professional baseball, san diego, california style

comedy from the start

this is a fitting day for the professional baseball season to open.  april fools day is the greatest descriptive for the baseball team that carries the name of this city.  there was a time when i  was thrilled to be living in a city where there was a professional baseball team.  i was glad that it is a national league team since i prefer the style of play of the national league to the american.  on top of all, it didn't take long for me to go to the ball park to root for the Braves or the Cardinals or even the cubs for goodness sake.  believe me, it didn't take long for me to realize that there was no way i could ever take a liking to these palookas.  there was the left fielder who could not judge a fly ball;  the right fielder had a tendency, or maybe total ignorance, of throwing to the wrong base.  the first baseman couldn't turn a 3 - 6 - 3 double play and the best pitcher on the team had an 80 mile-per-hour "fastball."  let me tell you, that was the team that was.  now that the city has allowed them to swindle some $250 million for a new ball park, it is clear that nothing has changed.  "same old, same old."  
one thing has changed.  i have.  after the first strike of the ball players, i was one of those who stopped supporting the sport.  i am an equal opportunity activist.  i blame the players and i blame the owners and i blame the country's tax system which is slanted more in favor of the owners than of the players.  along with many others, call-ins to talk shows; comments in the newspapers and magazines, i vowed to stop going to baseball games.  i did too.  it's getting worse as the years go by.  i never thought, never, that i would cut off my relationship with baseball.  well, it's almost cleanly severed now.  i did not watch a single half inning of the world series in 2010.  i don't remember who played and of course, i don't know who won.  plus, i don't care.
two things did it: the union and the internal politics of the organization.  even if today is april fools day, and it's traditionally too early for baseball, when i heard the season was on, i had a twinge in my heart.  then i remembered that i am in san diego.  there are but two things that are reviling about san diego -- the padres and the chargers.  i'm still wondering two things about the situation -- how can 70 people be so bad at what they do and still make truckloads of money and how can i go from acrimony to ROFLMAO humor about it?