The Cubs, under new management, have been abysmal in 2010. How abysmal? So abysmal I bothered to look up “abysmal” to ensure I was spelling it correctly. The team’s grandest pick-up in the offseason was Texas’ former hitting coach (Chicago is hitting a 21st-ranked .257 as a team this season). They’ve got the third largest payroll in baseball behind the Yankees and Red Sox and three of their four best players this season have been Marlon Byrd, Tyler Colvin and Carlos Silva – none of whom play everyday. It’s abysmal enough that Lou Piniella’s most embarrassing attribute is no longer his old man gut. I mean, look at this picture above. Sweet Jesus, Sweet Lou – try an occasional salad.

I went to my first Cubs game on August 24, 1983 (an almost no-hitter thrown by Chuck Rainey against the Reds) and hundreds since then. I’ve watched thousands more on TV and miraculously, even a few playoff series, but I can’t stand this Cubs team. Can’t stand its attitude and can’t stand another season of losing. I’ve been in the gang for almost 30 years now and I’m considering getting jumped out of it. Blood in, homey. Blood out.

This isn’t about what team I should start following now (although your suggestions in the comments will be considered), this is about severing ties officially. And properly. And if at all possible, appropriately.

Below are 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover 10 ways to end long-standing loyalties to a franchise. Hop on the bus, Gus – we need to discuss much.

__________________

10. Choose your new favorite team, wait for them to play your old favorite team, go to the game, loudly root for your new favorite team.
This one is cold. It takes gator blood to pull off, but if you do it, no one can question a) your seriousness or b) your decisiveness.  Non-sport equivalent: Convincing your girlfriend to bring her sister to the movies with you so she doesn’t sit at home by herself on a Friday night, only to make out with the sister during the movie while your (former) girlfriend is put in charge of refilling the popcorn.

9. Only draft players from your old favorite team to your fantasy team.
If you want to ensure you’ll never enjoy anything about your old favorite team ever again, synchronize their success with the success of your fantasy team. You’ll not only despise the real-life jerks underperforming on the club, but you’ll despise the stupid team you’ve built, the stupid friends in the fantasy league you’re in and the stupid stupids who invented fantasy sports in the first place.

8. Type “I love the  ____________ [your old favorite team] on your Facebook profile.
If there is any place more mean and snarky than the online gamers playing “Call of Duty,” it might just be the comments following someone’s super-positive status update on Facebook. So if you wanna feel real bad about liking a team, just tell your 658 Fakebook friends how great a baserunner you think Ryan Theriot is. You’ll be taken down quite a few pegs.

7. Heckle a player all game long.
About 10 years ago I found myself at a Louisville Bats (former Riverbats) triple-A game in Louisville, KY. Deion Sanders was there recovering from an injury and playing the outfield. There weren’t many people in the stands that day so we we free to roam whatever section we pleased. And we pleased to follow Neon Deion around for the seven innings he played that night. First we were in left-center, then we went over to the third base line and yelled into the dugout. And while I don’t remember what I was drunkenly slurring at him that night, I specifically recall thinking that I can never root for Sanders in anything he does from now on. Not after this. Not now. I had effectively projected King Midas’ touch onto Sanders, except that instead of gold, everything Sanders touched turned into something to which I was disinterested in paying attention.

6. Choose a player from your former favorite team who just left the team – become a fan of that player.
This is the coward’s way out. This is like rooting for the Bulls until Michael Jordan became a Wizard. Then rooting for the Wizards because you’re more of a Jordan fan than a Bulls fan. Then buying a Kwame Brown jersey after Jordan retired. This is like hanging out more and more with your buddy instead of your girlfriend until one day – surprise! – you announce you’re gay.

.

5. Go ahead and bet a substantial amount of  money that your former favorite team will go all the way this year.
‘Cause let’s face it, they’re not going to win. No chance. If there were a chance, you’d still be a fan. But there isn’t a chance. And you betting that there is will make you feel stupid and angry. Why did you just put the money you were saving to buy CSI:Miami – the Complete Series on the Redskins to win it all this year? That’s not going to happen and now you’ll never have all of David Caruso’s wacky puns at your fingertips. Way to go, boner! The only thing you’ll hate more than yourself is the stupid Redskins for not winning the stupid Super Bowl, again! You’ll ignore that team as much as you would a thick girl with a bad personality.

Then again if they win, you’re rich and will probably rethink changing loyalties. Win-win!

