I'm Watching

Here is where it starts: You're out in the front yard, playing catch with your dad, and when you make an errant throw or the ball glances off your mitt and falls to the ground, the first words out of your mouth is, "I'm sorry." We are conditioned to apologize for not keeping the ball in the air. It is for this reason I believe all professional sports are fixed.
Come now. Don't stare at me with those unforgiving eyes. It happened in the 1919 World Series. Why wouldn't it be possible a hundred years later? Please understand that I enjoyed watching the spectacle as much as anyone without a specific rooting interest in what would be the least-watched World Series in the past five years. A Series in which the home team never won a game, which meant that every out had to be played. Home runs leaped out of each park, and a stolen base was recorded in game one, assuring a hungry nation that Taco Bell would make good on its offer of a free Doritos Locos Taco to anyone who could stumble into one of their restaurants between the hours of two and six on October 30.
Exciting? Sure. Fixed? Why not?
Bear with me for a moment as I point out that there are a great many adult Americans who continue to believe that Professional Wrestling is real. Considering there is a considerable overlap between this fan base and those that consider the eternal left hand turns of NASCAR high entertainment, and that so many of our great institutions have now become sullied by slow motion instant replay booth reviews, who would argue the point?
Okay. You're not convinced. How about the potential for these highly trained athletes to perform at such a high degree that they are throwing balls faster than I have ever driven my Prius and tapping their toes on the sideline even as they are careening toward the opponents' bench while all manner of chaos goes on around them? We are often reminded by announcer-types of the impossibility of what we have just witnessed and the improbability of a rookie kicker coming in at the last minute to push a ball through the uprights in the last seconds to pull off a victory. Except that's his job, and he's been practicing since at least mid-July for just such an opportunity. If he makes it, he's a hero. If he misses it, he will be replaced.
Then there's this: There was no television in 1919. Major League Baseball earns billions of dollars each year via its TV contracts with various outlets. The National Football League makes more than six billion annually. It is in their best interests to keep the ball in the air. All those enormous contracts given to players assure they continue to train for those moments of high drama and to keep the ball off the ground.
And for their silence.
Convinced? No? Just keep watching for proof. I know I will.