I sure as heck didn’t realize that the MLB season started yesterday, did you?  Well it did…for two teams at least. To my surprise, yesterday, when I was clicking around the interwebs, I saw a box score showing that Seattle beat Oakland, 3-1, and now is the only team in baseball with a win because that game was a regular season game. Like a full on regular season win. In March.

What?

Oh, see, Bud Selig, in all his genius,  thought that this year would be the fourth time in history that the Major League Baseball season should open up in Japan. They call the series the “Season Opener” (not exactly the same ring as Opening Day but who am I to complain, huh?) and the first game wasn’t even nationally televised, unless you count MLB’s own cable network MLBN if you happened to be lucky enough to have it and to be able to skip work and tune in at 9am on Wednesday. To be honest, i’m not even sure if they advertised this game anywhere because I sure as heck didn’t see anything for it.

I mean, I am all for spreading the game of baseball around the world and yes, the Mariners are owned by a Japanese company (Nintendo) but c’mon, shouldn’t the first game of the 2012 season have a little bit of fanfare  and especially be in its country of origin? ESPN’s own website still has a countdown to MLB’s Opening Day for crying out loud.  How can we have Opening Day now that the season is already WIDE FRIGGIN OPEN? No other American sport starts its season out this way and I would venture to say there is a BIG reason for that…because it is stupid.

Oh and what else makes little sense about this series? The games are considered home games for Oakland, aka “The team not owned by a Japanese corporation“, aka “The team  no one in the crowd is rooting for because they are not owned by a Japanese corporation and are without a national hero in Ichiro that the entire crowd loves and reveres“,  meaning they lose two home games in Oakland this season.

Yeah that is fair, huh? Couldn’t make this imaginary home series for Oakland an imaginary home and away series for both teams? Just to even things out a little? Just a little?  No, no of course not, that would make WAY too much sense.

Then again, I don’t often expect MLB to make much sense anymore…I mean home field advantage is still tied to a stupid All-Star game.  Ugh.  Now, there is a whole other rant…

We’re not sayin’, we’re just sayin’. Baseball fans still don’t know why Ken Griffey Jr. was crying in the locker room. If we had to make an uneducated guess, we’d guess that Mariner Moose had a hand in it.

Moose experts warn that people should keep their distance from moose especially when they’re in heat. Mariners fan Victor Aguilar found this out the hard way after he had his ass handed to him in a sack by the Moose.

Aguilar attempted to get a picture with the Seattle mascot but claimed that he received a beatdown instead.

“I was going to go like this (showing an embracing arm) to take a picture with him (the Mariner Moose) when he pushed me out of the way, and hit my arm and neck, and hit my stomach,” he said.

The Moose then walked off, Aguilar said, leaving him and those around him completely baffled.

“I was like, ‘What’s going on?’” he said. “There were more people there, and they were like, ‘What’s his deal? Why’d he do that to you?”‘

Aguilar wants the Mariners to pay the medical bill that he incurred after the alleged incident. He also wants the Moose to be disciplined. I’m no moose farmer or anything but I’m pretty sure you don’t discipline a moose. Quite the opposite. He should have watched “When Moose Attack” or read “What To Do About Aggressive Moose” from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You step to a moose and you get dealt with. That’s how it do in the Emerald City. Forget Jesus. Nobody fucks with the Moose. That goes for first ballot Hall of Famers too.

So I think it’s safe to say the 2010 Seattle Mariners’ season has officially derailed.  Amid Cliff Lee’s injury, their clean-up hitter’s personal problems, and a sleepy Hall of Famer, the team is holding down last place in the AL West with an offense that defines “anemic.”  Early Tuesday afternoon, the right-handed version of Griffey, Mike Sweeney, threatened to fight the entire team.  This is assuming he can make it out of the lockeroom without being placed on the 15-day DL. 
 
Many “pundits” spent Spring Training calling Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik a “genius,” but that distinction now looks dubious at best.  Despite the need to prevent Sweeney from roundhouse-kicking his way through the clubhouse, they have to find their way out of the Griffey situation: a $2.35M commitment to the franchise’s greatest player… who hasn’t been an effective full-timer since 2007 (and has no desire to hang it up).  This has PR disaster written all over it.
 
Among Major League executives, for every Billy Beane and Andrew Friedman, there are still folks like Ruben Amaro and Zduriencik: general managers who fail to make dispassionate decisions and are apt to commit millions of dollars to players who exhibit little quantitative value but possess intangible skills like “grit” and “guts.”  They fall for nostalgia and sentimentality, feelings that are more appropriate for an ex-girlfriend as opposed to an aged outfielder who can’t play.  Anyone who watched Griffey’s 2009 season knew he was done: his .214 batting average, .735 OPS and 19 homeruns were barely passable for a DH on a poor team — much less one that envisioned itself as a contender in 2010.  Even his teammates knew it: after the team’s last homestand in 2009 they carried Griffey off the field.  When he came back to Seattle looking for a place to play in 2010, for some reason, the team obliged.
 
Griffey may be holding on for selfish reasons, but he deserves a lot better than to be made to look like the tired old man who was too sleepy to pinch hit.  Zduriencik and club president Chuck Armstrong made the mistake to bring Junior back, now they should have to live with it.

Milton Bradley, as we all now, is a sensitive fellow.  This above screen grab from SeattleDawg18 via the Chicago Sun-Times shows good ole Milton Bradley giving some fans what he feels is the appropriate response to some in-game taunts they were launching his way during the Mariners/Rangers game on Friday night.  If he hadn’t already, prior to this latest finger incident, he’s now given out an open invite to all fans to go ahead and screw with him as much as possible.  Its gonna be a long, long season for Milton.

Poor Uncle Milty.  Would Prozac be considered a performance enhancing drug for this guy or what?  Doesn’t he know the only good way to deal with a bully is to ignore the bully?  He needs to visit with Tiger and learn to meditate…or at least Latrelle Sprewell or something, he only choked someone out once, had to learn something, right?