This Bud is NOT for You

"'That's our biggest win of the season,' Sheffield said of the 6-4 victory over the Indians in front of 33,172 at Jacobs Field that was made possible by his two-run, two-out homer off Bob Wickman in the ninth inning."

Last Sunday, the Yankees led the Boston Red Sox by 10 ½ games. This Sunday, the Yankees led the Boston Red Sox by 5 ½ games. The Yankees had lost six of seven and were reeling. The starting pitching had been horrible and the hitting, with the exception of one game in Minnesota, was worse. It was Monday night in Cleveland. The Yankees were playing an Indians team whose last week of play was even worse than that of the Yankees. Last Sunday, the Indians were within one game of the first place Twins and were leading them early, 2-0. The Indians managed to lose that game and the next six, putting them seven games out of first place. This Monday night game between two struggling teams was crucial.

The Yankees scored once in the first inning and twice in the second. As usual, Yankees' radio commentators John Sterling and Charlie Steiner told the fans everything about Jacobs Field, the other new ball parks that they loved, major league attendance, and how great baseball was doing ten years after the "work stoppage," which is a euphemism for what was a situation created by the owners to which the players reacted.

Every few seconds, Sterling and Steiner interrupted themselves by trying to relate what was going on in the game. Unless one were listening VERY carefully in order to separate the propaganda from the what was happening on the field, one would not know what was going on, and this was in a game that Gary Sheffield would eventually refer to as the Yankees biggest win of the season. Way to go boys.

Ah, but the best was yet to come. When the Indians came to bat in the second inning, into the broadcast booth came Bud Selig. Sterling, who has about as much modesty as the desert has water, literally fell all over himself, expressing wonderment that one as exalted as Bud Selig, would actually be "friends" with those such as himself and Charlie Steiner. As if to convince himself, Sterling told Selig that they really were friends. It made a listener feel so happy that Selig was such a regular guy.

Sterling and Steiner raved about the great job that Selig had done and would continue to do, and set him up with questions that would present him in a wonderful light. If Bud were a pitcher, he would have developed a sore arm from patting himself on the back so much.

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