4. Give your old team’s apparel to the most annoying kid on your block.
This is all about severing ties, not creating bonds. That’s why you don’t give your old ball cap or your hockey jersey to your sister’s newborn or your cousins toddler. In theory, you like those people and if they like your old favorite team, you’ll never be able to completely turn your back on the franchise. That’s why you find the friendless LARPer desperate for someone – anyone – to pay attention to him. Hand him your Dolphins jersey or your Habs hat and watch him light up. Then watch him go overboard trying to show his new best friend how big a fan he is. Every time you see your team’s colors, you’ll enter a Pavlovian state of annoyance in no time.

3. Wear another team’s apparel when you go out.
In the end, no one really knows what teams you follow in the privacy of your own home. And most bars play multiple games at one time. We are defined by who we wear, Gucci, so use that knowledge accordingly. If you’re meeting a buddy’s friend from out-of-town – wear your Lions hat. Even if you were silent all night, you’ll be remembered as “that Lions fan I met that one time.” St. Paddy’s Day at O’Houlihan’s? Wear all green … and an Avalanche hat. You’ll show up in pictures as the “guy wearing MOSTLY green.” These things define you. Let other people do the work for you. If you want to go from a Giants to a Jets fan (why anyone would want to do that is beyond me), just show up to a few bar crawls in a Jets hat all of a sudden. See how quickly you aren’t defined as a Jet-setter.

2. If you don’t think you’re going to marry the person you’re dating – start attending a bunch of games together.
It’s a tale as old as time, right? “I can’t listen to that song without thinking of her.” “We always used to eat there together.” “Every time we spelunked in that cave, we got attacked by bats.” Common stuff like that. Also common in many relationships is that moment of realization that the relationship just isn’t working. For most people, the realizationis quick, but the action that follows is slow and painful. Awful, really. “We can’t break up over Christmas.” “We can’t break up on Valentine’s Day.” “But Pulaski Day is our special day!” Add your favorite team’s season to that list and take your significant other to as many games as possible. Make it a thing you do – together. That way, when it ends, you won’t be able to oogle Laker Girls without tearing up a little. Not because you’re heartbroken, but because you’re disappointed you wasted so much time on the relationship. Then it’s just a matter of time before you find some other set of cheerleaders to oogle.

1. Google “celebrity _________ [your former favorite team] fans”.
Try it. You’ll run screaming from your computer. They’ll be nothing left from a team that interests you once you see the awful celebrities that love what you once loved. Rod Blagojevich, really? Jim Belushi? Gary Sinise? Pat Sajak? This blows. At least the White Sox have Obama.

______________________

Photos courtesy of Flickr

.
I woke up yesterday morning to a text message from a friend alerting me that the Boss died in New York. I damn near had a heart attack before I realized he didn’t mean Springsteen.

For the 29 years I’ve been on Earth, this has been a point of contention for me. Who is the real boss? James Brown didn’t have to put up with people calling Pete Rose the “Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness.” Michael Jackson never fought Jose Canseco for the title of “King of Pop.” Why should Springsteen have to share the Boss moniker.

I mean, I guess technically he doesn’t have to share it now. But it’s important to distinguish whether the title is now returned in full to its rightful owner, or if Springsteen’s just borrowing a dead man’s nickname for the rest of his life.

Ladies and gentlemen, who do you think is the real Boss? Leave your comments down yonder.

It’s hard to speak poorly of the dead. If for no other reason than because it’s taboo to do so and most people kinda tune you out. You can’t speak poorly of most dead people. Can’t do it. Certainly can’t do it right after they died.

So I won’t speak poorly of former Yankees owner, George M. Steinbrenner III. I’ll speak poorly of his biggest competitors: the Boston Red Sox.

Seven years ago, the Miami Heat retired Michael Jordan’s number during the final game of their regular season.  Not the Bulls. Not the Wizards. The Heat. At the time, it was the only number the team had retired – a number of a man that never played for their team, and in fact, did quite a lot of damage to them over the course of the ’90s. It was pitiful then and it remains pitiful now. How can a team that was directly made worse by a competitor, go on and decide to honor them as if the pleasure of getting hammered was all theirs?

The Red Sox sent out a statement yesterday extolling the virtues of the former owner of the only team in baseball able to make the mighty Sawx feel like insignificant little sisters. This part is somewhat understandable, as it was created on behalf of several Red Sox executives who worked with or near Steinbrenner over the past four decades.

