I tend to watch inordinate amounts of House reruns, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent with Vincent D'Onofrio or rewatch the latest episode of HBO's The Newsroom each time adding an older episode, perhaps from the first season (because there are more of them) to my mini film festival.
But I am aware of Shark Week, it's just not on my liturgical calendar, or doorstep if this story is to be believed. I know people who look forward to Shark Week all year long-not just lawyers, but normal people (that was doubly snarky and I apologize; I'm not backspacing and erasing it because (just guessin' now) I'm not that sorry I guess).
This year, Shark Week began just as The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball declared war on Alex Rodriguez. Notice how I didn't identify him as 'Yankee third baseman, Alex Rodriguez'-mainly because even though NONE of my money was used to pay him, I never thought we should have signed him.
It's starting to look that if This Bud's For You, The Commish, has his way, Rodriguez had better start to believe in reincarnation because that's the only way he's getting back on the field in pro baseball. And I get it, but I really don't.
The baseball I watch now isn't the same game I watched as a kid. I've got Joe Buck and Tim McCarver instead of Mel Allen and Lindsey Nelson (proving not all change is good). The season is longer, the players are in better physical condition and baseball itself is more strategy and math on the level of Game of Thrones (I fell in love with that turn of phrase; I have not watched one frame of one second of one minute of a single episode of that program-it is for me, more Shark Week, but this time in costumes).
American sports has become entertainment and, none of us believe that aspect of any of it is real, so I'm not sure I could or should care about A-Rod and the others PEDarests much less about the 'purity (or sanctity) of the game.' (And you've noticed I'm not hyper-linking these cretins, right? And you know why? Yep.)
I will concede Ryan Braun bothered me a great deal because he dropped the kid from Fed-Ex in the oatmeal last season to save his butt, even though he knew he was guilty of 'cheating.'
He was really guilty of lying and of being a bully who framed a blameless, faceless, luckless, lunchless little guy whom he knew couldn't fight back and I sort of hope a building falls on him which, if implemented across professional sports as a general penalty could signal the start of a resurgence in the construction trades.
But instead, this is for you, Ryan Braun and you, Roger Clemons, while I'm thinking about self-aggrandizing tools and fools (and Mark McGuire, if that's okay with you and especially if it isn't). Just imagine, you cheaters, Jose Canseco turns out to be Diogenes of Sinope. How tragic is that?
-bill kenny
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