Readers get say, but not last word

7/25/2002

Snail mail, e-mail, fax mail. It's all Hack's mail. And we believe in sharing. So here's the best of the mailbag, sometimes edited for brevity, clarity or hilarity:

Baseball's anthem was written in 1908 by a lyricist and a musician, neither of whom had ever seen a baseball game. Of course, they got it all wrong. I believe it should have read:

Take me out to the ballgame

Let me sit on the bench

Give me my pension and salary

I don't care what the fans think of me

All right, I play for the home team

And if they lose I'm to blame

So it's one, two, three strikes I'm out

I'm paid just the same.

Seymour

Toledo

The Richmond Braves of the International League once had (maybe still have) a mascot named Seymour Baseball. No relation, I presume.

I read your Answer Man column on baseball's labor troubles. I don't think there will be a strike because both sides realize what they could lose: a lot of money and a lot of fans.

Randy

Perrysburg

I disagree. I believe major league baseball does want a strike, although the owners would rather the players not use their ultimate leverage and force a cancellation of the postseason play that is so very lucrative for the owners.

Deep down inside, commissioner Bud (Lite) Selig feels he can save his fading reputation and baseball at the same time. To do it, however, he has to have revenue sharing, salary caps, luxury taxes, the whole financial ball of wax. In other words, he has to bust the union. That would have to begin with a strike.

What did you think of Dave Dombrowski's comments about the Detroit Tigers and will it cost him his job?

Sparky

via e-mail

Surely you're not that Sparky? My colleague, John Harris, eloquently covered this in his column yesterday. What Dombrowski said was right on the money, but he gets no points for how he handled it. Just about any GM in baseball could isolate a player or two or three on his team and say the same disparaging things if he were stupid enough. It will cost Dombrowski credibility in his team's clubhouse and with the fans, considering he brokered some of the deals and originally tried to stonewall. But it shouldn't cost him his job because, presumably, owner Mike Ilitch agrees.

Just saw (The Blade's online) story on the MAC meetings here in Orlando. Central Florida is pretty excited, even though they think they are “just passing through” the conference.

Tom

via e-mail

Just passing through on the way to where? The Ivy League? The last school that joined the MAC with the intent of just passing through was Marshall. The Herd has been a dominant football program - a national program, for that matter - an attendance leader since Day 1 and has done everything a school and football team possibly could do to become attractive to another league. Marshall is set to begin its sixth year in the MAC and, like a tenacious kidney stone, has yet to pass.

I caught your jab at World Cup soccer a while back. Then came one of the most exciting World Cup ever, with the Americans serving notice that we're ready to compete with any country in the world. But it's easy for writers like you to stick to the same old, same old and make fun of sports you don't understand.

Carolyn

Maumee

Yeah, it is. And I regret my cheap shot because of the groundswell of interest in American soccer since the World Cup. You hear about it everywhere. Just listen. No, sorry, that was a pin dropping.

I see Joey Harrington signed. When will he become the Lions' starting quarterback?

Len

via e-mail

Let's see. Today's Thursday. How does Friday sound? Seriously, the Lions begin a bye week on Sept. 30, at which point they will have played Miami, Carolina, Green Bay and New Orleans. They'll be 1-3, tops, maybe 0-4, since the Carolina game is on the road. That's when it will happen.

So Tiger will win the British Open by five shots? Which five shots were those? The ones in the rough, the ones in the bunkers, or five putts that lipped out? Let's see. Deduct five shots from that 81 and it's a 76. Oh, those five shots.

Frank

Oregon

I was wrong. You're right. Stick a fork in him. Tiger's done.