But it’s not just a statement coming from Boston. On Thursday, it’ll be a Statement (note the capitalization of the word). From boston.com:

The Red Sox will observe a moment of silence in Steinbrenner’s memory on Thursday, July 15, 2010 at Fenway Park before the club’s matchup against the Texas Rangers at 7:10 p.m.

What? Oh. Wait … what? No!

Many of you will not care about this, not bat an eye or think this decision odd. But it is. For Red Sox fans, it SO is. It’s one thing to be disrespectful of a dead man. For example, I wouldn’t condone a moment of  boos in memory of Steinbrenner. But to take a moment to show appreciation for a man whom the Red Sox should not and did not appreciate seems hollow. Hell, the Yankees won’t even be there to hear the nothingness. Boston is having a moment of silence for themselves.

Steinbrenner was a powerful and influential man, perhaps one of the most powerful and influential the game has ever seen. He’s certainly one of the most powerful and influential the modern game has ever seen. And he used his power and influence to bring seven World Series titles to the Red Sox’s closest and most obvious competitor. But – and this is very important – for 30 years, the Red Sox hated him for it. It wasn’t until the last nine years that the Red Sox fully embraced Steinbrenner’s philosophy on winning.

So the question here is – just as it was when they hung No.23 in the Miami Heat rafters – why? Just ’cause? Because Steinbrenner is dead now and he wasn’t on Monday? Why honor a guy who only helped your ball club achieve international fame by embarrassing it over and over on national television? The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry may have started lifetimes ago, but it only started getting competitive a decade ago.

Maybe the moment of silence should be for an era when the Red Sox weren’t as full of it as the Yankees.

___________________

Photo courtesy of Flickr

“We’re not really sure how Stephen will fit into our organization,” Miami’s assistant director of player personnel Dickie Montero said on Sunday. “He’s all I keep hearing about over in the MLB and on that basis alone, he seemed to be someone that we are supposed to want on the team.”

The Nationals, who have seen unprecedented growth in popularity in the last two months since Strasburg’s arrival in the league admitted that, while their former star was wonderful for business, he just didn’t fit into the “expected Nationals tradition” adding that the Miami Heat seemed a more appropriate destination for players that “people care about.”

“It’s not unheard of for us to be a popular underdog in April,” Nationals spokesman James Dumpheys said. “But usually by May we’ve reminded all our fans why they hate rooting for us and we go right back to hosting 1,100 hipsters each night who find our team ironic. Strasburg threw our pattern of crippling crappiness out of whack and we had to retool a few things. We think three second-round basketball players in the next few years should bring us back to our tradition of freakish awfulness.”

At the press conference held yesterday, in which Strasburg was introduced alongside the newly acquired “Three Amigos of Miami”: Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James, the fireballer looked dumbfounded and more than a little pissed.

“When they said Miami, I thought they meant the Marlins and I was kind of excited. Then I found out they meant the Heat and now I mostly just want to slap somebody.”

Strasburg added,”I mean, the Heat? Really!? Michael Jordan whomped their ass for a decade and they decide to retire his number for it? That’s weak, bro. These bitches just better stay out of my way.”

Strasburg says he’ll spend the remainder of the summer (which has suddenly become his offseason) perfecting his 100 mph bounce passes to LeBron James’ face.

_____________________

“It was awful, awful. I can’t tell you how awful it was,” said outfielder Cody Ross.

It makes sense for you to assume Ross was referring to having to play in front of only 450 people for most home games, but in fact you’d be wrong. Actually, Ross was decrying the fact that his home field was too damn noisy.

It’s those vuvuzela horns. They done crossed the ocean. And no one is happy about it.

It’s not enough that soccer taught our basketball players how to flop, and our refs how to foul up super important games, now those jerks our ruining the way we make noise.

Ed Rapuano lookin' scrumptious ... and plugged.

From the Palm Beach Post:

“That was the worst handout or giveaway I’ve ever been a part of in baseball,” said Dan Uggla, who wore earplugs. “This isn’t soccer. I know the World Cup is going on but this is baseball.”

“I couldn’t hear myself talk,” said Rays pitcher James Shields.

The horns might’ve cost the Marlins a chance to win.

They lost 9-8 in 11 innings. But with the game tied at 5 in the bottom of the ninth, Brian Barden drew a lead-off walk. But after he trotted to first base, he was called out for batting out of order.

