The Worst Baseball Had to Offer In 2004

[TMC]

My picks for the worst baseball had to offer in 2004 in no particular order:
1. The death of the Montreal Expos - In my humble opinion, the Expos could've survived if it wasn't for poor management. It started going downhill when the longtime ownership (during the days that they had Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Tim Wallach, Hubie Brooks, Steve Rodgers, Andres Gallaraga just to name a few) decided to sell.

The begining of the end was when the Expos couldn't finish out the 1994 season (because of the strike) even though they had the best overall record in baseball at the time. To make matters worse, the Expos decided to cut payroll. So great players at the time like Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez, Darren Fletcher, Marquis Grissom, Ken Hill, John Wettland, Larry Walker, Mel Rojas, and Cliff Floyd all eventually left.

The fans naturally, felt alientated as they were robbed of their best shot at winning a World Championship. It didn't help the Expos much attendance-wise considering that they played their home games in arguably the worse ballpark ever.

The final nail in the coffin I believe was when Jeffrey Loria persuaded Bud Selig to award him a more lucrative looking deal in the form of the Florida Marlins. Coincidentially, just a year later Loria's Marlins win the World Series. If Loria didn't simply use the Expos as leverage for a better deal, then the prospects of the franchise getting a new ballpark would've been more of a reality.

2. Bob Feller calls Muhammad Ali a "coward" - Feller, who as you may know, served in World War II, criticized Major League Baseball for inviting Ali to the All-Star Game. It wasn't because Ali is a boxer with little known connnection with baseball itself. Feller called Ali out because of the controversy behind Ali's protesting the Vietnam War.

To be fair, I'm not going to simply defend Ali over his views on Vietnam (since I wasn't born yet), but I feel that Feller should be focusing his energy more on Carlos Delgado's more recent attitudes about war. To me, Bob Feller just comes across as an extremely bitter, out of touch, old man, who has go public with anybody who he has a bone to pick. Feller especially, can't keep his mouth shut about how much he objects to having Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. I sincerely hope that Mr. Feller keeps his opinions to himself in the near future.

3. Fox-TV cameras catch movie stars Jimmy Fallon & Drew Barrymore "making out" (in hopes of filming a scene for an upcoming movie called "Fever Pitch") as the Boston Red Sox win their first World Championship in 86 years.

4. Pete Rose finally confesses to betting on baseball - Unfortunately, Rose's timing was extremely bad since it came around the same time that Dennis Eckersley & Paul Molitor were being elected to join the Hall of Fame. The credibility of Rose's confession was also poor since it came 15 years after his ban and in the form of a medium (i.e. a book) for which he could make another profit off of.

5. The 2004 World Series: Just like in 2003, both League Championship Series were so good that the World Series unfortunately became fairly anti-climatic. With the exception of Game 1, it appeared that the "superior on paper" Cardinals laid down and died.

6. The death of Ken Caminiti - I can honestly tell you that in retrospect, Ken Caminiti's premature passing wasn't really a shock. The man had a lot of drug problems ranging from steroids to cocaine. The real tragedy is that Caminiti never really followed through on the potential that he showed in his 1996 MVP season.

7. Frank Francisco loses his cool and tosses a chair into the stands in Oakland (and this was two months before the now infamous Pistons/Pacers brawl).

8. That sleazy, pencil-thin mustache wearing creep who runs BALCO doing on "20-20" to rat alleged steroid abusing athetles out.

9. Wally Backman: Arizona Diamondback manager one day, but fired the next (due to a shady background).

10. The Spider-Man on the bases fiasco.