Let's talk about baseball. I was listening to the radio yesterday, and heard that Nomar Garciaparra (a.k.a. Nomaah to fans of Jimmy Fallon's Boston Kids sketch on SNL) had become the first Major League Baseball player to hit 3 home runs on his birthday. Now, I know that baseball is all about the minutia and obscure stats, but this is a bit ridiculous. What next? The first MLB player to hit a homerun on the Thursday of a long weekend when hotdog sales are equal to popcorn sales while the beerline has exactly 12 people in it?

One cannot talk about baseball at this point without bringing up the impending strike. The aforementioned Nomaah has gone on record saying that the last thing he wants to do is have to stop playing after he missed so much of last season on the DL. He feels that he has to strike, should it come to that, not so that he can make more money. He's perfectly happy with what he's making (you can bet that Red Sox management is holding on to that piece of videotape, ready to play it back when Nomar's contrat is up for renewal). No, he's doing it to protect that young player coming up who may have to play for only $2 million a year. Yes that would be so sad. To play a game for a paltry 2 mill. My heart bleeds for them.

Don't they realize what the last strike did to the sport? Attendance has been slipping in all markets for years since the 1994 season ended early. To be fair, I'm most familiar with the Canadian markets, and the Jays and Expos are more victims of fan apathy than anything else, however the strike certainly contributed to said apathy. The strike, coupled with the weak Canadian dollar made it difficult for both teams to sustain the payroll that had taken the Jays to back to back World Series wins in the two seasons prior to the strike, and had the Expos looking like an odds on favourite in the aborted season. The teams stopped winning, and the fans stopped coming. However, when even the Yankees aren't selling out games in arguably the best baseball market with the winningest team, the sport is in sorry shape.

Baseball players are notoriously the whiniest of all professional athletes. Sadly, their disease is infecting other sports such as hockey, which may face a strike in 2004 (oops I'd better be careful, NHL Head Gary Bettman might fine me). Pro Football and Basketball have a salary cap and revenue sharing. This keeps teams on a level playing field and prevents the inmates from running the asylum. Sure it just cost the Raptors Keon Clark, who becomes an unrestricted free agent, but it keeps the teams on a more even footing (as long as he doesn't become a Laker). Pro Football's revenue sharing also helps teams remain competitive. This is an important aspect of any sport: It has to be competitive, or it isn't interesting. It's no fun watching the game if you already know who is going to win. This year's World Cup was an example of this as I tried to sit through a game that would be won in the first half with no more points scored in the remainder of the game. If you know who will win the title at the beginning of the seasoin, why bother watching.

One thing is certain: if they do go on strike, Nomar maybe hitting homers in an empty stadium on his next birthday.

Good news, the nose isn't broken! Better news, the doc gave me some pills that will actually stop the persistent knot of pain that has made its home behind my bottom lip.

I went for a second opinion today, because the ER doc I saw yesterday seemed more interested in moving through as many patients as possible, as I guess he was locked in a contest with the other doctors on duty.

Seeing as my pain was minor at the time, and hardly a crisis, I made sure to let more obviously nasty cases ahead of me in the Triage line. The dude who walked in with his fingertip in the ice filled baggie? Step right up my friend, you've got me beat!

I was well prepared for the wait, and had brought a book with me to while away the time (Motley Crue's autobiography "The Dirt", highly recommended by the way. If you thought they were a messed up bunch, you had no idea. It's all in there, so remember the next time that you're pissed off at your neighbour or your brother that it could be one of these guys, and be thankful). It looked like a lot of barbecue injuries, and a few kids who had fallen off swingsets, which brings me to the point of this post: Emergency Rooms are the McDonalds of the medical world.

The mentality of move them through as quickly and impersonally as possible is there. Surly teenagers at the register are replaced by admitting nurses who don't even look up to speak to you, and doctors who lament about how hard their life is.

When I take my car to be fixed I don't want to hear how the mechanic is working his fifth Overtime shift of the month. I don't care! Fixing my car, that I care about.

The doctor who treated me wasn't so bad, he was rushed and took no time to ask me any questions, or to listen with any interest to the information I volunteered, but he was pleasant enough.

It was the guy in the next curtain, who was setting the arm of a girl that had fallen from a tree. She couldn't have been more than four and was scared to death. I heard her say a couple of times that she "didn't want to die" and "what did I do mommy?". You had to feel sorry for the kid, because she was only little, although she has all the makings of a major drama queen when she grows up (watch out young lads with turn of the century birthdates, this one is starting early).

The doctor however was treating her as though she was one of those 27 year old drama queens.

"At least you get to go home," he said. "I have to be here for another eight hours."

Cry me a river, I thought.

When the little girl howled in pain as he splinted the arm, he told her to stop whining and be quiet.

"Life's tough." he said.

Yeah it is, but let's let a kid have at least a couple of years before the maxim "Life sucks, get a helmet." becomes reality to her. He just made it worse, and her mother sat there and took it. Too often people just accept shabby treatment and let it go.

My guy got to do a second examination when I noticed that the pen he was using to eyeball the straightness of my nose was quite clearly and almost ridiculously bowed. But he was alright about it. There was no "I'm not even supposed to be here" from him. He realized that when I say I want no tomatoes, I mean it.

So, I hope my wife has taken out a large insurance policy on me. A couple of weeks ago, Bobby suggested that I come out to play baseball with his team on Sunday mornings. "Great," I thought. "Something to do now that I appear incapable of sleeping in past 7 am."

Last week, Michelle suggested I call to see if they still needed another player. I hesitated, but she persisted, at which point I buckled like a belt.

I went out and bought a glove that afternoon, but decided to hold off on buying cleats. This was my first mistake.

The field we played on last week was like a beach. My Nike Cross trainers were not much good on that surface, and as I rounded third heading for home, I wiped out right before the line of committment (and come on guys, haven't we ALL done this at some point in our lives?). I tore up my knee in a nasty way. It was enough so that the next morning, the raw pain of the wounds on my knee cancelled out the pain of my aching arm and hamstrings. It reminded me of those videos they used to show on That's Incredible!, where the kid is having their teeth drilled without anaesthetic, but they don't notice the pain because they have a clothes peg clipped to their ear. It is important to note, however, that I did score that point.

This week would be different. I bought a nice new set of spikes yesterday, and I have to say that they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. That, coupled with the fact that the diamond we were playing at this week was much better tended, meant that this would be the best game ever. Then, just as we finished warming up, an errant ball caught me in the face. Marsha Marsha Marsha indeed.

Did I bleed? Oh yes, like stink I bled. Did it stop? It seemed like forever. I figure I could have easily filled at least two of those monster pop cups they give you at the movies for only "25 cents more". My arms were covered in blood, and I looked like a refugee from a Motley Crue photo shoot. Fortunately, we were playing in a field owned by a school, which was open. Finally, my tax dollars paying for schools will
come in handy for me. I cleaned myself up as the bleeding finally subsided, and got out in time for the 3rd inning and was able to eventually get a hit that not only batted a run in, but also allowed me to score as two grounders followed.

All in all the day wasn't terrible, and may get better as soon as I get a confirmation that the nose isn't broken. We may have lost the game, but it was against the best team in the league, so there isn't really any shame.

However, I am two for two. Two games, two injuries. I am making a "No Blood" oath for next week, otherwise, I am going to have to insist that I get a better insurance policy.