Who says gays can’t be sporty? This post was submitted by Arthur D. Hartnett.

I am a die-hard baseball fan. I absolutely love the game of baseball. Everything about it. I don’t find it boring in the slightest. I have watched the game since I was a kid, I have studied the game in academic and personal settings. I have a baseball blog and my dream would be to work for one of the 30 Major League Clubs in a front office constructing a World Series competitor. The only reason I like January? It puts us closer to February when pitchers and catchers start to report. Despite the NFL’s popularity, baseball is the game of the United States. Everyone knows at least one baseball team (whether they like or dislike the Yankees).

Baseball is a fascinating combination of both team and individual sport. It is a marvelous analogy for human life: a sport wherein the best to ever play the game have failed almost 70% of the time (3 hits in 10 at-bats is All-Star-level production). Human life is about learning from your failures. Most people fail more often than they succeed in life. It’s a game of constant adjustments; which is what makes the perfect game (27 batters up, 27 batters down, in a row, no walks, no baserunners, etc., etc.) such a wondrous experience (THANK YOU, MARK BUERHLE!!!!!).

Many people around the country like baseball, but, more and more lately, I have heard expressions of discontent regarding the championship round being called “The World Series.” “Baseball isn’t only played in the U.S., so how can it be the World Series if only teams located in the continental U.S. are playing?” Well, that’s just idiocy, plain and simple. I want everyone to stop saying that. It’s garbage.

First of all, you’re forgetting about that poor team in Toronto, which makes Major League Baseball an international operation (yup, I’m going to take my technicalities and run with them). But, on a much more serious note, the World Series should be called the World Series even if you have one team from Queens playing another team from the Bronx, or a team from the North Side of Chicago facing off with a team from the South Side of Chicago (not bloody likely). Take a look at two things: history and current team makeup.

Major League Baseball is the most international of the major American sports combines. It is incredible. Take a look at your local team’s roster. You’ll see players from Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Panama, the United States, Nicaragua and numerous other countries around the world. Baseball players worldwide dream of playing for the teams based in THIS country. It’s not about some silly game of Japan vs. the United States, which would feature diluted rosters and produce an inferior product. The World Series is aptly named and justly applied. Go away.

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