March Madness

I’ve never been more excited about baseball in March than I am right now. As I start this entry, the biggest and most obviously fraudulent baseball players of the past 15 years are sweating it out in the Congressional green room along with their sniveling and cowardly commissioner, waiting to be called in to talk about the systematic cheating that has changed the game.

The fraudulent reporters, starting in the early nineties, were writing articles about the rumors of ball juicing. That is how they tried to explain the sudden rise in home runs. Anyone with semi-accurate eyesight, or a simple measuring tape, could see that it was the players who were cheating, not baseball manufacturers.

“It’s not (the players’) game, it’s ours,” said congressmen Jim Bunning in the opening statements of the hearing. Tough talk. I hope it pays off.

As you read this, we’re one day into the big tournament. I’m going out on a limb to predict that the bracket built by my 4-year-old son will beat my own. He has Duke winning it all. I didn’t help him much, outside of filling in the No. 1 seeds to advance to the next round. He broke my heart by picking ’Cuse to lose in the second round, but he’s probably right. He’s not betting with his heart, he’s using pure random speculation, and the odds are in his favor.

By Monday all our brackets will be very messy. Upsets will be the norm this year, as even the best and highest seeded teams are overrated. A major favorite in UNC is coached by Roy Williams, who could never win the big one with Kansas, and consistently failed in the tournament. Duke is falsely inflated, running on the steam of their truly great coach. Illinois is the sentimental favorite, which has Sweet-16 written all over it, but if they get past that round, they’ll have to beat Oklahoma State, which is a sleeping giant that loves to run, and familiar with big-time basketball. Wake is angry, so is Louisville, about their seeding. Emotions are running high, and the favorites are tired. Prepare yourself.

Bunning is talking tough – suggesting killing all the records of steriod abusers. That’s not going to help to get these players to talk, and it’s just posturing. But it’s a strong statement, and coming from a former player. But he was a pitcher, the ultimate foe of steroid users (excepting that horse, Roger Clemens), and he’s also a congressman. So his opinion is mostly meant for soundbites. It will be interesting to see if baseball caves. Commissioners are famous for their stubborness, and Congress is famous for inaction. So don’t get your hopes up. But it sure does make for great television.

The tournament is sure up against a formidable foe in the ratings game right now, but I think that the purity and speed of the youngsters on the court will still upstage the inflated everything of the congressional hearings on steroids in basketball. Maybe if Congress were questioning Rumsfeld about prisoner abuse, things would be different. But right now it’s taking a back seat to the wonder of real competition. The NCAA may be a lot of things, including deceptive, corrupt, and incompetent, but it doesn’t allow steroids, and so it’s still better than Major League Baseball.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:48 AM