STICKY DOORKNOBS

16 Reasons to Come Back to Baseball Again

   TEMPE, Ariz. -- With the exception of Florida, I can't think of any other place I'd like to be in March than Arizona.The Cactus League is in full swing out here and over the next few days, we'll be beaming back to Midland videos of players with Midland connections, blogs and photos of the sites and sounds of several of the 11 different teams that train in this magnificent southwestern desert.
   The Reporter-Telegram's Jack Marrion will do what he does best, cover the sport of baseball for the MRT Sports pages over the next few days; I'm privileged just to be out her with Jack putting up what we come across on MyWestTexas.com and covering some of the oddball stuff to be found. Like maybe what's better, a Fried Twinkie or a Fried Snickers Bar? Ah, can't wait to sink my teeth into some real journalism.
   In the meantime, if baseball's offseason soured you, there are a number of reasons to come back to the sport again, despite the drug scandal, the Mitchell Report and Roger Clemens' testimony in front of Congress.
   To hold you over until Opening Day, which this year is March 30, here are 16 reasons to come back to Major League Baseball again. At least in my opinion:

  Red Sox-Yankees: The greatest rivalry in all of sports writes itself a new chapter this year.
   NYY Joba Chamberlin, an exciting new pitching talent, may be one of the funnest to watch.
   Hank Steinbrenner will be an owner to listen to; it's early, but he seems he has a no-holds-barred mouth and says whatever comes to his mind.
   Will this be the Cubs' year? (See "Reasons to Watch Baseball Again" for the last 100 years).
   Can anyone pitch for the Rangers this year? (See "Reasons to Watch Baseball Again" for the last 33 years).
   Detroit could be huge this year.
   Can the Mets overcome their massive collapse of last season? With Johann Santana, what else they gonna do?
   Nolan Ryan is a Ranger again.
   Glavine and Maddux are on the same Braves' staff again.
   The Nationals will be breaking in a new stadium in DC.
   Joe Torre. Reason enough to root for the Dodgers.
   The Rockies were one of the funnest teams to follow last year. How far can they go this year?
  The potential of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
   The Yankees just instinctly know how to create headlines and it is fascinating to watch the fan fervor over the team. A-Rod, Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Matsui all back and ready to challenge the Red Sox again.
   Oh ... and as of today, both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are teamless.
   And finally, we all know we have a drug-free sport again, right? Right? Hey come back ...

BREAKING NEWS

This just in from Capitol Hill ...

Roger Clemens testifies he has never used steroids or hgh.
Brian McNamee says he injected Roger Clemens with steroids and hgh on numerous occasions.

Play ball!

Hang a left when you get to the street with your name on it

Wouldn't it be nice to go to an office everyday that is located on a street that bears your name? Your entire name? And it's actually named after you?

Bearded ladies in the side show

Saturday 5 p.m update

Roger Clemens, stop insulting my intelligence. And stop insulting the intelligence of the millions of baseball fans who pay your exhorbitant and undeserved salary.

It is not time for baseball to move forward as was suggested yesterday. That should be somewhere down the to-do list. Step 1 should be this: We admit that we are powerless over performance enhancing drugs and our careers and reputations have become unmanageable.

Baseball's latest black eye is now a flesh-eating bacteria and it no longer matters whose name is on the list. Steroid use has affected the core of the game and stands to bring it to its knees, hopefully like the strike of 1994-95.

What compounds matters is that guys like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds choose to continue to deny their use, denegrating not only the sport but the intelligence of the fans who once loved it.

Baseball is a shadow of the game it was in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, a hollow shell of its former self after it was entrusted to the current lot of pampered, spoiled children that strap on unis after getting their butts shot full of lies. It is a game business forever changed by agents and lawyers who are the ones that really control this ridiculous and colossal waste of time.

Professional baseball has become nothing more than a circus, a yearly spectacle that sets itself up in the mall parking lot offering fun and games but instead leaving us nauseous and unable to sleep. And so it is a fitting metaphor: Baseball athletes no longer resemble athletes as much as the bearded ladies in the side show. Beefed up human Transformers who seek fame and fortune and glory and millions at whatever the price.

Commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday he would treat players who take steroids as "users," and that will never work because Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and all the others who kidnapped the sports records along the way are not drug users, they are cheats. Drug users are people with a disease who need a fix to attain a high. Baseball players who use steroids are cheats that aren't addicted to a fix, but should be treated as and punished as gamblers. They are attempting to gain an unfair advantage in order to affect the outcome of a game or their personal achievements, and they ruin the very sport they claim they love.

Baseball is no longer about team. It hasn't been for almost a generation. It is about hundreds of "me" 's undeserving of any admiration. The excuse that using is their only way to maintain is a copout and an excuse only the weakest use.

Players will say it is none of our business, but it is our business. My hunch here is that none of them, not Clemens, not Bonds, not steroid-free Chase Utley and Craig Biggo, not Randy Velarde, would play the sport were it not for people like you and me who pay to sit and watch it all. Used to be we could expect to sit and watch a fair fight. Perhaps our fathers saw that and maybe some of us when we were children. Now, we have more of an opportunity to see a fair fight on American Gladiators or professional wrestling.

