Baseball, shmaseball

It's really hard to get into baseball when you hate the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. George Steinbrenner and Ted Turner turned America's pastime into a game for brazillionaires, and I lost interest.

I grew up as a Mets fan, so of course I hated Steinbrenner and the Yankees. It's just expected. Nobody in Chicago is a Cubs and White Sox fan, either. And if you didn't already hate the Braves for screwing Milwaukee over, along came Turner who thinks the government hasn't seized enough of your money for social engineering purposes, and of course there was the obnoxious tomahawk chop and war chant.

So I hate the Yankees and Braves. And thanks to George and Ted using Major League Baseball as their playpen, you can't get to the post-season without the Yankees and Braves hanging around. So who cares, sez I. Who cares?

Funny, I started losing interest in baseball right about the time that Hollywood started churning out the greatest baseball movies ever. "Field of Dreams," "Bull Durham," "A League of Their Own" and "Major League" were valentines to America's love affair with baseball. Then the baseball owners and players flipped America the bird and canceled the 1994 World Series because they couldn't agree how to divvy up our dwindling discretionary income. Many folks came back when they juiced up the players and the ball and the magical 61* barrier fell. I didn't.