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Lists about negativity are way easier to come up with, especially when it comes to complaining about baseball.  I personally still think that MLB is the best sport and it’s my favorite, and I think often times it gets unfair treatment that isn’t given to other major sports (steroids, exclusivity on packages, etc.).  In fact, just for that, next week’s list will either be the best things about baseball or the biggest double standards when it comes to comparing baseball to other sports.  But until then, it’s time for some complaining.  Here are the worst ideas baseball has had since the 90s.

7. Day Off After Opening Day
Finally, after suffering through the winter and pretending to have your own fantasy NBA team to get through the worst months of the year, you have baseball!  And after Opening Day, clearly one of the best days of the year, you have…nothing.  I guess the reasoning is in case there is a rainout they can make the game up the next day, but Opening Day should not be simply a tease that you have to wait 48 hours to get your next fix.
 
6. Keeping Bud Selig as commissioner
Most of these ideas came from him, especially if you believe in “the buck stops here.”  I’m not as anti-Bud as many other people are, but some things he says in interviews absolutely is maddening.  For example: in a discussion about why the team with the best record in the league can’t get home-field advantage in the playoffs and World Series, he says that it’s because of “travel concerns” with respect to getting hotel rooms and transportation.  What?  Sometimes the LCS ends on Thursday and the World Series begins Saturday…so you don’t know where the first game of the World Series is going to be played two days before.  If you’re going to lie, at least have the lie make sense.
 
5. "What a Game!" Ad Campaign
This was back in the mid 90s when baseball was facing its “identity crisis” and had to reach out to new fans, and try to make the game seem hip.  They produced a series of annoying commercials with the tagline “What a Game!”  They were incredibly lame.  Some of them featured bands singing Take me Out to the Ballgame, including one version by the Goo Goo Dolls that threatened to become the worst rendition ever played.  Worse yet, it got about a 6 times per game rotation.  Baseball was never and is never going to be known as a hip sport because of how slow it moves and the fact that there is a lot of standing around.  Its appeal is in its second-to-none live experience, history, strategy, and stats.  Thankfully, they have kind of figured that out since this abomination of a campaign.

When the camera panned into the New York Mets dugout during last night's game, viewers were offered up a glimpse of a true icon in the sport of baseball.  We speak not of Carlos Beltran or David Wright.  Not Johan Santana or Francisco Rodriguez.  We are speaking of backup catcher Henry Blanco and more specifically, Henry Blanco's hair.

Known affectionately by some fans as Hank White, Blanco has spent 12 years in the league and played for 8 teams.  To each of those teams he brought one unforgettable trait - his mullet. 

Unlike some of his counterparts throughout Major League Baseball, Blanco's mullet isn't simply a gimmick.  He's not doing it to lighten up the clubhouse or sustain a hot streak.  Henry Blanco doesn't have hot streaks. 

At age 38, what he and his hair have is longevity. Through his career, his curls have seen it all. 

Opponents have attempted to touch it during a game...



Companies in his native Venezuela have sponsored it for international exposure...

For the second year in a row, our own Matt Sebek dedicated a few words to poking fun at the annual “Border War” softball battle between US and Canada.   And for the second year in a row, the comments section promptly blew up into an all out verbal melee between two groups – people who think men’s softball is a glorified rec sport and people who defend it as a legit sport capable of generating big dollars for the best players. 

The column also made its way over to a few softball-specific message boards and got mixed reviews from those dedicated enough to browse softball-specific message boards.  Some of the reaction was negative…

“A couple of the captions for the pictures are funny but this guy clearly has never stepped on a field.”

“Kind of like the guy that walks around the playgrounds in the afternoon but never gets on the slide.”

“Can someone find this guy and punch him in the mouth please?”

And some appreciated the column as simply a celebration of the absurdity involved in making adult men’s softball into an international competition airing on ESPN…

“You have to understand that this is the view of the majority of people that don't play softball. Take it for what it is, I did find most of his statements pretty funny. You have to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes....”

“If anybody was offended by the story...then my friends, you need to get a life. That was some funny shit.”

“Not really offended, it did make me laugh though”

But without a doubt the most entertaining of the reactions came on our very own pages.  And though we recognize that it is a demonstration of the self-serving media habits we often mock , we felt that on this one occasion needed to dedicate space to provide a recap of the events.

So for those who choose not to read through 195 anonymous comments, we have taken the liberty to give you our Top 5 (spelling errors left in for effect):

[As we recover from the 200 comment softball extravaganza article from Monday, enjoy a column that originally ran on JSF this past October.  We'll be back with new material this afternoon]

The Hit Man.  Black & Blue. Bash Brothers.  Land of Boz.

The names of the classic 80's sports posters pretty much stand on their own even decades after they first came out.  Most sports fans from the era can distinctly remember the ridiculous gimmick posters that adorned bedroom walls from coast to coast, if for no other reason than because they serve as indisputable proof that professional athletes at that time had no issues dressing up like complete clowns for a little publicity.

You need me to dress up like Freddy Krueger for a "Nightmare" poster?  No problem. Want me to act like a robot next to a sign that says "See Dick Run"?  Just tell me when and where.

Most of the credit for the memorable posters of the 80's goes to a company called Costacos Brothers which produced the large majority of these masterpieces. Contrary to what may be common perception, they didn't simply stop making them once it became uncool to sell giant pictures of players holding toy uzis to hang on kids' walls.  Costacos Brothers continued to pump out posters long after the people my generation were forced to take them down from above their beds by the pressures of society (aka their wives and/or girlfriends).

And when you have a track record of posterizing players for thirty plus years, you're bound to have a few swings and misses along the way.  Not every hot prospect turned out to be a big timer.

Thanks to a site called sportsposterswarehouse.com, we happened to stumble upon some of those Costacos Brothers products that inevitably lead to questions as to what the hell their research department was thinking when they selected some of their subjects...

We're not sure how or why it happened, but for the second year in a row, a United States (Adult Male Slow-Pitch) Softball Team game was televised on ESPN.

As was the case last summer, the game was slipped into the ESPN rotation on a lazy Saturday afternoon.  And, per the usual, the United States team played Canada in a game entitled "The Border Battle".  Apparently, those are the only two land masses that recognize adult slow-pitch as a national sport  - and we here at JoeSportsFan could not be more grateful.

Our pictorial recap of last year's affair proved to be one of the most-trafficked (and hastily-commented) posts in our existence, so we thought we would give it another go.

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Advertising to Target Markets: Advertisers for this event know their target demographic...

Those that like adult slow-pitch softball, buying their own hardware and mowing down a meat sandwich wrapped in buns made of fried chicken.



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Dare to Dream Big, Kids: This is Rusty Bumgardner of Team USA, as if you didn't know that.  He flat out rakes and has one heck of a adult film name.

And look at that form; it's damn near perfection.  Hands below the belt, eyes affixed at the apex of the pitch arc, and an impeccable front-leg kick.  Oh, and an arm guard.  Don't even try to bust Rusty inside.



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Proper Softball Head Gear: With a victory for the United States team last year, it was time to up the ante.  Apparently, in adult mens softball, that's accomplished by a pitcher sporting a face shield.  Stroke it up the middle if you please, Canucks.  Our pitcher comes equipped with his son's paintball helmet.

And eyeblack underneath.  Fear him.



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