Cheers bartender fired after 35 years, Team USA, and Melissa

Should you be tracking my every whereabouts, I’m back home in L.A. after a great week in Phoenix for spring training. While I was away getting the inside scoop on Manny Ramirez’s hamstring twinge (he’s out for a week) there were two non-writing questions that a number of you emailed to me. So I thought I’d address them today.

I must’ve gotten thirty requests for my reaction to the longtime bartender of the Cheers bar getting fired.

I don’t know the circumstances but it sure appears Eddie Doyle got a raw deal. Laid off after 35 years because of “the economy”? Are they kidding? That bar (originally called the Bull & Finch) is an absolute license to print money. It is the number one tourist attraction in Boston, which is saying something because I understand they have a lot of U.S. history stuff in that town. So the bad economy means their annual profit is now only staggering?

I’ve only met Doyle a couple of times and he seemed like a great guy. I’m sure the notoriety he’s received from this brouhaha will help him land another gig and maybe even an appearance on THE VIEW (where we learn that Elisabeth Hasselbeck hasn’t even heard of CHEERS).

BUT…

Sam Malone was not in any way modeled after him. Unless you want to say “longtime bartender” and great head of hair. Sam was a former ballplayer, Sam owned the bar (at least initially), and considering the amount of women he had was a superhero.

Again, I wish Eddie well. And my heart goes out to the poor poor Cheers bar that won’t sell as many T-shirts and Norm mugs this year.

The other question a number of you asked is what I think of the World Baseball Classic.

Okay, first off, how many of you readers care about the World Baseball Classic or even know there is such a thing? There’s a whole lot more buzz over THE BACHELOR.

The World Baseball Classic is MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s X-Games. I must say I’ve gotten into it more this time than the initial one three years ago. But they’ve got a long ways to go before they can call themselves a “Classic”. Baseball is a game of moments. You remember great comebacks, heroic performances. So far the WBC has only one – Netherlands twice beating the heavily favored Dominican Republic (payroll of professional ballplayers on the DR team: roughly $84,000,000; payroll of Team Netherlands: $450,000.)

The World Cup of Soccer it hopes to be but never will.

But it seems to me the World Baseball Classic has to catch on in the United States. Even though other countries are pretty jacked up about it, if it isn’t a hit here I don’t think it survives. It’s an uphill climb anyway because we’ve got spring training and soon the start of the “real” baseball season (read: the one that pays those guys $84,000,000) and it doesn’t help that Team USA. not only lost last weekend but lost so badly the mercy rule had to be invoked. (By the way, Adam Dunn, learn the rules.)

And it’s kind of a joke that a lot of players for these countries aren’t even from them. Val Pascucci of Team Italia was born in Bellflower, California.

If the US doesn’t advance to at least the semi finals I feel the World Baseball Classic may be in trouble. That said, I hope to be at Dodger Stadium this weekend for the finals. A championship is a championship and should be exciting. But if it’s not Team USA beating the shit out of Team Iraq I think the WBC may be in trouble. On the other hand, can you believe the Bachelor jilting that dear sweet Melissa Rycroft????