Dear Baseball, Go Die.

Six years ago, this would have been the happiest day of my life. A four-game sweep of the Red Sox, culminated by an exciting late-inning comeback in the final game to push the Yankees’ AL East lead to six and a half. It would have been more euphoric than chugging a gallon of morphine.

Instead, it’s just another Monday.

Six years ago, I would have loved to spend my Sunday night listening to Joe Morgan and Jon Miller drone on about the storied rivalry between my beloved Yanks and the goddamned Sawx.

Now, I fall asleep halfway through the Titans-Bills preseason game.

My feelings toward the Yankees – and baseball – have grown skeptical, distrusting and downright curmudgeon-y. I’ve resorted to watching soccer to get my sports fix this summer. I was actually excited to see Vince Young play like a Special Olympian in a meaningless football game last night.

Has a lot changed in baseball over the past six years? Technically, no. But my perception of it certainly has.

As a Yankee fan, the absence of a salary cap used to be my best friend. Now, as Buzz Bissinger so eloquently said, it pisses the shit out of me. I should be happy about the Yankees going back to their farm system with solid homegrown talent like Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Joba, Phil Hughes and Phil Coke. But not when they go out and buy Texeira, Burnett and Sabathia.

I absolutely loved the Tampa Bay Rays’ 2008 run. So what if I caught most of it on the morning SportsCenter highlights because I now find baseball less entertaining than C-SPAN? I still relished the fact that a team on welfare could beat out two rich, self-entitled franchises for the division and league titles. You can probably imagine my level of loathing when the Yankees responded to this embarrassment by donating $161 million to Darfur Sabathia’s stomach and another $262.5 million for Burnett and Tex.

My league fanship has decreased concordantly with the exposure of the steroids epidemic. In my book, baseball players are only a small step above golfers and NASCAR drivers when it comes to athleticism. They don’t need to be exceptional runners or jumpers; they must have enough strength to swing an object that weighs less than five pounds; they won’t ever endure a sprint longer than 360 feet. So why the fuck do these people find the need to dope more than Keith Richards?

I don’t think I’ll ever come back to baseball, and certainly not to the Yankees. The game’s become watered-down with Balco and big-bucks. It no longer deserves the “America’s Pastime” moniker. “America’s Pasttime” is Babe Ruth snorting lines, chugging beers and hitting 714 home runs. With that, there’s only one person who can save the MLB for me.

Good luck, Josh.