Monday, October 6, 2008

The Truth is Out There

This will be a post that goes in many directions. Stay with me if you can.

Playoffs
I dislike the Cubs, if I had to rank the teams in order of me liking them the Cards, Royals, Red Sox would be 1,2,3. The Yankees, Brewers, White Sox, Astros would pull up the rear. Towards the end somewhere would be the Cubs. The Cubs and the Cards have one of the best rivalries and it is unfortunate that they have not been able to add the playoff intesity to this rivalry as they have never played each other in the playoffs so there is not this intense hatred of them like I have for the Astros.

Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see them get swept, I was glad to see the Brewers get swept, however, with all that being said, I feel your pain Cubs fan. I feel your pain Captain Awesome. The 5 game series is a joke. Baseball is random enough and it is impossible to show one teams dominance over another in 7 games let alone 5 games. So, then only having a 5 game series just ramps up the random meter. Do you want to pick the winner next year when the playoffs start, don't look at the records, don't look at the lineups, don't look to see who has the most dominant pitchers.....just flip a coin.

My suggestion is to just have a one game playoff for the first round. Why not? Heck if you are going to tell a team that they can win their division, have the best record in the league, but yet not have any discernable advantage for doing so and better yet, you better not go on a 2 game losing streak or guess what? You have to run the table to go to the next round. Throw in that there really isn't any difference between a wild card team and a division winner and then why not just have a one game playoff that will increase ratings and bring the excitement of the NFL playoffs and totally just giving up on wanting the best team to actually have a chance at winning it all.

It is a screwy system and it blows.

I'm still glad the Cubs got swept.

Conspiracies

Don't believe everything you read. Do realize that the people who are deciding what you are reading for news essentially have no checks and balances system in place. They can and do literally write anything they want and they will get away with it and they know they can get away with it. I realize if I wanted to I could have become a journalist, I could have went to college and majored in journalism instead of getting my masters in microbiolgoy with an emphasis in molecular genetics, then it would be someone like me, someone who obsesses over goofy things like baseball and politics deciding what you get to read.

Really what difference is their between you and a reporter out there covering the news. Chances are you studied something harder in college, chances are you have more education than them. Chances are you work in an industry where you have to make more decisions. Chances are if you make a mistake you will have to answer to your boss. Chances are you have to be licensed or have some type of professional or governmental organizational backing. Why are they deciding what I get to read? Don't allow the mainstream media to lie to you because chances are you could do your job and theirs.

I understand why athletes get fed up with reporters. They attempt to manipulate the system to make it about them. Don't believe me? How many times have you heard that "this player" or "that player" will have a hard time making it into the HOF because of how he treated the media? I hear it several times each year around All-Star voting time. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
When the "list" of steroid abusers came out several agencies reported it as truth but guess what, it wasn't. Puljos was one of those listed, now maybe he did or maybe he didn't take steroids but that list was a hoax and there was no proof.

This shouldn't happen. They pick and choose the news they think we should hear, they pick and choose the corruption they want to investigate. That's the reason baseball is so awesome and amazing and even with all the steroids still pure. The winner is the one with the most runs. The coaches don't debate each other, there are no stump speeches and there isn't a reporter with some agenda who doesn't understand VORP telling me who he thinks won.

The Red Sox just beat the Angels.

2 comments:

Captain Awesome said...

I prefer to post my opinions anonymously on the web without any checks or balances.

That's the way I roll.

Having said that (and please take into account what Runningman wrote) you can believe everything you read here. We'd never steer you wrong...would we?

Anonymous said...

Most newspapers and news agencies would be better suited to have a blog format. At least they wouldn't be pretending to be something that they are not.