Uh, It’s Friggin’ July

Did I miss something? Did the baseball season end while I went out for lunch? The top story on ESPN.com this afternoon:

Ready for Prime Time? Think back. Remember Dec. 27, 1998? That’s the last time the 49ers won a game against the Rams. St. Louis has beaten San Francisco six straight times. So while they have four prime-time games this season, the 49ers have to get a win over the Rams if they want to be considered one of the NFL’s elite teams, writes John Clayton.

With all due respect to the game of football, Knute Rockne, Jim Brown, Air Coryell, Marshall Faulk, and Bill Walsh, Genius, WHO GIVES A SHIT? IT’S JULY! We’ve got baseball. Balls, strikes, strike zones, strike dates, races, ‘roids, Rose, Bud, Ichiro, Ishii, Izzy, Sori, Manny, A-Rod, Pedro, The Big Unit, The Gambler, The Moehler, Rolen, the Dolans, ERA, OPS, MVP, the frozen corpse of Ted Williams, and a case of Stubby Clapp gone missing.

Any one of these is more interesting than midsummer speculation about upcoming regular-season football games. The only time football should be a top story during the summer is if (God forbid) some poor guy keels over from heat exhaustion and dies, some foreign-born kicker gets caught with a foreign substance, or if some legendary coach or quarterback decides to turn in his playbook. Any other football news should be relegated behind not only baseball, but summer basketball, tennis, soccer, golf, NASCAR, bowling, cockfighting, dwarf tossing, alligator wrestling, and yak racing at this time of year.

Remember December 27, 1998? Neither does Steve Young. Why the hell would I?