Bud Selig is set to retire at some point this century and for me it can’t come any sooner. Of course, he has threatened to retire before, so I’m not holding my breath. With this being said, you can’t rush someone into retiring. They have to do this in their own time. I know a few people who have looked into companies like KeyAdvice before they made their final decisions. Even speaking to professionals in this field made it a lot easier to understand what the whole idea of retirement would involve for them. As there is a lot to think about surrounding the retirement process, it comes as no surprise to find that people are releasing their home equity to fund retirement plans. No matter what you decide to do, just be sure you fully understand what you are getting yourself into, as you want this to go as smoothly as possible.

But even if you are thinking about financing long-term care through a lifetime mortgage, this is something worth doing some research into. For anything that involves finances, it is best to know all you can before you make any commitments.

There is a lot more to this than people think. I’ve never been a big fan of the commissioner and as someone coming from a Houston address I figure most of that goes with the territory. For those that don’t hail from around these parts, Selig is public enemy number one in Houston. In order to get it out of my system, let me briefly list the sins he has committed against us here. Then, we can move on.

• During the 2005 World Series, he ordered the roof opened after we had played with the roof closed for much of the season. Of course, as sins go, this is fairly tame.
• Hurricane Ike interrupted the 2008 campaign. Before the storm, we were in the midst of a wild card push. We had a three game series scheduled in Houston during the storm. The games were postponed and then replayed in Milwaukee. Mind you, Milwaukee is only a few hours from Chicago, so the HOME series had many more Cubs fans than Astros fans. The Cubs fans even mocked the “home” team during much of the series.
• Bud strong armed the Astros into the American League. I read the transactions wire one day where it said, “MLB approves the Astros request to transfer to the American League.” Our request? Let me be one of thousands to tell you where you can stick that, Bud.

I presented that in order to be open and honest about my intentions. I don’t exactly come in here with a clean heart as it pertains to our commissioner. In fact, I would say it is more accurate to say I hold him in the minimum of high regard. One of the worst things he has done in my opinion is to bastardize the sport and pimp it out to nations around the world for opening day. As someone that holds the traditions of the game sacred, I see more negatives than positives with beginning the season in Asia (or Australia in this case.)

Let’s consider the fantasy element for a second. I’m sure Bud and the boys don’t care about that one iota, but it does create problems in terms of fantasy drafts (particularly those after this week) and what numbers should be considered as a part of week one matchups. Then you have the hilariity of returning to exhibition action after you’ve already played in real games. Consider the case of Matt Kemp. He had to officially begin the season on the disabled list when it was concievable that he would have made it back by what we would call the real opening day.

Of course, this is just window dressing for the real issue. Opening Day is the most exciting day of the year. It is the day when all hopes are renewed and every fan feels the joy of a new season. I’ve always thought that Opening Day should be a national holiday. It’s built perfectly for it. There are usually quadruple headers on ESPN and the MLB Network in addition to whatever you have going on locally. It’s set up perfectly for the backyard barbecue and it’s one of the few days in the year when baseball is king.

Think about the tradition of it all. The Cincinnati Reds used to open the regular season every year because they were the first known major league team (at least that is still in existence). Those traditions have slowly eroded to the pressures of increasing the international appeal of the game and to the pressures of national television. The Sunday Night game is one thing, but opening it up half-way around the world is a disservice to the fans. That’s right, it is America’s pastime. It is America’s game. Now, Dodgers and Diamondbacks fans get to see their teams play in their third game in a couple of weeks. Most of them missed the opening games or saw them on tape delay. Yes, we want to grow the game in Australia and other places, but in order for the game to keep it’s popularity it must be popular here. You don’t help that when you open the season somewhere else.

Bud Selig’s tenure will understandably be a mixed bag. The last 20 years of labor peace somewhat cancels out the cancellation of the World Series in 1994. Innovations like the wild card offset the unnecessary innovations like the all-star game counting. The current drug policy somewhat mitigates the nearly two decades where his administration looked the other way. Playing games internationally is just a piece of that puzzle. No offense to our mates across the world, but here’s hoping Opening Day will stay in the states after Selig is gone.