Utterly hysterical.

Wanting to finish the damn Series, which has abysmal ratings, being fought between a secondary market team and one so far from the mainstream that it can’t even sell out its home games, Major League Baseball elected to play the game tonight, even though the forecast was…let’s just say less than ideal.

Who cares?  The Rays’ bats were cold.  Philadelphia was leading.  One final game and Fox can go back to its regular programming, stop losing money on this fiasco and book some real revenue.

And it was all fine and dandy until the Phillies were ahead in the bottom of the fifth.  Those who grew up playing Little League, who are still flummoxed by soccer, know that it’s now an official game.  Yup, the baseball season, after 162 regular season games, and three rounds of playoffs, is going to limp to a finish.  Deservedly so for a sport that isn’t interested in the young, but only the oldsters, who are willing to overpay to attend and stay up way past their bedtime, until the wee hours of the morning, to see who wins these games played in near-winter weather.  (Isn’t this how the music business got in trouble?  Only caring about the oldsters who would overpay for CDs, not the youngsters who wanted files?)

But the weasels at MLB couldn’t let this happen.  They’d be laughingstocks.  So rather than call the game, and the Series, they continued to play on.

You know how you love to watch football in the snow?  That’s what it was like, watching baseball being played in the rain.  Shit, it was in the thirties, maybe it was just ABOUT to snow!  The players were slipping and a sliding, like some weasels on the run (how well do you know Dylan’s output, do you catch the "One More Weekend" reference?)

Anyway, despite being ahead, despite playing so well, the ball glanced off the Phillies’ shortstop’s glove for a hit.  Not a hit if it’s dry, but Fall Classic rules are different, just like those idiotic ones established to cope with St. Petersburg’s "unhittable" dome.

The Rays end up scoring, and THEN the baseball fat cats halt the game.   Because now that it’s tied, the game isn’t over, it will have to be finished tomorrow.  Or whenever the skies clear, which could be APRIL!

If the Rays come back from their 3-1 deficit and end up winning the Series, I hope the Phillies protest.  Ask for a complete do-over.  But what did Dick Benjamin say in "Goodbye Columbus"?  NO DO-OVERS?

How are we supposed to take our institutions seriously?

Chris Rock said his father told him the only way to beat a white man was to knock him out.  That even if Barack Obama gets the most votes, they’re gonna deny him victory, telling him votes no longer count in elections.  When it’s all about money, when morality and doing the right thing are out the window, is it any surprise we’ve got a meltdown on Wall Street?

Having given up on baseball long ago, when George Steinbrenner used his money to stack the deck, I’m laughing from the sidelines, just like George Carlin did.  He said being born was getting a ticket to the freak show, to set up a chair and enjoy the movie.  If only George were here now, to riff on this insanity.  How the legendary "pastoral" game has been hijacked by the same interests, the same mentality, that stole a Presidential election.