Maddon argued that his lineup card showed Wes Helms batting in that spot. Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez insisted he told the umpires that Barden was hitting there.

Look folks, not to get all “get off my lawn, you crazy kids” here, but this noisemaking for the sake of being loud has got to stop. Clap, scream, go crazy when the situation deems such behavior appropriate. But I gurantee such behavior was not deemed appropriate at an interleague game involving the Marlins in Florida. Just … no.

Umpire crew chief Tom Hallion, however, said noise from the vuvuzelas might’ve caused the confusion between Gonzalez and the umpires.

“It was the most uncomfortable baseball game I’ve been a part of in a long time because of that. Whether that had anything to do with [the lineup card confusion], I don’t know … When’s the last time you heard something like that at a baseball game? Never. You don’t see this kind of stuff at baseball games.”

Honestly, horn blowers, ease off. The umps have enough problems doing, well, anything correctly. Don’t give ‘em yet another way to skew the game’s outcome unfairly.

_____________________

Photos courtesy of Flickr

Dudes on the far right: "The Wave, yes! I love the Wave. Is Barack doing the Wave? Oh, God I hope Barack did the Wave too. I'm just gonna sneak a peek. Hopefully, he's just now sitting down from having engaged in the Wave also. Is he sittin--damn! He didn't do it. Barack did not do the Wave. Ugh! I'm so stupid. Why did I do the Wave? It's so dumb. Everyone knows how dumb it is. I'm gonna start rooting for the Sox just so Barack doesn't think I'm a TOTAL spazz."

This picture tells you everything you need to know about how you see the world. It’s a Rorschach blotting, really. Is this a positive picture of the President not engaging in the wave – a gimmick widely viewed as dumb. Or is this just further evidence that our president is an emotionless automaton unable to connect to most “common folk?”

Or, is this an infuriating picture in which our president watched D.C.’s Stephen Strasburg fan more Sox than an industrial strength clothes dryer instead of toiling away at figuring out how to get money back into our pockets, tourists back onto the Gulf Coast and American soldiers back into America?

No matter how you view this photo, it seems clear Malia’s close to getting grounded for something.

________________

H/T Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via the Chicago Trib

If you’re a member of a team visiting the Cleveland Indians then, first off, I’m so sorry and you’ll be out of Cleveland soon. Second off, what are you doing reading this blog? Don’t you have eight or nine runs to go ring up on that awful club? And thirdly, you probably noticed some sweet Lego portraits lining the walls along Progressive Field’s visitor’s clubhouse.

One of the Tribe’s assistant clubhouse managers, Wayne Peltz, has found his niche creating accurate-ish Lego portraits of both past and present ballplayers (plus Michael Jackson).

Each portrait takes about 2,500 Legos and more than 20 hours to create. To get the likeness, he starts off drawing basic shapes and shades, then uses a computer to finish off the design.

It’s a sad state of affairs that the most exciting hobby in Peltz’s life is not overseeing another few ‘O’s being sewn onto Sin Soo Choo’s jersey, but being commissioned to do portrait’s of frumpy-looking dogs.

_______________________

I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t they give these metal bats dangerous-sounding names? Who’s going to be afraid of a li’l ol’ typhoon? Besides the Bengladeshi in 1970 or the Chinese in 1939, I mean?

What makes people think these things do any damage?

An in-game incident earlier this year left Marin County teen pitcher Gunnar Sandberg comatose for weeks. It’s also forced California legislature to advance a bill halting the use of aluminum bats for two years while high school level governmental bodies a) review the safety of the bats and b) wait to see if the NCAA bans any metal bats upon the 2012 release of test results surrounding bats already on the hot seat. The incident with Sandberg, according to Easton Bell Sports, would have totally happened even if wooden bats were used. I probably don’t have to tell you that Easton makes aluminum bats. Oddly enough, I do feel the need to tell you Easton produced those sissy-looking sticks at the top of this page. Y’know, the ones that are in no way designed to appear intimidating.

The California bill, introduced by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, passed the Senate Education Committee on a 5-1 vote and now moves to the full Senate for consideration.

At the legislative hearing, supporters of the moratorium said metal alloy and aluminum bats make baseballs travel faster and lead to more serious injuries.

