Sometimes, I wish the U.S. loved soccer as much as everyone else. Lots of readers here at the ‘wrangler have noticed my recent obsession with the worlds most popular sport. I think maybe what fianlly got me over the hump and well on my way to being a full blown soccer hooligan is the deep pile of refuse that our own game has sunk into.

Baseball is in big, BIG trouble.

Thank you for that penetrating insight, Captain Obvious. Everyone already knows this, not the least of which is baseball itself. Last night, I watched the game on its second largest stage, The All Star Game. Kevin and I lamented the fact that we knew we would spend the entire evening watching the game we love, all the while listening to the announcer’s talk strike and steriods and labor and small market vs. large market. We talked at length, as we have in the past, about what’s wrong with the game. I watched a player from my home team in the pregame announcements, a player who’s salary represents everything that’s wrong with the game, a player who can’t remotely help get his team to the Series. I found myself rooting against him, and he’s a Ranger. During the pregame, we saw memorable moments that reminded me why I love this game. During the game itself, I saw Torii Hunter make a catch that I should be remembered for years, and a celebration in the outfield with Barry Bonds, whose home run Hunter robbed, that looked like two little leaguers having the time of their lives on a field of grass so green it makes your heart ache. Only a few innings later, I saw Bonds answer in the way he does best, by making sure the next ball he hit never got anywhere near that grass, but well out of the park. I saw Lance Berkman, who plays for my other team, do what he has done better than anyone else all year, bring home the run. He helped put the NL back on top. I got to see Ichiro play, and laugh in the face of the Japanese baseball system that I used to think was the worst example of sports in the world. (They intentionally DON’T TRY TO WIN in Japenese ball, how stupid is that shit?) Now, our own game is in such terrible trouble, the Japanese may get the last laugh. Ten bucks says if the player’s strike, Ichiro goes back overseas. Why shouldn’t he? There, he’s Michael Jordan, here he’ll just be one more player who’s refusing to play in a system that is so out of whack, no one seems to know what to do with it.

After all the pageantry, after all the great plays and fun and games and kids in the stands enjoying a sight not to be seen again, after tributes to the greats of the game, especially those heroes who have recently fallen, it all came down to This. The sound you’re hearing at the end of this game isn’t just booing, its the sound of America’s heart breaking. Or of mine, anyway.