic.
Derrek Lee sucked. Not just in the playoffs, but in the entire second half. then, after the Cubs go through one of their patented losing streaks, he gets upset at the fans for booping Zambrano. Derrek Lee should eat horseshit. Aramis Ramirez couldnt get one #### hit in the entire series. He gets an extension in the offseason and rewards the team with that??? The guy blows, and losing some weight couldnt hurt either. Same goes for that stupid looking mustache.
This brings me to the most frustrating player since Corey Patterson burst onto the scene, Alfonso soriano. I hope on the first play next season, a fly ball gets hit to him and when does that retarded hop skip to catch the ball, he comes down with a broken ankle. I would sever my own pinkie toe if Jim Hendry got rid of this guy. He looks like he hasnt played baseball ever before. Go back to Japan you ####.
I am sick of Cubs fans slobbering over that David Eckstein look alike Ryan Theriot. I myself fell in love with him but i have learned better now. How a guy with a .270 BA and 330 OPP becomes a god in Cubs lore is beyond me.
If i see Jacque Jones laugh after striking out again, i a m gonna tick that very bat in his hand you know where. If there is one thing hendry can do, beside for ridding the Cubs of Soriano, it is getting rid of this ####. Seven million for 5 home runs????
The only guy that i wont beat up on is Soto. The Cubs recent failure has shed some light on what the Cubs really are. I figured them out. They never win because they dont want to win. If you want to win, you dont swing at 50 foot curveballs. You dont go 0-12 in your biggest playoff appearance of your career. You dont yell at the fans for booing. You go out and win some #### games. If the Cubs cant win games, then so be it. Go ahead and gimme another 100 years of losing. I dont give a #### anymore. I wanna clean house. Just give away the players, i dont care.

With all the lunacy going on this off-season, Chris Carpenter reminds me that there are still some players who love the game of baseball, not just the enormous paychecks that come with it. With many mid to lower tier pitchers signing contracts for ten million a year, Chris Carpenter could have demanded more than thirteen million per year over five years, which is what he got. The guy is a Cy Young candidate year in and year out. He doesnt walk many batters, strikes them out at a great rate, and has an ERA at or below 3 every year, and he decided to stick with the team that he likes for thirteen million. Now thats a team player. The Red Sox paid fifty million to talk to a pitcher who never has pitched in the bigs, and pitchers like Vincente Padilla, Adam Eaton, Greg Maddux, Ted Lilly, and numerous others are getting around 10 million a year. As much as i hate the Cardinals, it is nice to see a team full of good, hard nosed guys who all play hard and reward their team for keeping them around by not demanding too much money.

This time of year is when the inevitable happens. Bad baseball teams' owners down face the facts that their players were not good enough so they fire their managers, all while convincing themselves that a different old man in the dugout will somehow get them that elusive world series victory.

So far, the Cubs, Yankees(reportedely), Nationals, and Marlins have fired their managers. In the Cubs and Nationals case, it is clear that no matter who the manager would have been, there was no way to have a successful season with the players thet are on these franchises.

The Yankees situation was a little different, considering the owner is George Steinbrenner. Georgie strives for protection and since his Yanks were just ejected from the playoffs, he felt compelled to do something and pin this season's failure on somebody, so Torre had to suffer. Never mind that the Yankees couldnt muster up any offense against Kenny Rogers with their all star lineup.

The strangest and most stupid of all decisions was the firing of Girardi. He really did nothing wrong in his short tenure as manager. Jeffery Loria once again helped pull back a franchise that ended the season with high hopes for next year. 

But in the end of the day, the cycle of bad teams firing their managers just does not make sense to me. Basball is the sport where coaching makes the least impact, and winning is almost entirely up to the players and their will to perform day in and day out. Players hit and pitchers pitch, and a manager doesnt really affect that. In basketball and football, at least the coaches have to draw up playbooks and decide how to approach each opponent, a task much bigger than any baseball coach must undergo.

Owners just have to face the facts and accept that they did not field a good enough team to contend and instead of going and chasing managers they should pursue free agents and do their best to change the personell on the field, not the dugout.