CHCAGO, IL – It was on April 24 during a night game between the hosting Chicago Cubs and the visiting Houston Astros that America’s Pastime was officially a thing of the past. In the seventh inning Cubs’ relief pitcher Luke Little was told by home plate umpire, Mike Muchlinski, that the glove he was using had to be replaced because it was a distraction.
The glove had the American flag stitched on it, and the umpire’s theory was the white stars and stripes on the one inch patch was against the rules. The rule being that any white coloring on a pitcher’s glove would distract a batters view. Okay as petty as this was, the rules are the rules.
Little changed his glove to one that wasn’t broken in, and non-game ready. The replacement glove was also a two-tone color of white and gray. It was way more of a distraction than the little white stars and stripes that were replaced.
What happened here was pure bullsh!t that made the umpire the messenger for some wimp of a watchdog at the #MLB offices. It was a total insult to a once great game that was set back a few decades. As the heads of baseball try their hardest to make the game into a universal affair their message here was, it’s not America’s game anymore.
This political move came at a time when the rest of the world is laughing at the United States as it kicks us like the soccer ball that has taken over the baseball fields across the nation.
Every fan that attended the game at Wrigley Field should have walked out of the stadium after that Glove Gate! The realization is that we are not a united nation anymore, and what happened on April 24th in Chicago is more proof of that.
Instead of playing the Star Spangled Banner before games, MLB should consider the tune “Backstabbers” by the O’Jays. That would be more fitting for what once was America’s Pastime
