Charlie Manuel Not Amused by MLB’s Playoff Extension Tomfoolery

MLB recently announced that its hallowed post season would expand to include a third of the league’s teams.

Charlie Manuel stated that he is not liking the “Pansy-ass horse shit drawn up by the execs.  Why not just let everybody play, all the time?  Why have plyoffs at all?  We could just make it Little League and have the manager come out to pitch to his own hitters if the opposing pitcher throws four balls, or have somebody’s dad be the home plate umpire, or bring orange drink for the kids and orange drink with vodka for the ‘cool’ parents who then vomit all over the equipment bags and get banned for life.  YOU HAVE AN ALCOHOL PROBLEM, MRS. LARSON, AND IT’S DESPICABLE FOR YOU TO INDULGE YOURSELF IN A PLACE WHERE GREGORY CAN SEE YOU.”

I put that in quotes because I was saying it out loud as I typed it, not because Charlie said it.  But because it was said out loud, I can put quotes around it!  Journalism!  This is not it.

So, how will Charlie respond?  Why, he’ll boycott the post season of course.  Oh wait, no.  That would never happen.  What will actually happen is nothing, because Bud Selig is an infallible as the Pope, only he doesn’t get to wear a cool hat.

An inability to change what’s already been decided hasn’t stopped Charlie from explaining his reasoning for disliking the new rules.

"“You shouldn’t get nothing for second or third.”–Charlie Manuel"

Charlie yearns for the days when the World Series was the only playoffs there were; when everybody played all year to be the best and their reward for doing so was the chance to win it all.  It was a simpler time, when players used bats to field and gloves to hit; when mascots were simply the town drunks; and the score was kept local street urchins who often took bribes of radishes and corn meal to remember things “differently.”  (EDITOR’S NOTE:  I don’t have time to be a historian!!!)

And in a way, the simplicities of such a time were beautiful.  If you got married, you stayed married.  If you got tuberculosis, you died.  If you were the best baseball team, you played in the World Series.  Sadly, with more teams than ever and a wider audience to reach and squeeze money out of, baseball will only continue moving in the direction it’s gone.  Charlie’s nirvana is long gone and never going to return, and we’re stuck watching MLB turn into the NBA, where anybody can make the playoffs if they play a little better than half-assed.

It’s a vicious cycle.  Except that cycles come back and repeat themselves.  This is more like a downward spiral.  But, we the fans are even less powerful than Charlie.  I mean what are we going to do?  Boycott baseball so they make the playoffs smaller?

No, we can merely sit back and dream of a simpler time when days like this one were still able to happen.  Hell, that day wouldn’t have happened without the initial Wild Card.  Who knows how the next two will affect the game!

And hey, if you feel that badly about it, just bring your radish sack to the next MLB executives meeting and see whose taking bribes.