Shedding Light on Baseball's Dirty Secret

By Jose Salviati Thu., Jun. 3 2010 at 12:37 PM

Categories: Your Anaheim Angels of Anaheim

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Dear Mr. Selig,

Good morning, Mr. Commissioner, it's me, the voice of all baseball fans! I've been whispering in your ear for some time but you have managed to tune me out more often than not. That ends now: the rumble you hear is the dissatisfaction with the status quo that you have it in your power to change.

No, Mr. Selig, this isn't about the "Steroids Era" that you expertly maneuvered the game through. It's not about baseball's handling of the human traveling circus act that is Jose Canseco. This isn't about Griffey asleep during the sixth inning or even Leyland lighting up in the dugout.

This is bigger.

It's about the weird, obsessive love affair the game you lead has with human error.

If ever there has been a more dysfunctional relationship in sports, I don't know about it. Chipper Jones' illegitimate child, nah. The McCourts' messy divorce, fergettaboughtit. The number one worst pairing in all of sport is baseball and human-error.

Sure, it's cute when the ump misses a call at the plate when a team is already losing 9 to 1. Fans even managed to look the other way in the playoffs last year when Joe Mauer hit a ball down the line that was fair by three feet but somehow, inexplicably, was called foul by the ump who was standing a few yards away.

However, it's not cute when perfection is on the line, Mr. Selig.

I was at dinner celebrating my son's 12th birthday when I first began to realize it was going to be a rough day for you. I managed to get a pretty great seat right next to the birthday boy and with a nice view of the Angels game. I glanced over when I could, excited to watch the Angels beating the Royals and inching closer to .500.

Pretty good day filled with family, free dessert, birthday-song-singing and baseball. I knew something was up, however, when the Angels game kept showing Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers jumping up and down on what looked to be a close play at first.

Wait, the Angels are playing the Royals, not the Tigers. . . . What's going on?

Well, we all know now, don't we, Mr. Selig? Your game is busted. The weirdness that is baseball and human-error were caught in a very uncompromising position and it's flat-out embarrassing.

It's one thing to cost a team a run in a blowout game. It's another to cost a team a double in a playoff game that may or may not have resulted in momentum for one team over another. When you are one out away from doing something only 20 others have done in the greater than 100-year history of the game, its another thing altogether.

Mr. Selig: WTF?

This has to stop and stop NOW. This is stupid, it's unimaginable, it's incomprehensible . . . it's, in your power to stop.

Which leads me to the reason I'm writing today. I have your to-do list ready and wanted to share it with you. It's simple, really . . .