I feel, even for this Red Sox fan, who purchased over $250 of content from Major League Baseball, who in turn, revoked DRM and made his content worthless. BoingBoing covered the MLB DRM fiasco too.

The fact is, DRM is for suckers. It’s BAD for the consumer, and it only benefits the content provider, who rarely has the best interest of the customer in mind. I am a big baseball fan, but thanks to this, I will never purchase content from MLB. Then again, I wouldn’t have anyway if it was tangled in DRM.

Either way, shame on you, Major League Baseball!

The fact is simple: the Yankees first 50 games or so were a disaster. They lost about 30 of them, for one and they looked piss poor as a unit. As fans watched some of the most expensive players in baseball tank, other, smaller, less expensive ball clubs succeeded with young prospects.

Now, I have maintained for about 3 years that the Yankees need to purge some of the their older veteran superstars and invest in some young talent; they have to expect to trade 2-3 years of post-season appearances in order to season their players with experience. But George Steinbrenner wouldn’t ever do something like that. And that is why the Yankees are a $200 million plus club with no ring since the millenium.

As a result, I advocate taking a backwards step for the future of the club. Every dynasty ends and must be rebuilt. Now is a good time to let that payroll wind down a notch.

So, while I think the best choice is to keep Joe Torre, installing another coach would not break my heart. And if they allow Rivera and A-Rod to go, they might as well dismantle most of the core team and start over with your young stars: Cano, Hughes, Joba, Shelley Duncan, Melky, even Jeter. But might as well refresh Posada, Abreu, Mussina, Pettite, Giambi, etc.

Some will say a true fan would never agree to a plan like this, but I would ask them what’s more embarassing: rebuilding, conceding a few years of postseason play, or losing 6 years in a row with a payroll almost twice that of every other team?

Read on for more.

The problem is two fold, I think. First, the people who do the electing, sportswriters, are out of touch with the actual fans of professional baseball. Most fans fall into one of two groups: those who know their crap, and people who know pretty much nothing. Seriously, ask the average fan to name just three people on their favorite team and they will struggle. I’ve tested this.

The HOF voters usually consist of the first type of fan, and they get very technical in their analyses, and often, I believe, forget that the game is for FANS, and that it’s FANS who generate all the money, and FANS who keep the sport alive.

But ALL types of fans know Mark McGwire. “Big Mac” was the sensation of America back in 1998 when he and Sammy Sosa duked it out for the home run title in a famous, season long battle for the better pace. And McGwire is one of the best known players even today. There’s barely a bigger name in baseball; Bonds is more known for negatives today than postives, and no one else is that big: not Jeter, not A-Rod, not Ichiro, Rivera, Ryan Howard or David Ortiz. The only person who you could make a case for would be Roger Clemens. And frankly, I don’t think Clemens popularity amongst the general public, and even the general public fans, know Clemens like they know McGwire. McGwire was the last *big name* in baseball, bigger than Ripkin and Gwynn for sure. Tony Gwynn and Ripkin are ENTIRELY deserving of HOF status and I’m thrilled they made it, but I promise you more Americans — hell, more baseball fans — know McGwire than Gwynn or Ripkin.

Cooperstown is for people who have really made an impression on the game. It’s where fans can go to remember what baseball was like in previous eras. To omit Mark McGwire from the record is to ignore a large chunk of history, even if he HAS used steroids.

Now, on to the second issue: for whatever reason, there seems to be some sort of differentiation between being voted in on first ballot versus subsequent ballots. Sports journalists often feel as though someone who is… I guess… “less worthy” of HOF stature should be denied access right away but voted in in a later year of eligibility.

The reasoning completely eludes me. Perhaps someone is not a hall of famer one year, but then, the next year, is somehow better? Why do people take this so seriously? This is just stupid. Now there’s a backstory to the votes?? Come on!

Seriously, I think if you don’t vote for someone, they should *immediately* drop off the ballot. Either they are a hall of famer or not. You shouldn’t be able to say “last year I didn’t think they were good enough, but now they are.” That’s hypocracy. And it’s just plain old dumb.

I think that the Baseball Hall of Fame election system needs a shake up, something to revitalize it. The current voters have proven themselves to be irresponsible, inconsistent, and out-of-touch.

But Rogers did, I think everyone agrees. And the commentators discussed it for some time.

Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, a seasoned vet who should’ve known better, didn’t argue the call. He didn’t make an issue. He should’ve. This is the World Series, for crying out loud. He could’ve gotten into Kenny Rogers’ head. This is a guy known to lose his temper – once on field last year, and then later *in a police station*! So messing with him may have had a big effect.

Instead, LaRussa let it slide. It’s a well established fact that he’s a close friend of Tiger’s manager Jim Leyland. So that may have had something to do with it. But I don’t think so. Here’s my theory.

LaRussa was manager of the Oakland A’s in the early 90s. In the early 90s, the Oakland A’s were host to two young stars you may have heard of: Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.

Canseco, we now know, is one of the biggest juicers in all of baseball history. And McGwire, whose 1 homerun per 11 at-bats in his HR record-breaking year was as unbelievable then as Bonds’ streak is now was – not too long ago – telling Congress “I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to talk about the present” which is about as close to an admission as we could’ve expected.

By the way, smart move laying low for awhile, Big Mac. Your HOF bid is much stronger without you fucking it up by showing your face before this nonsense is settled.

Point is – LaRussa managed two major stars, likely in their steroid prime. Two cheaters. Under his nose.

Then there’s pitchers and pine tar. We all know it happens, every baseball fan knows it. Applying a little pine tar to your hand/the ball means a pitcher can create a little bit of stickiness on the surface of the leather. In cold weather especially, much like the other night, when a pitcher’s hands are getting chilly and the fingers are numbing up around a cold leather baseball, a droplet of pine tar can mean the difference between a wild pitch and a perfectly controlled strike. But usually, it’s the difference between a pitch in the batter’s reach and precise control. Enough to make a big difference.

LaRussa not making an issue means one of three things: either 1) his guys were doing it too, and he couldn’t risk anyone looking into it; 2) everyone’s doing it, and opening this can of worms makes it the 2006-2007 version of the steroid scandal, or 3) he’s simply an idiot, whose negligence probably cost his team a win in the Series.

At best, a manager of a world series caliber team is a schmuck who is ok with cheating. At worst, baseballers as a whole are ok with cheating. And as a baseball fan, I fear it’s the latter. I think people involved in baseball have come to accept cheating as part of the game. When Gaylord Perry did this crap back in the day, he was punished. When it’s done today, it’s overlooked even by skilled and experienced managers.

This is really a shame. I really don’t care much about Kenny Rogers or this incident, but I care about the integrity of American’s pastime. Frankly, I think it’s in the shitter. No one believes that the players are honest; rather, they view them as money-hungry cheaters. Nearly every record in the record books from the last 15 years is suspect to me now. The Pete Rose fiasco is more excusable than most of the infractions we regularly forgive/overlook today.

When Tony LaRussa failed to go apeshit over the obvious pine tar in Rogers’ palm, and worse – reaffirmed his decision in post-game press conferences – he killed a lot of my enthusiasm for baseball in one fell swoop.