Most metal bats are aluminum, but some bats are made of a blend of metals or a composite of metals, resin and fibers. Huffman said that composite bats are particularly susceptible to the “trampoline effect,” or extra bounce, that metal bats provide. He added that over time, the metals can loosen up and provide a larger trampoline effect.

“The hyper-performance of high tech metal baseball bats has gone too far,” Huffman told the committee. “It’s increasing the risk of serious injury and yes, death, for young people and we have to do something about it.”

Bah. That’s what they said about players ingesting steroids. Frankly, I don’t understand how baseball plans to develop and prosper under such stifling growth conditions if it disallows both players and player equipment from developing into hyper-machines.

Surely someone out there is willing to defend the honor of the good ol’ fashioned American metal alloy thunder stick?

“The difference between the two of them … is actually very narrow,” said Rand Martin, representing Easton Bell Sports, a company that manufactures both wooden and metal bats.

“The situation, as tragic as it was in Marin County, would have happened exactly the same way if that hitter had hit that ball off a wooden bat,” he said.

See? And he’s an expert; an expert with absolutely no foreseeable reason to lie other than the fear of losing 50 percent of company profits from baseball bat manufacturing. Any fool can tell you that a tightly-wound ball bounces off a soft wooden bat with the same force as an impenetrable factory-designed composite of industrial metals. I’m serious – ask a fool, he’ll tell you that.

Were the metal sword-wielding warriors in the “Lord of the Rings” calm and collected around the Ents? No. Why? Because wood crushes metal. Tolkien knew what’s up.

But it gets worse. Opponents of the 2-year moratorium argue that, because it’s so much easier to use metal bats, high schoolers won’t be as good if they switch to oppressive wooden models.

“I’m more concerned with the young man at the high school level having the opportunity to play the game,” said Guy Anderson, baseball coach for Cordova High School in Rancho Cordova.

Yup. Just as Gunnar Sandberg had the opportunity to play the game … and now it’s over. How dare we deny the same opportunities to other kids.

I suppose next we’re going to demand that our pre-schoolers stop hitting off tees or that our teenage gymnasts start telling the truth about their age? That’s just not how things are done.

______________________

Houston’s 2009 Defensive Rookie of the Year Brian Cushing was suspended late last week for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy and will miss the upcoming season’s first four games.

Fellow Texas-based athlete, Lance Berkman, took this opportunity to point out the chasm between how baseball players are treated as compared to football players.

The thing is, Berkman is wrong.

“The man’s a beast, I know that,” Berkman said about Cushing. “I didn’t see what he tested positive for. It said he violated the steroids policy. I will say what will be interesting will be to see the reaction because generally when that happens to a football player it is kind of ho-hum.

“You write a story about it and he serves his four games and nobody will ever say anything else about it. If that happens to a baseball player, they want to strike him from the record book. It’s a totally different reaction, and I’m not sure why that is … “

The MLB’s drug policy is to suspend a first-time violator 50 games, second-time violators 100 games and lifetimes bans for three-timers.

When a first-time violator is banned for 50 games, that’s about 31 percent of the player’s 162-game season. As football players only play 16 regular season games, a 50-game ban in MLB is equivalent to a 5-game ban in the NFL.

Is Lance Berkman referring to Cushing only getting a four-game ban instead of a five-game ban when painting NFL reactionaries with the ho-hum brush? Doubtful.

He’s probably referring to the rigor-moral that nips at the heels of marquee players like Manny Ramirez for months after suspicion or suspension. But notice that I added the term “marquee.” There were 23 other players (besides Ramirez) to be suspended in the five years before him. Go ahead and name a quarter of them.

Wikipedia doesn’t count. Close that tab, you’re cheating.

The fact is, the Cushing situation will coax more than a ho-hum reaction out of people – it already has – because … well, because he’s a talented player; a Pro-Bowler; a second-team all NFL defenseman, AP Rookie of the Year (maybe) and because Cushing himself isn’t ho-hum. Neither was Manny Ramirez.

J.C. Romero, on the other hand? Or Jay Gibbons … very little was made about those suspensions and it’s because they’re not marquee guys. After last year’s poll of retired NFL players revealed that 1-in-10 used performance enhancing drugs at some point in their careers, perhaps some of the this ho-hum reaction (if it exists, which it doesn’t) has manifested because, well, such behavior is ho-hum.

It’s unclear from his statement whether Berkman thinks the NFL populace is too lax or MLB’s populace is too harsh. He might be right about either or both, but in comparison to one another, they’re reasonably equal. Yeah, okay, Cushing is going to miss a quarter of his season instead of a third, but either way, he’s been punished.

