If You Build It, They Will Come.

Sunday, May 06, 2001

Just a question.... Isn't it always baseball season?

Why do they call it baseball SEASON? I mean you have spring training, then the regular season, followed by the series, and like a week after the world champion is decided, its time for spring training again. Perhaps the season reflects the actual game. Neverending.

In my opinion, baseball is not a "sport." It may have been at one time, but that time is long gone. If you can play a double-header, two games back to back, it isn't a hard game. I mean as an outfielder, what do you do. Stand there. If a ball happens to come out your way, you run to catch it and throw it back to the infield. And then you stand there more. Stand there while the pitcher holds the ball, looks around for a bit, loks around for a bit longer. Looks at the catcher, shakes his head, looks around more. Shakes his head yes and then he throws tha ball. The umpire says "Ball 1" and we start the process all over again. Then as the outfielder you come in to the dugout and sit on a bench waiting perhaps for about an hour, for your turn to bat. You take a few swings, maybe get on base, maybe strike out and go sit back on the bench again.

Chess is more exciting.

I really feel bad for baseball announcers. They have to just sit there and find things to talk about while absolutely NOTHING is happening. "So Bob, I took my wife out the other day to one of these fine stores here in Cleveland." "Oh yeah Bill, where at? Down at the Flats?" "No we went there later, it was this quaint little shop over on 9th. Just a little place, looked like it was family owned." "Ya know, Bob, you just don't see that too much anymore. Strike one. Nowadays everything is corporate owned and everything, its really nice to get a piece of what america is all about." "Yeah, so anyway then we went down to Hooters in the Flats for lunch. It was kind of sunny and we ate out on the deck, and its right on the river. There were people going by on jetskis, and these ducks were just sitting in the water, not afraid at all of them." "Wow. They probably see that a lot Bill. Amazing how nature adapts to cities and big populations. This ones up and its foul ball, strike two." "Yeah, speaking of nature, do you ever see that Steve Irwin guy on Aminal Planet?" "Animal Planet? What's that?" "Oh its this cable channel that deals with animals. Ball one." "They have an animal channel?! What'll they come up with next?" "It's really interesting. Anyway they call this guy the Crocodile Hunter." "Oh yeah! I have seen that guy. He's they guy on the Subaru commercials right?" "No, thats Crocodile Dundee." "Oh." "Yeah so hes this guy from Austrailia..." "No that's the guy in the Subaru commercials." "No Bill. That's Paul Hogan, its a different guy." "Are you sure? Ball two." "Yeah, Paul Hogan is Crocodile Dundee, he was in three movies. Steve Irwin is this OTHER guy who like goes after crocodiles and poisonous snakes out in the wild and shows them to his wife and kid who he takes along." "That sounds pretty dangerous." "Well yeah, this guy does all this dangerous stuff, and... ya know, just watching him, its a wonder he's not dead." "Wow, I'd watch it, but I don't get cable." "You don't get cable? Wow." "Yeah. I guess thats why I never heard of Aminal Planet. Full count." "Hmm... they got all kinds of cool channels now. There's the food network, and the...." "The food network? What do they talk about food for 24 hours a day?" "Sure do Bill." "Wow, its amazing how people can just talk for hours and hours about nothing. Kinda makes you glad we cover the great american pasttime, eh Bob?" "Sure does Bill. Ball four, and Sosa is on base...."

Okay, now I know my example was really long, but I just wanted you to get a feel of how EXCRUCIATING the game is to watch. You know what they should really do? Cover baseball the same way they cover golf. Watching the PGA, you don't follow Tiger Woods the whole time, why should you only watch ONE baseball game? Show 'em all! "Okay we're here in Cleveland where Williams just hit a two run double, scoring Henderson and Ramerez. Now lets go out to Texas where the Tigers just struck out the Rangers.... " "Yeah it was a low breaking ball inside and just swept past the batter, and now Detroit is up... Lets go to John out in Pittsburgh." "Sammy the Pirates just won the game in extra innings with a bang. A Grand Slam homerun..."

How much better would that be?

I can't stand the baseball fans who come up to me and say they can't stand hockey because its so boring. Uh....WHAT?!? "All they do is skate around." Yeah, well at least they're frickin' MOVING!

I think that the NFL has taken over the great american pasttime spot. And thank goodness. I'd lose my mind if I had to sit through a baseball game everynight. Last time I went to a game was at old Tiger Stadium. Tigers were playing the Blue Jays I think. I was getting itchy and so were all my friends. We were getting restless. We weren't really paying too close attention to the game, because we hadn't seen eachother in a while. So the game went on and we talked. I was introduced to new people. We talked about school, about summer, about whatever we were doing over the summer, working, taking classes whatever. We talked for a really long time. Then one of us mentioned we should be watching the game, because we paid for the tickets, to which we laughed. (For those of you who don't know, before the Tigers moved to Comerica Park, you could get a seat, a hot dog, a coke, and a newspaper at Tiger Stadium for $8.) But we turned to the game thinking we had missed most of it already. Not kidding, y'all. It was the bottom of the 2nd. We were all shocked.

So speed up! Hurry. They ought to put a clock on the game. Like chess. You're up and your clock is going. Once you're batting, your clock stops. If your clock runs out, you lose, or the other team is awarded a run or something! Christ, I don't have the kind of time it takes to commit to watching a baseball game. This is America, 2001. We're always on the move, we're always busy. We've got cellphones, pagers, fast food, dietary supplements, motorcycles that can go from 0-100mph in six and a half seconds. Baseball needs to catch up, or drop off.

And don't even get me started on how much these bastards get paid. A quarter of a billion dollars over ten years, for baseball? I could see for like curing AIDS or ending apartheid. For colonizing the moon, or saving the whales. Jesus, for making cigarettes non-addictive, but not for playing frickin' BASEBALL! You hit an object with a big stick and then run really fast for at most 360 feet. Cavemen could accomplish this. Is being paid $250,000,000.00 a bit unnecessary?

"But thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller

"The one constant throughout all the years has been baseball." --James Earl Jones; "Field of Dreams"

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home