In Bud Selig’s eyes, Major League Baseball is all about architecture. He’s not the baseball commissioner; he’s director of buildings and grounds. Baseball is real estate, and if you didn’t believe it before this week you better believe it now. What was merely annoying has now reached the point of outright stupidity, and anyone who cares about the game should be disgusted by its current state.

What sparked this? A small story, really nothing more than a note, in Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Seems Bob DuPuy, the president and COO of MLB, told Bay Area reporters that the Oakland A’s were on the initial list proposed for contraction.

The A’s, who made the playoffs the past two seasons. The A’s, who have made money for the past several years under the miserly ownership of Steve Schott. The A’s, with some of the best young players in baseball and a clubhouse atmosphere that can restore your faith in fun.

There’s no outrage, though, because it’s not a surprise. “Oakland was on the list initially, sure,” DuPuy said. Sure. Why not? You can see him shrug from here. Who would argue this? After all, the Coliseum is not Camden Yards or Pac Bell Park, and Oakland taxpayers, already scarred from the fleecing Al Davis delivered upon his return, aren’t interested in funding a ballpark.

So, kill the A’s? Sure. Why not? Look at the ballpark, and the empty seats. Look at the Giants, filling their ballpark across the Bay while charging a day’s wage for a hot dog. So get rid of the A’s, divvy up the talent and go from there. Ignore reality. Ignore success. Blow ‘em up. Give the Yankees Tim Hudson -- he‘ll probably get there anyway, at some point -- the Dodgers Barry Zito, the Mets Mark Mulder, the Diamondbacks Eric Chavez.

“They’re an anomaly,” DuPuy says of the A’s, and God forbid we have that wandering around unhindered.

As Zito said in the same story, “Baseball doesn’t want the A’s to win. We make baseball look bad when we go out and win.”

There are economic problems in baseball, problems that need to be addressed before it implodes. But with the people currently in charge, there’s no chance they’ll be addressed in a productive way. No chance at all.

And by the way, here’s the Contraction Update, through Thursday: Twins 18-11, Expos 17-11, (In Bud We Trust) Brewers 8-20.

Milwaukee has a beautiful, taxpayer-funded ballpark, though, and a pared-down payroll. The team is terrible, but who cares? If only the A’s -- winners of more than 100 games a year ago -- were so lucky.

This Week's List

Just one more reason The Onion has something for everyone: The names in the What Do You Think? Box -- it’s a man-on-the-street spoof -- are usually a collection of former big-league teammates.

This week, the immortal ‘77 Giants: Stennett, Morgan, Evans, LeMaster, Herndon and Venable.

Everyone knows, of course, that roaming the soybean fields of western Mississippi for prime cheerleading talent is akin to baseball scouts searching for the next shortstop in San Pedro de Macoris: Osceola (Fla.) High School brought in a ringer from Mississippi to win the national cheerleading championship.

And, in case the message was obscured: They cheated at cheerleading.

Dude, there’s like this big hole by my house? And it’s like, I swear it’s getting bigger? And one day there was like this big dog sniffing around it? Anyway, that’s gotta be where they are, dude, I’m serious: A Fox News poll Friday asked viewers to answer the question, “Where are the terrorists hiding in the U.S.?”

One place they’re not hiding, unless they’re wearing a nice classic pique polo shirt with ribbed, pointed collar and a three-button placket: Safeco Field.

Just for the heck of it: Bob Coluccio.

A gimmick that was cute for about five minutes, and now needs to end before someone ends up taking one off the forehead: Old folks working as ball fetchers down the foul lines in big-league parks.

I don’t know, it’s nothing personal but he just doesn’t seem together, you know what I mean?: Mike Tyson.

In honor of Patrick Ewing, here’s a new category for aging athletes: Those who are so far gone that they become hard to watch, in a pit-of-your-stomach, purely visceral way.

There aren’t many certainties in life, but here’s one: The record for teammates hitting two homers in an inning (Mike Cameron and Bret Boone on Thursday night) will never be broken.

And finally, here’s one that won’t make it into Roto World Magazine: Jose Rijo is the only current big-leaguer who has received a vote for the Hall of Fame (1).

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.