Moneyball: a post about money and baseball but not about the baseball movie, "Moneyball"

The first girl I ever asked out was on the last day of seventh grade at the last minute of lunch break. 

I remember her very courteous response,

"Umm... maybe next year."

Somewhere between the All-Star game and October, I hear the same line. Every year. It's either a silly hope I whisper to myself or worse yet, the management itself tells me so.

There is something rotten in Baseball, my friends. 

The underseen underdogs, the 2010 Padres, managed to win 90 games during the season. They held onto first place until the very last game of the season, Game 162. They lost to the San Francisco Giants. Those same Giants went on to win the World Series. 

Okay. Life is tough. Okay-okay, I ain't here to make no claims about what life ain't and ain't not!

But Oh Lord, have mercy! It's the hope that kills. It's the hope that burns.

After our 90 win failure, our perspective dogs salivating from the hope of a better tomorrow, the Padres management did what they inevitably had to do. Our star, our lone run-producer, Adrian Gonzalez, was traded to the Boston Red Sox for three prospects who everyone hopes will make a splash by around 2013. 

Adrian Gonzalez was involved in 24% of all the runs the Padres scored in 2010. He was a legitimate superstar, the only Padre ever invited to take part in the Homerun Derby... and now...

Now it's pretty much agreed that Mr. Gonzalez will be awarded the MVP award for his incredible run production. He's also on-track to end the season with the highest batting average (.350) in the major leagues. As a member of the Boston Red Sox. Not as a Padre.

We lost him because we couldn't afford him. 

It's one thing to never have a Babe Ruth or a Willie Mays -- but to have it and then be forced to let him go -- it's just brutal.

I got over my seventh grade crush. After all, I never dated her. What's happening in Baseball these days is as if I dated the girl, and then on the last day of school she kissed another boy, only to sweetly turn to me, ever so calmly. She pulls me in. We embrace. She brings her mouth to my ear ever so softly. I shiver from the warmth and beauty of her lips tickling my ears. Then the words. They puncture my earlobe, tumbling through my body. The words. Like daggers. 

Maybe next year. 

Oh, cruel fate, why have you teased me with such fantasies! 

If only we could hold onto the ones that grow near to us. Instead the silver spoons of the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and the Philadelphia Phillies seduce the moon away from us. 

As she walked away, so pretty her poise, I stood dumbfounded. I knew not what to do. As the words reverberated through me as a blood-stained hope, I could do nothing but quote Major Bennot Marco...

Hell. Hell...

This concludes my moment of sobbing self-pity.