Fascination with Sports

I find it amusing how some of us get so wrapped up in sports, and I am one those types. Not completely nuts, but I'm definitely in a better mood the day after a win than I am a day after a loss. My two main weaknesses are Devil Rays baseball and Buccaneers football.

The Devil Rays have enough talent to give you hope from time to time, but not enough so that they don't dash those hopes in a heartbeat. This year we have no real starting pitching. Unbelievably we made no moves in the pre-season/free-agency. Scott Kazmir is the opening day starter, whereas he might be 5th in the rotation if he was a starter at all. He's young and he's going to be great, but he's not there yet. He had a decent rookie year last year, especially in the 2nd half of the year, but he has had some real problems in pre-season this year. When you look at our overall starting rotation, I'm thinking our opponents are salivating over teeing off on these guys.

Our closers are no better. We traded our star closer for a couple of prospects, and we can't seem to find a replacement. We brought over Mori from Japan and he promptly blew out his shoulder. Looks like we're going with closer-by-committee, which means "we don't have a closer, so we're hoping somebody will magically appear."

We do have some good points, though. Fabulous speed, some decent hitters, good defense behind the pitchers. We certainly have some triple-A prospects like Delmon Young who will come up at some point and contribute in coming years. But this year is shaping up to not be much different from years gone by.

The Bucs are in better shape. The only real downer there is that we had to re-sign Walker at right tackle, protecting Simms' blind side. Walker was a "settle for" signing - we were letting him hang in free agency while we tried to get someone else. We can't seem to land anyone, so suddenly we're touting continuity as we bring Walker back, trying to make ourselves feel better. However, there's going to be some serious offensive line talent available when we draft in the first round. I'm betting that's what they were thinking - let Walker do free agency, where he got pretty much zero interest from anybody, re-sign him cheap, and bring in some college stud to take Walker's place, if not this year, then next.

So begins another baseball season of hope and disappointment, of yelling at my computer screen as I watch games over mlb.com while in my hotel room traveling for work. Then football comes along, and I get my hopes up each week that my best friend's wife will let him watch the game with me, only to watch the game alone when she won't. All the same as last year, and the year before, and the year before that... And here I sit, more excited than ever.

Living in a Fantasy World

There was an anti-war protest downtown over the weekend. This morning's news included a quote from one of the protesters: "Nothing good ever came from war."

What fantasy world is this guy living in?

Let me state for the record that war is a terrible, horrible, ugly thing to be avoided if at all possible. I also readily acknowledge that many wars have resulted in many evils. C'mon, I'm not an idiot.

But while war brings death and destruction, it can also bring good things. The Revolutionary War produced the (arguably) greatest nation on earth. The Civil War helped end the atrocity of slavery in America. The World Wars stopped the evil of men like Hitler and Hirohito. The Korean War kept North Korea from overrunning South Korea. The Gulf Wars ultimately removed Hussein from power, ending his reign of death over the Iraqi people.

The protest went on to babble about diplomacy being the only way to resolve conflict. It's really important for people like him to wake up and face reality. Hitler and Mussolini and Hussein and their ilk are not interested in getting along and playing nice. They're not interested in compromise and deal-making. They're interested in power and control and they are happy to take it by force. The only way to stop evil men such as these is to remove their ability to exert force over others - they are not going to give it up voluntarily.

I don't like going to war, and it should only be considered when every other avenue of conflict resolution has been exhausted. But war is a fact of life, and living in some la-la land of nicey-nice and pretty flowers doesn't do anyone any good.

And we had all better get used to it, because we're going to be at war with the terrorists for a while. These people have one goal: eradicate everyone who does not subscribe to their belief system. Period. End of story. There is no compromise. There is no diplomacy, no deal-making. There is no co-existence. You're either one of them, or you're dead. That's all they know. You can't sign a treaty or work out a deal with someone with that mind-set. The only way to keep them from killing you is for you to kill them. I wish it wasn't that way.