Is It Over Yet?

"I hate this time of year. I watch every baseball game with a level of anxiety that makes no sense to me. Each game is a reminder that there are only a few more left. I find myself rearranging my schedule to watch games late in the season that I couldn't be bothered with in July. I keep my Devil Rays tickets and go to every game in the last home stand."

I wrote this passage in a blog in October of 2007 and it pretty much echoed my feelings about the end of every baseball season since I was a boy. The last game of the World Series marks a time of sadness in me. It is over!    

It's just not the same this year. This year I just can't seem to want it to be over soon enough. I have even started to study the NFL stats. I have learned about all the new players on the Lightning roster (and there are a lot of them). I have tried to determine how the Celts will do without James Posey. This is completely different than it has been for the past fifty years. Last year, it wasn't until the World Series was over that I realized that the Patriots were undefeated.   

I started asking myself why this season is so different. After all, I have a team in the World Series. I have followed the Tampa Bay Rays since they were playing catch before the first pre season game. I have witnessed one of the most incredible turnarounds in the history of sports and it happened in a sport that I have loved all my life; and I saw a lot of it first hand. Why do I feel so indifferent about the final outcome of the World Series and just want it over so I can move on?  

1.      I think that there are a number of reasons for my feelings. First, was the series the Rays played with my beloved Red Sox in the ALCS. Even though I wanted the Rays to win, it was extremely difficult to root against the Red Sox.   

2.      I was disgusted with the coverage Manny Ramirez and (although not so much) the Dodgers were getting in the playoffs. Many were making a hero out of a guy that quit on his team and that goes totally against my sense of sensibility.   

3.      Not knowing who was covering the games and what channel they were going to be on was a pain in the ass. Having to listen to broadcasters who were learning on the fly about the teams that were playing was distracting as hell. I never heard so much bad information over the air as I heard in the first two series of the playoffs.    

4.      Not having Kalas, Remy and Staats to the TV broadcasts sucked. These were the guys who escorted us through the regular season and come playoff time they are just discarded.    

5.      Having to listen to Chip Carey, Tim McCarver, Joe Morgan, and all these other yahoos call the games was distracting with their incessant ramblings about things that just don't matter. And the fact that they were talking to me, the viewer, like I didn't have a clue as to what was going on was insulting. I felt as though I was listening to a democratic politician telling me that I just didn't understand and that what they were doing was for my own good. 

6.      Coming to the realization that the game doesn't matter nearly as much as the Networks wishes. For God's sakes, it is snowing in Philly today! Why are we still playing baseball? I have already started taking down my Christmas decorations from the rafters and we are still playing baseball.   

7.      The umpiring has been absolutely atrocious in all the series that have been played. I have now become an advocate of replay. It has become obvious to me that the umpires are not qualified to have the final decision at any point in a baseball game. It appears to me that tenure in the umpiring profession is stronger than tenure in education. It doesn't seem to matter how well an umpire does his job, just how long he has been doing it. Maybe that is why I still have to listen to Tim McCarver.

8.      If this Ball/strike box that the networks keep showing us              accurate, why do I need an "opinion" from an umpire to make the final call? Why should he do anything more than hold the ball/strike counter in his hand and look for obstruction calls?

Major League Baseball needs to take a look at this stuff. The World Series is going on and this should be the pinnacle of the baseball season. This should be the greatest show on Earth. This should be the "can't miss" event of the year. But what it seems to be turning into is something to click onto during the commercials of Two and A Half Men just to catch the score.