Play Ball?

Considering one ridiculous baseball spectacle last night -- the ground crew hosing down the infield at the ballpark in Philadelphia during a driving rain -- led me to consider another: the madcap scramble by the road manager of the Tampa Bay team to hastily find 50 or so hotel rooms on a moment's notice, late at night in Philadelphia, because the Tampa team had already checked out of its hotel, not expecting to spend another night in Philly.

I want to meet that guy! Talk about a real challenge in business travel -- which is something, after all, that sports teams do an awful lot of.

(And by the way, the weather forecasts consulted by everybody except, apparently, Major League Baseball and Fox, all predicted rain and wind for last night. Did the notoriously cheap Rays simply fail to ensure a hotel plan B in case of a rain-out?)

Last night's spectacles came as the bozos who run Major League baseball in cahoots with the bozos who run the Fox television outfit continued their efforts to destroy the World Series -- in this instance by playing a game that should never have been started, continuing it long after it should have been called for rain, and then "suspending" it in utter, total confusion in the 6th inning.

By the way, I'd forgotten that sportswriting can still be worth the time. Here's Bill Conlin today in the Philadelphia Daily News.

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