So how can we continue to love the sport despite the professionals ruining it for us?

Simple. Accept it as it is. It is what it is, right? Let them do what they do best: play a rigged game. Let them shoot up, cheat themselves, their sport, their family, their fans. Consider them no more than cheats. Yank them from their pedestals and let them play their game. Let them risk early death, erratic behavior, abusive tendencies, freakish physical characteristics, sullenness, irritability, manic-depressive type behavior, pimples on their backs. It's their choice, why should we care? They're really only there for our entertainment, to be discarded as we see fit and so choose.

Adjust the price of a ticket downward because what we are getting is not what it once was, nor what we hope it to be every time we click the turnstiles.

Stop selling baseball as a family game. It is not. Not this version.

Publish all baseball record books in pencil so that fans can erase whomever they choose. If they choose to cheat, fans should be given the option of simply deleting from our books those we wish to no longer deal with or acknowledge.

Are we the fan to blame for any of this? Perhaps our misguided desire to be No. 1 has pointed us in this direction. Aren't we, after all, the only society that waves "We're No. 1" fingers at college football stadiums in Waco and Las Cruces just as vigorously as they do in Norman and Austin?

The athlete can point to the fans' insatiable appetite for winning, but it really just comes down to freewill. The athlete makes a choice. It's really about nothing more than an athlete choosing to cheat in order to gain an edge; athletes who should be punished and banned with the same vigor as was Pete Rose.

It's not about you and me. But it can be. George Mitchell and Bud Selig say that it is time for baseball to move forward. But shouldn't that really be left up to us? Do your part. Say it at the gate next season. And for however many seasons it takes.

How to fix baseball forever

There really are only three solutions:

1. Homers become outs.
2. Strikeouts become walks.
3. No more statistics.

You cut those three things out and we rid ourselves of steroids forever.

The World Series may be over, but the sport that never ends isn't

• Maybe the definitive image of the Colorado Rockies, their spirit and their attitude came when cameras captured Matt Holliday -- the best player in the National League, bar none -- was standing in the dugout with his batting helmet on, holding a bat. Holliday had been the first out an inning earlier. It was a 1-run game in the bottom of the ninth. Six batters stood between Holliday and his next opportunity to bat. Not until the Rockies would have loaded the bases with two outs and tied the game at 4 would Holliday had an opportunity to bat again. But he was ready. And quite probably sick that he would likely not get an opportunity to hit again.
• A friend tells me the baseball season is over. Not by a long shot. We'll have two weeks of season-ending awards followed by free agent filings, the salacious free agent shopping season around Christmas and before you know it, the anti-climax of spring training. Baseball never really ends, it's just played indoors during the winter months.
• Oh, and of course we will have Pay-Rod news to deal with all off season now that he and his classless agent Scott Boras chose the ending of the deciding game of the World Series to announce that Rodriguez is a free agent. The timing of that announcement, as Peter Gammons told ESPN, may be a warning sign as to why Rodriguez has never played in a World Series game. Rodriguez should have been an opera star because it really is about nothing more than me-me-me.
• Hand it to Boston. Interesting thing I found when leafing through some very old baseball magazines over the weekend: When the Red Sox won the World Series in 1909 ... all of America was treated to a free taco from Taco Bell.

The Taco Bell World Series

One question: Why would anyone actually WANT a  taco from Taco Bell if someone in the World Series hits a home run? Even if it's free.

Rockies worthy of term "role models"

If you're riding the fence about who to root for this baseball postseason, perhaps this will make it easier for you. Perhaps much easier. The Colorado Rockies made the decision to award the widow and young sons of Mike Coolbaugh a full share of playoff money, even though the former Tulsa Driller coach had been with the the organization for only three weeks before he was struck and killed by a linedrive during a Texas League game this summer. Such a gesture is capable of resurrecting good feelings about athletes. As I understand it, it was a vote taken strictly among the players with no administrative input or sway.

Go Rockies.

In Memory

755

The Hammer.

The One and Only.

R.I.P.

"The People's King"

Every once in a while, an article about a great athlete comes along that deserves attention. Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci wrote a great piece about Hank Aaron in last week's edition and it is worth your time if you're not a baseball fan but especially if you are.

Henry Aaron was and remains an "honorable and principled man" and at least in this fan's estimation, the greatest living ball player we have.

Any doubts, check this stat: Take away The Hammer's 755 homers and the man still had over 3,000 hits. There are more examples of his feats in the article, including his runs batted in record and a truly remarkable stat about his total bases.

But mostly, Verducci's article is a worthwhile read because it paints the picture of Henry Aaron the man. Feel bad for Barry Bonds and what he is having to endure on his way to 756? Just recall what Aaron put up with on his way to 755. Aaron brought nothing upon himself. Bonds has self-induced a great deal about which he whines incessantly.

We may have no better example of a sports hero alive than Henry Aaron and we should relish him while he is still here.

As Verducci says: 756 will not make us realize what a great feat Bond has accomplished. Instead, it will make us appreciate what Aaron went through all over again.

If you're looking for a silver lining around the Bonds' dark cloud, just think about that when Barry  passes "The People's King."