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the whining apparently.

_____________________

Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Arizona passed an immigration-enforcement law last week making it justifiable for police to stop and demand documentation from anyone they suspect of being an alien “if reasonable suspicion exists” that they are in the state illegally. Already Senate Bill 1070 is considered in many parts of the country a wholly bigoted enactment, of which many throughout the nation have taken to protesting. The rationality behind some of the protests, however, remains suspect.

On Thursday, the Arizona Diamondbacks were in Chicago to play the Cubs. Not coincidentally, a pack of protesters picketing against Bill 1070 were stationed outside Wrigley Field.

… Because Justin Upton helped convince the senate to pass the bill? No? Well, then why the protesters in front of the Friendly Confines?

“The team is an ambassador for Arizona,” Tony Herrera, representative of ‘Boycott Arizona 2010’ said. “And the owner, Mr. (Ken) Kendrick, is a big supporter of Republican politics. This new law was a Republican bill. Until the law is changed, there should be protests.”

There should be protests. Next up should be the one where no one watches the movie “Psycho,” because it was shot in Phoenix and stars Arizona native Anthony Perkins. After that, the nation should turn its back on Jimmy Eat World and the Gin Blossoms, bands both born in the A-Z. What’s that? The nation has already stopped paying attention to them? Well … good.

As far as I can tell Jamie O’Neal’s “There Is No Arizona” is still perfectly acceptable to listen to.

Boycotting anything simply because it is connected to an entire state is a ludicrously misdirected attempt at forcing a repeal. (SIDE NOTE: Can we not agree that if the citizens were to start boycotting everything produced by a state simply because of what goes on in it, hat we’d start with Indiana?) The reasons, in this case, for the protest are also as misdirected in its facts as it is in its philosophy. According to the D-backs’ vice president of communications, Shaun Rachau, Kendrick has publicly opposed Senate Bill 1070 and is one of nearly 75 owners anyway, many of whom have not contributed a penny to the Republican Party.

“The D-backs have never supported (Senate) Bill 1070,” Rachau said, “nor has the team ever taken a political stance or position on any legislation.”

The undertones of bigotry and support of racial profiling enacted in this bill have forced Arizona and many of its public representatives, like the Diamondbacks, into a situation of which they were unprepared and certainly undeserving. Yet that hasn’t stopped citizens like Herrera from demanding satisfaction from such public organizations.

“The fact that Kendrick has supported the Republican agenda is significant to us,” he said. “We’re getting a lot of response from across the country. We’re asking for a meeting (with the team) on May 7 with people who are flying in from across the country. We want to talk to the team, but, you know, they do represent Arizona.”

What are these people jet-setting from around the country planning on asking the team, exactly? I’d love to meet Dan Haren, but not to discuss an immigration law of which he wasn’t a part. This kind of thinking is baffling. Yes, the Diamondbacks are a well-known Arizona-based organization. Yes, part of the team’s ownership has contributed to the Republican party (it’s a moderate red state, don’t forget), but leave ‘em alone. The reality of the situation is that none of the team’s players or staff have any more to do with this situation than private citizens. Yes, I’m sure Juan Guitierrez and Gerardo Parro have opinions on the matter, but what else can they give you? And why is picketing outside Wrigley or Citi or Coors Fields going to stop profiling in the American Southwest?

Americans are finally compelled to action and this is how they express themselves? By boycotting a team on a national level because it falls within the state’s 114,000 square mile territory?

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) has the right idea. Don’t punish things connected to the state, remove things connected to the state. He’s already delivered a letter to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig requesting he move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix.

“MLB has a very loud megaphone,” Serrano said in a statement earlier this week, “and their rejection of Arizona’s action would be an important demonstration to Arizona that we do not tolerate such displays of intolerance in our nation.”

In a similar vein, the World Boxing Council said it will not schedule future bouts featuring Mexican fighters in Arizona. The organization has already gone so far as to have the ban approved by the Federation of Boxing Commissions of Mexico. It will be enacted May 1.

Taking action is a wonderful option empowered to the American public, but there are effective ways to do it and illogically inept ways to do it. Write your local government. Heck, write Arizona’s government. Initiate your time in any of the hundreds of civil rights groups protesting 1070. But c’mon Goofuses, let the players play.

___________________

Top photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via the AP