While this observer is eagerly awaiting a Thursday afternoon spent glued to ESPN 2’s coverage of MLB’s Amateur Draft (with Darryl Strawberry as the Mets’ good luck charm!), MSNBC’s Mike Celizic uses some bizarre criteria to prove this is a non-event.

WHO CARES?

I™ve checked my local newspapers, and not one has sacrificed a page of newsprint to a mock major league draft. My car radio is tuned full-time to sports talk, and I have yet to hear a word of speculation about who Tampa Bay is going to take with the first pick overall. My baseball fanatic friends haven™t called me up to drool on the telephone over who their team is going to pick.

Baseball isn™t football or basketball. In those sports, high draft picks (the NBA has only two rounds, so technically, they™re all high picks) are expected to make an impact right now. Franchises rise and fall on the drop of the lottery balls and the decisions made in the draft. And we know the effect almost immediately.

Uh huh. As opposed to pitchers like Tim Lincecum and Huston Street, who toiled for at least half a decade each (give or take half a decade) before they made sizeable contributions to their big league teams.

Perhaps one of the reasons Celizic’s “baseball fanatic friends” aren’t running mock drafts is because prior to this year, the draft was a webcast/conference call-only event. How much of a cottage industry were the NFL and NBA drafts before they were broadcast?