Dead Man at the Plate

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The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder

What the heck has happened to our formerly pastoral pastimes? Sports in this country. Owners are rapacious and disloyal, players are spoiled, ill-mannered lowlifes, coaches are abusive psychopaths, hotdogs are $9.50…

It seems the level of sportsmanship in America is dropping faster than the balance in Prince Harry’s kid’s trust fund. If I see one more athlete make a routine play and do a wild banshee itchy dance I’m going to hurl myself into a trash compactor. And today’s fans aren’t much better either. Their rudeness makes it impossible to go to the stadium and enjoy the game. For example, why is it at every football game, even in Buffalo, where it’s twenty below in the sun, there’s always that guy in the stands with no shirt on?

And you know, the guy that takes his shirt off at the football game is always the guy that really really shouldn’t. Not only should this guy be wearing a shirt, he should be wearing a bra. He is why shirts were invented in the first place. He’s a huge man with large breasts, folks, and he’s standing on his chair with a giant beer in one hand a pile of nachos in the other, no plate, just nachos in his hand, and he’s screaming out the names of the players on the field. And the announcers say, “There’s a real Bill’s fan, he’s painted his body Buffalo Blue.” Hey, that’s not paint, the guy’s dying of exposure.

The inmates who played for the Death Row All Stars were good sports on the field. They patted each other on the back when they made a good play and they occasionally cheered for their teammates. They spurred one another on in a dignified manner because their very lives depended on a win. Wins meant stays of execution. They had to be magnanimous winners because there was no way for them to be gracious losers. I’d like to see some magnanimous winners and gracious losers in sports today. I’ve seen too many shirtless guys in the stands whose cup-size are larger than mine.

To learn more about the prison inmates who played ball for their lives in 1911 read

The Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder.