November 1, 2001 (idea)

Today I waited in a doctor's office, and, of course, the T.V. drolled out yet another baseball game. I detest professional baseball, and I don't hide that fact. Watching someone else play baseball is like watching paint dry. I'd rather see 24-hour bowling coverage than a single minute of professional baseball.

What really struck me, though, was how much patriotism was being displayed before, during, and after the game. Now, I serve my country every day, and I am all for promoting patriotism in the U.S., but what I see going on in professional baseball makes me sick to my stomach. They are using what happened for publicity!

First, it's "Oh, we just can't play ball so soon after the WTC tragedy, it would be unpatriotic." Next thing you know, they are making a huge production about how patriotic baseball is. Before they played, they had Lee Greenwood(!) come out just to introduce his song, which they played in the stadium. Here is why it angers me: this is the same league that went on strike for 234 days in 1994 because they thought they weren't being paid enough! Risking the foundation of "The Great American Pastime" simply for greed. They made Americans look like chumps. The other example that comes to mind: Rosanne Barr went out and butchered the The Star-Spangled Banner, grabbing her crotch in the process, and yet she made it out of that stadium alive. The baseball players at that game should've been passing out the bats to the audience as they charged down from the stands to lynch her right where she stood, if there were a patriot one among them.

So I think that if Osama bin Laden and a professional baseball player were standing side by side, I'd spit on the baseball player first.