Just say no to baseball and other drug paraphernalia

I can’t work this morning. How can any soccer fan work after what happened last night? I inhale three cups of canteen coffee with the consistency of tar and I decide to give ESPN a piece of my mind.

Dear Worldwide Leader In Deifying Steroid-users,

It’s not that long ago since you used to bump Champions’ League matches off the schedule so you could show a college basketball game on a Wednesday afternoon involving two teams of alleged students who couldn’t spell graduation if they were spotted the g and the r. However, in recent years you’ve tried to take soccer seriously by giving the commentaries an English accent and putting the insufferable Tommy Smyth in a cupboard somewhere in Bristol. Bravo on at least one of those counts.

Last night though was a throwback to the bad old days. The decision to show the first 20 minutes of America’s battle, sorry, meaningless friendly with Mexico on ESPNews rather than bump a Little League World Series baseball game from one of your real channels was beyond insulting. Firstly, you shouldn’t even be broadcasting a competition that routinely celebrates over-age players and starts innocent children on the road to what will be certain steroid use and enlarged head sizes later in their teens.

Secondly, ESPNews is not a real channel. It’s a stopping-off point, a truck-stop really, for insomniacs on their way up the channels towards VH1 Classic in the wee small hours of the morning.

Thirdly, it’s not a World Series if the rest of the world doesn’t know or care about a group of snotty-nosed kids who are so physically incapable that they play a sport that involves standing around for long spells sniffing a sweaty glove, wondering when they will be old enough to start using syringes. I mean, in baseball if you hit the ball once every three tries you are apparently headed to the pros. If you do that in soccer, you are headed to the bench. So please, in the future, stop celebrating mediocrity and stop promoting the drug culture at the expense of real games!

Yours in sport,

Travel Team Coach