Sammy Sosa's bleached face and why Minnesota is better

Disgraced former Chicago Cubs slugger and steroid user Sammy Sosa seems to have Michael Jacksonitis. Yep, Sosa's once rather dark skin is moving towards that of a sun-deprived Irishman.

The fact that he's now basically two shades away from an albino leads to a ton of questions. Was Sammy Sosa involved in a bleach accident? Did Sosa vacation at some sort of reverse tanning spa/resort? Is Sammy Sosa trying to distance himself from his own race? Has his own race shunned him to the extent that he has to go find his own race because they don't want him any more?









Or, the more likely question, does his recently lightened pigmentation have something to do with his prolonged use of steroids? That particular reason is one of many which, in the 1990s, lead me to abandon baseball. I used to be a huge baseball (and basketball) fan. I even subscribed to The Sporting News back when it was a weekly newspaper. When it moved towards a magazine I quickly dumped it but the damage had already been done to my favorite sports. The players got greedier and the owners got greedier. Both major league baseball and the NBA had strikes or lockouts which ruined entire seasons.

When the greed of pro sports meant that the World Series was cancelled one year and another year the NBA played a severely shortened season, I was quickly done with it all. Sure, after the turn of the century I was back to going to Minnesota Twins baseball games but it's only because the Minnesota Twins players don't show their greed. They play for much less than they would make with other teams and the Minnesota Twins were mostly absent from baseball's steroid era of the 1990s but this also meant that they were overlooked for about a decade as roided up jackasses like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds broke homerun records year after year while their testicles shriveled to the size of tiny raisins.

And where has all that greed and steroid use gotten those players? They are no longer in the game and many view those 1990s and early 21st century homerun records as false. They are tainted and the game is as well. And douchebags like Sammy Sosa are unemployed and flaunting his freakishly lightened skintone prompting nobodies like me to jump to conclusions, ask questions and remember why I'll only cheer for the Minnesota Twins today.

It's because things are in fact simpler here in Minnesota. That's what makes MinnPics unique too, a few photos about Minnesota each day taken by Minnesotans who love the state. Check it out today.

I hate major league baseball

Yes, sometimes a title/headline says it all but there is often more than meets the eye. This is one of those times.

If you don't follow sports at all, you have probably noticed that on Sunday night, the Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians to clinch the remaining spot in the World Series. It would be 90-something'th annual World Series but the greed mongers of Major League Baseball dicked up that tradition over a decade ago with a strike that cancelled the Fall Classic.

That, of course, is when I stopped following Major League Baseball and began to stop caring about pro sports all together.

However, even casually listening to any form of media, the sports-obsessed public have mentioned numerous times that the World Series begins this Thursday, October 25th. To some, that date sounds just a bit late compared to years past. You would be right to think that because it's fact. In order to pack in 162 regular season games beginning now at the end of March, two rounds of playoff games prior to the World Series and still televise each and every meaningless playoff game featuring, of all the meaningless teams with no tradition, the Arizona freakin' Diamondbacks, the post-season for the first time ever could draw into November.

It all boils down to money. The more games aired nationally -- even though plenty of the playoff games were only seen on TBS this year -- brings teams that much more cash and that is what makes sports go 'round.

The clincher, though, with the post-season dragging into the Christmas shopping season is that Denver, Colorado -- home of the National League champion Colorado Rockies -- saw 4 inches of wet snow yesterday. Sure, it melts but as the calendar draws closer to November, the chances for a sizeable storm increase and I, for one, hope to hell that it drops a couple feet on Denver and forces Major League Baseball and their greedy players and owners to wake up and realize that a baseball season spanning nine months may be just south of smart. Having to move or cancel games would make me chuckle in a jolly fashion.