Wrigley gets Soccer while Citi Field gets the 2013 All-Star Game.

I despise Bud Selig a little more each day and most of it is based on his loyalty to the disgusting ownership group of the New York Mets.

I am at Dodd Stadium today for another great day of work with the Detroit Tigers’ A-ball team, the Connecticut Tigers and I took a few minutes out to watch Mayor Bloomberg, Selig, Mr. Met and Ponzi scum and Ponzi scum Jr. announce that New York City – specifically, the New York Mets – have been awarded the opportunity to host the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field.

Are you kidding me, Bud?

The Wilpons are disgusting, dishonest, crooked thieves of human beings/baseball owners who should have been kicked out of the game long ago for the way they have handled their business, what it does to the game and their ties to Bernie Madoff. For some reason, you continue to get their back. You gave them a loan to stay afloat while lawsuits were flung their way, attendance dropped and fans lost faith in their ability to keep their organization competitive. The fact that they currently sit 2.5 games out of first place in the bizarro 2012 season of the NL East is not lost on this writer. It is simply a by-product of a small fluke of a sample size for this season and while I respect what the players and manager have been able to accomplish so far this year (I would love to be able to say the Cubs are just 2.5 games out of first place at this point in the season) it is simply one more gift these criminals seem to step in with every smug, criminal, unethical step they take in handling their MLB and outside MLB business affairs.

Not that being 2.5 games out has done a whole lot for attendance or fan turnout. In New York, the talk continues to be one of two things depending on which type of fan is speaking. Either complete boycott is called for to show disdain for their actions and the way they feel about/treat this team from the way they speak of their star players to working with criminals such as Madoff to building a shrine to a team that never set foot in Flushing/Queens and selling jerseys of players that have no historical ties to the franchise (go to the Mets gift shop sometime if you catch a Cubs game there. What’s that? A Koufax jersey? When was he a Met? Exactly.) Or on the other hand, you get the ‘hey, I root for the team of players on the field, not the schlubs in the rich guy-owner box seats’.

It is this second type of fan I have a problem with.

I believe we are lucky as Cubs fans to have an ownership group that genuinely cares about the franchise. They don’t take us for fools and while their public statements regarding the team are likely tempered by public relations watchdogs, as fans of the ballclub, they are coming from the same place we are. They have suffered through the disasterous moments Cubs fans have suffered just like the fan base. They are able to relate to the plight of a Cub fan because they are Cubs fans. The are baseball fans. They love the team they own and it shows. They have put smart people in the role where we need them. They have not restricted these new hires but instead, allowed them to take the plan the Ricketts believed in when they hired them and allowed them to stay that course and watch the results unfold.

Is a rebuiling effort around young talent, a strong farm system, avoiding bad contracts and dealing veterans in return for hot prospects with giant upsides as much of a get rich quick scheme as partnering up with a ponzi artist and stealing millions and millions of dollars for unknowing victims and using that cash to benefit your ballclub for years? Do the results come by as quickly?

No. But whatever the results will be, they will come honestly. They will come without an asterisk, without a shadow or stain of all that is accomplished.

The Wilpons were able to run the Mets for years on money they didn’t deserve to be raking in due to the nature in which they were receiving it. The Wilponzis played dumb for long enough to get through without a trial and pay a giant settlement so that they not only are no longer legally even suspects of knowingly participating in the Madoff scheme, but they may even profit. So in business, they had a wise criminal in their pocket getting his hands dirty so they didn’t have to, in law they have escaped by paying a fine as opposed to actually taking on punishment that is deserved and would likely have sent them out of the game altogether and it would have been rightfully so and in baseball, they have the man with all of the power in their corner protecting them with all of his might. Bud Selig has done a lot of things that fans disagreed with in his time running The Show, however giving the All-Star Game to the New York Mets – to the Wilpons – is quite possibly the worst one yet.

The Wilpons are criminals. I know it. You know it. They know it. Bud knows it. Technically perhaps settling out of court has allowed them to prevent that tag officially however, despite the Mets fans that decide to turn a blind eye to the way the organization treats them and their franchise, the rest of baseball fans know how quite likely it is that they knew and in fact are just that – criminals. The fact that Mets fans still show up at all surprises me. Wilpon does not deserve their allegiance. He does not deserve their money and he does not deserve to be in baseball. So what does Selig do? He gives him the All-Star Game in 2013 where his rebound plan will now include not only potentially STILL profiting from the Madoff scheme, but profiting from the tens of thousands of fans who will show up and pay the gates at Citi Field (through on-line ticketing, etc but you know what I mean) to see the greatest in the game play an exhibition game on July 16th next year as well as participate in four other days filled with events that will honor the game’s best.

The Wilpons are among the game’s worst owners if not the worst. They should be last on the list of people awarded anything, let alone a game that honors the sport when they have no honor and have already profited by stealing from the masses. Bud Selig had 29 other teams to choose from, Ok, 28 if you discount last year’s host a few others if you then eliminate further the other hosts of recent years. It has been nearly 50 years since the Mets had an All-Star Game and the way the Wilpons carry themselves throughout the game, they should have to wait at least another 50 years to get one more.

Meanwhile, owners like the Ricketts – a family with resources, good will and good intentions who actually care and own one of the games most valuable and large market franchises – do not get an All-Star Game. Instead, today, we hear that Wrigley Field will get a soccer game. A SOCCER game? What? The simple fact that we are hearing about soccer coming to Wrigley is not enough for outrage. The stadium is a great place to host a sporting event and if it happens to be soccer, so be it. The outrage should be raised however that it was the New York Mets’ criminal ownership that was awarded next year’s opportunity to stage the game’s greatest before the Cubs or any other worthy organization.

The fact that Minneapolis is being discussed for 2014 is also outrageous considering Wrigley field will be 100 years old (as Wrigley Field) in 2014. How could you not give Wrigley the All-Star Game in 2014? Minneapolis? I’ve never been…but how do you not give the Ricketts, the Cubs, Cubs fans and Wrigley the All-Star Game in 2014. Nothing is official yet and the way Selig botched 2013’s game by giving it to the one group that should have been eliminated from contention makes me not surprised in the least that it is likely to not happen on Selig’s watch next year.

Selig, for the good of the game, stop taking care of your friends. Put the game first, not your criminal buddies. The players, coaches and managers that are at next year’s All-Star game will have worked hard to play in the game and represent MLB in front of the world. The team that hosts it should at least be in contention to do so because they have not dishonored the game with such disgraceful, illegal activity as the Wilpons have.

This outrage is not even truly about the Cubs or Cubs fans or soccer, etc. It’s about doing the right thing. It’s about taking the opportunity to do the right thing in honoring the game on it’s greatest stage and by giving next year’s cash cow of a game to his best friends who could definitely use it to avoid a fire sale on their disgusting bullet-dodging path that they’ve been on for the past couple years with the Madoff mess, Selig dropped the ball.

Citi Field – host field of the 2013 All-Star Game.

Seriously, Bud?

Ridiculous.

Go Cubs Go.