Sometimes irony is subtle, I guess...

So I spent Saturday afternoon/evening at a friend's place, watching my previously-first-place Blog Madness bracket disintegrate before my eyes. That sucked. What's worse is that the games themselves weren't even very good. After several weeks of nailbiting, down-to-the-wire displays of brilliant basketball, we were treated to a couple of games for which by halftime the over/under was going to struggle to break 100. When Florida is playing UCLA, both uptempo scoring teams, and it takes almost fifteen minutes through the first half for either team to break ten points, you know there's a problem. And it wasn't even good defense, either, it was just slop. And after all the slop, both of my finals teams were out of the tournament. Another one bites the dust. But this isn't really about that. I'm just venting.

Also on Saturday, another sporting event got started: the Civil Rights Game in Major League Baseball. Now, I'm not much of a baseball fan. I pretty much avoid watching it on TV; I just can't seem to get into it. Live is a different story: I'll watch just about anything live, and baseball parks are usually great places to spend a few hours. But again, I digress. I think that a Civil Rights game is a good idea; Jackie Robinson should be recognized, along with the contributions of countless minority atheletes to modern sport. And furthermore, I think that Memphis is an excellent place to hold such a game, being the location of the Civil Rights Museum, as well as the place where MLK was killed. Good ideas all around. What struck me was this -

The matchup for Saturday's Civil Rights Game: The Saint Louis Cardinals against...

The Cleveland Indians.

If you need to, take a moment and read that again. It'll come to you.

I couldn't believe it. Do you really mean to tell me that no one, while they were putting this game together, saw the teams involved and didn't at least raise their hands to say, "Um, guys? You sure this is a good idea?" Assembling an event to commemorate the progress of an oppressed minority and including a team named for yet another oppressed minority. Effing brilliant.

I guess it could have been worse. It could have been Braves-Yankees.