All Awful - Major League Baseball

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Anyone who knows me is well aware of my love-hate relationship with Major League Baseball.  I grew up loving my Cincinnati Reds and especially The Big Red Machine of the 1970's.  I still remember fondly when the Reds including Pete Rose traveled to Dayton before the season started to hold clinics for all the youngsters playing little league baseball.  Fond memories including numerous trips to old Crosley Field, Riverfront and many of our other baseball stadiums across America. 

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Then the strikes, free agency and runaway contracts came into play. I became disenchanted with the game.  After the third work stoppage and A-Rod's $25 million a year contract, I swore off all allegiance to Major League Baseball.  Then came the steroid era and the lack of testimony by the likes of Mark McGuire.  Sick to my stomach over what happened to the game I loved.  I vowed never to support the game again, in any way, shape or form.  Every once in a while, a glimmer of what I used to love about this great game comes to life.  Once again, Major League Baseball has done its best to lose me again. 

What a week for all things baseball.  Ryan Braun, Mr. Milwaukee Brewers, Most Valuable Player of the National League tests positive for performance enhancing drug use.  Albert Pujols signs a contract for $250 million.  Barry Bonds is sentenced to 30 days house arrest, 2 years probation for his conviction of federal obstruction of justice.  Just the stuff that you want your ten-year old son who loves baseball to see and hear. 

They have destroyed the game that so many of us have loved for so long.  It never stops.  Major League Baseball is a joke.  The money, the drugs and the preponderance of crap has destroyed what was once a beautiful sport.  I have no idea how the game can ever win back fans like me.  I just don't think it is possible anymore. 

There will be more to come for sure.  The Ryan Braun story and his MVP will linger for months to come.  We still have the Roger Clemons story and his lies to deal with.  What happens with the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown?  What records will be counted?  Will the sportswriters do the right thing and keep the likes of Barry Bond out of the Hall?  I'm sure they will! 

Once again, I bid farewell to the game I absolutely love.  Maybe someday, Major League Baseball will find the right course again and turn it around for the millions of fans like me who are so disheartened and discouraged.  I can't even bring myself to return to Cooperstown, one of most favorite places in all of America.