| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Take Me Out of the Ball Game
"It's entertainment. It will come back. A lot of companies
go on strike, not just baseball. And people still ride the
bus."----Barry Bonds, major league baseball player.
People still ride the bus? Bonds is never going to be
credited with Churchillian elocution in his communications
with the world. (I'm not even sure he can be credited with
having a high school diploma.) Was he trying to say that when
bus drivers go on strike and then go back to work, people
always return to ride the buses? Was he attempting to make
some sort of logical analogy with the situation in baseball,
which is that yet another strike appears to be likely next
month?
A lot of companies go on strike, he says. How many go on
strike where the average laborer makes $2.4 million a year?
I've got news for Bonds. Most Americans neither understand
nor sympathize with the concept of millionaires on strike. You
want to risk destroying Major League Baseball? Then go ahead,
go on strike one more time and let's see how fast the fans come
running back this time.
In the minds of most Americans, when you say the word
"strike" it conjures up images of crusty blue-collar workers
carrying picket signs outside a factory, fighting for a living
wage and/or decent and safe working conditions. What it
doesn't conjure up is images of disgruntled multimillionaires
who see themselves as oppressed, but who are paid obscene
amounts of money to live a life that 99.99 percent of us can only
dream about.
If you're a baseball fan and you're not particularly amused
by the prospect of another work stoppage, at least you can get a
few belly laughs from more verbal inanities by Bonds in a
recent Washington Post interview, like this one: "If you have
kids who might grow up to be Major League Baseball players,
we're fighting for your kids, possibly."
Well, how do you like that? He and his millionaire pals are
fighting for our kids! I'm speechless. Please, give me a moment
to compose myself. . . Alright, I'm okay now, I think. . .
If this guy couldn't play baseball, or some other
professional sport, you have to wonder what in the world he
would be qualified to do. They're fighting for our kids? Since
only about one out of a million of our kids are ever going to
become major league baseball players, I'm having a hard time
feeling all warm and fuzzy about the players' generosity.
What about all the kids who would simply like to be able to
attend a game but can't afford to because overpaid cretins like
Bonds have driven ticket prices into the stratosphere?
So what is it that causes these noble players to go on strike
every few years so that our kids, when they become major
leaguers, won't be the economic equivalent of indentured
servants? It's their opposition to things like salary caps,
revenue sharing and drug testing, all of which exist in other
major sports and haven't created undue problems or robbed
players of their precious millions. In other words, they have no
legitimate beef. So let's get back to more entertainingly
cerebral quotes from Bonds.
"It's not my fault you don't play baseball. It's not our fault
you're not an actor or Bill Gates or anybody else. Nobody is
complaining about their salaries or the owners' salaries. So
don't complain about ours. We have the right to make it."
What an absolute prince of a guy. It's not his fault if the
vast majority of us are a bunch of losers who have to toil a
whole year to make as much money as he makes in an
afternoon. If we can't make a tiny fraction of the money he
makes, even though many of us perform difficult jobs that are a
thousand times more important to society than swatting a
baseball around, too bad. We need to quit whining and get on
with our pitiful little lives.
I think we can all agree that Barry Bonds is not the man
Major League Baseball is looking for to be its chief public
relations spokesperson. It's sort of like Osama bin Laden's PR
job for Islam--the results have been less than stellar.
People still ride the bus, huh? That's because most of them
don't have much of a choice. But people who attend baseball
games sure do.
"It's entertainment. It will come back. A lot of companies
go on strike, not just baseball. And people still ride the
bus."----Barry Bonds, major league baseball player.
People still ride the bus? Bonds is never going to be
credited with Churchillian elocution in his communications
with the world. (I'm not even sure he can be credited with
having a high school diploma.) Was he trying to say that when
bus drivers go on strike and then go back to work, people
always return to ride the buses? Was he attempting to make
some sort of logical analogy with the situation in baseball,
which is that yet another strike appears to be likely next
month?
A lot of companies go on strike, he says. How many go on
strike where the average laborer makes $2.4 million a year?
I've got news for Bonds. Most Americans neither understand
nor sympathize with the concept of millionaires on strike. You
want to risk destroying Major League Baseball? Then go ahead,
go on strike one more time and let's see how fast the fans come
running back this time.
In the minds of most Americans, when you say the word
"strike" it conjures up images of crusty blue-collar workers
carrying picket signs outside a factory, fighting for a living
wage and/or decent and safe working conditions. What it
doesn't conjure up is images of disgruntled multimillionaires
who see themselves as oppressed, but who are paid obscene
amounts of money to live a life that 99.99 percent of us can only
dream about.
If you're a baseball fan and you're not particularly amused
by the prospect of another work stoppage, at least you can get a
few belly laughs from more verbal inanities by Bonds in a
recent Washington Post interview, like this one: "If you have
kids who might grow up to be Major League Baseball players,
we're fighting for your kids, possibly."
Well, how do you like that? He and his millionaire pals are
fighting for our kids! I'm speechless. Please, give me a moment
to compose myself. . . Alright, I'm okay now, I think. . .
If this guy couldn't play baseball, or some other
professional sport, you have to wonder what in the world he
would be qualified to do. They're fighting for our kids? Since
only about one out of a million of our kids are ever going to
become major league baseball players, I'm having a hard time
feeling all warm and fuzzy about the players' generosity.
What about all the kids who would simply like to be able to
attend a game but can't afford to because overpaid cretins like
Bonds have driven ticket prices into the stratosphere?
So what is it that causes these noble players to go on strike
every few years so that our kids, when they become major
leaguers, won't be the economic equivalent of indentured
servants? It's their opposition to things like salary caps,
revenue sharing and drug testing, all of which exist in other
major sports and haven't created undue problems or robbed
players of their precious millions. In other words, they have no
legitimate beef. So let's get back to more entertainingly
cerebral quotes from Bonds.
"It's not my fault you don't play baseball. It's not our fault
you're not an actor or Bill Gates or anybody else. Nobody is
complaining about their salaries or the owners' salaries. So
don't complain about ours. We have the right to make it."
What an absolute prince of a guy. It's not his fault if the
vast majority of us are a bunch of losers who have to toil a
whole year to make as much money as he makes in an
afternoon. If we can't make a tiny fraction of the money he
makes, even though many of us perform difficult jobs that are a
thousand times more important to society than swatting a
baseball around, too bad. We need to quit whining and get on
with our pitiful little lives.
I think we can all agree that Barry Bonds is not the man
Major League Baseball is looking for to be its chief public
relations spokesperson. It's sort of like Osama bin Laden's PR
job for Islam--the results have been less than stellar.
People still ride the bus, huh? That's because most of them
don't have much of a choice. But people who attend baseball
games sure do.