MVN: Most Valuable Network

Disclaimer: This article does not comply with the standards of Fire Brand of the American League. It is incoherent, poorly written, and provides absolutely no analysis whatsoever and only unsupported opinions. Enjoy.

I love the sport of baseball, and I have published many articles expressing my passion. Contrary to the ecstasy I experience every February, September, or any other month, I hate January baseball. I absolutely, positively can not stand January baseball.

 It seems only recently that baseball has become a year-round sport, thanks to the exponentially increasing mediums on which sports can now be discussed. Here is how I would break down the baseball calendar:

February – Pitchers and catchers report.

March – Spring training

April – October – Baseball season

November – Hot Stove season

December – Winter Meetings

January – NOTHING.

I referenced an actual off-season calendar and these were the only entries for January:

Jan 5-15: Salary arbitration filing.

Jan. 18: Exchange of salary arbitration figures.

Consider me to be one of millions, but I posses an unhealthy obsession with everything baseball, especially Red Sox baseball. I am also a solar-powered human being; I function best when I’m under a big, warm sun.

Let me outline the situation those two seemingly unrelated circumstances of my existence have created during the first 31 days of the New Year. I live in central Pennsylvania, born, raised and hopefully died and buried down the road. The January weather kills everything, making my environment a lifeless, hopeless, and cold nightmare.

 If there is a positive to cold weather it is the precipitation that usually results in snow, which creates skiing, snowmobiling, or snowman building opportunities in an otherwise joyless time of year. Consequently, either global warming or God’s idea of a cruel trick in retaliation of my unadulterated hatred of this time of year has successfully prevented my only guilty pleasure of January to exist for any mentionable length of time.

So at least I have that going for me. Now, add in the fact that there is nothing going on in the baseball world to discuss. Other than should a team with endless pockets splurge and pay an extra million on an arbitration-eligible first baseman. Super.

Baseball has turned me into Amy Winehouse; I’ve spent the last 11 months freebasing cocaine but the wave has crashed and I’m in desperate need of rehab. The worst part is, I’m the one who is supposed to keep the wave going so the readers of Fire Brand don’t have to experience!

I can’t keep doing this, the pressure is too much and the disappointment too great. If a psychiatrist becomes depressed is he capable of keeping his patients from living in depression? No way, not a chance.

Right as I'm ready to give up for good, ESPN publishes an article about the Yankees record $218.3 million dollar payroll. The opening line of the Associated Press story? "The Yankees did finish first in something last year -- spending." Maybe I can make it until February after all ...