Madison Baumgarner is having the month of a lifetime. If you do not know the name, you should. Not only does he have one of the best sports names in the last 20 years, but he's also one of the best pitchers in the game today. The run he's having playing for the San Francisco Giants is something we haven't seen since Christy Mathewson in the 1905 World Series.
In his 4 career World Series starts, his ERA is just 0.29, he's 4-0, and has pitched over 30 innings with just 3 walks and 21 strikeouts. That is truly amazing. He's pulling off one of the greatest sporting achievements in the last 20 years.
And you know what the problem is? Football. He's getting beaten by football.
On June 29 2009, Farah Fawcett passed away. In the 1970s, she was the equivalent of Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus all rolled up into one. She was on the poster of every horny teenage boy back in the day, plus many more creepy men in their later years. When she died, it was big news.....for 2 hours. Then Michael Jackson died and no one talked about Farah. It was almost like she never existed.
In today's information age, you wonder why it's still only about the big story. And on Monday Morning the only story is football. So what if it's the World Series and a man is having the pitching performance of the ages! Michael Vick is the new starting quarterback for the New York Jets, a team that is 1-7 and going nowhere fast. That Ben Roethlisberger threw for over 500 yards in a fantasy obsessed, diluted down defensive league because the rules are pitted against them on every single down. That the Seattle Seahawks seem to be having some locker room/team moral troubles. And that more players got brutally injured, concussed, and probably are sending themselves into an early grave every time they play a down.
On ESPN's Pardon the Interuption, Wilbon and Kornheiser talked for 9 solid minutes about football before they got to Baumgarner and the World Series. Am I the only one who seems to have a problem with this?
Listen, I'm not anti-football. I watch is like the rest of North America. I even played the game and played it well as I was all-city three years in a row. But there's something wrong here. Baumgarner is Farah Fawcett. Beautiful and trendsetting. Football is Michael Jackson. Brilliant at times but kind of creepy.
-Matthew Toffolo
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