:::: ANOTHER WASTED BASEBALL IDEA Billionaire owners. Aged. Stuck to their way of thinking, which was around the time Al Capone ruled the roost in Chicago. It only took 30 years but Major League Baseball finally installed technology outside of the usual scoreboards and video replay boards. This is equivalent to the mind-numbing brain freeze one suffers from sipping a Slurpee. It came as no surprise that many owners were against replay. It came as no surprise that fans who consider themselves purists to the game were against instant replay. Yet, in its own right - like all other sports that utilize replay - it is flourishing. Why? Simply because it works. Baseball is dead. It is in a deep rut measured in decades. Ancient - excuse me, historic - stadiums are treasured for their sentimental value. What they truly are - pardon me to all the purists for being blunt on this point - are sarcophagi. Coffins. Lockers for the likes of Davy Jones. Look at the NFL. Fans oohed and aahed when Jerry Jones built a new stadium and fashioned it with a 4-sided video scoreboard the size of a small skyscraper. For the past two decades, teams have pushed to get stadium deals with their respective cities. What about MLB? Nope. Cobwebs and dust are in. If a crack develops in the stadium facade of some relic, fans there will just idolize the way the stadium naturally ages and take selfies of themselves and a crack. The cost of goofy foods is nearing thirty bucks: two-foot long hotdogs piled high with chili and condiments, stuffed corn dogs with jalapenos and cheese. Vendors are raking it in. Why? Because its new and fun. The stadiums arent, but the food draws a good crowd. Television deals are making owners wealthier by the minute, but theyll tell you until their blue in the face about all the money they are losing. Maybe the rational person figures if the owners mindset is stuck in the middle of the twentieth century, then they should receive mid-1900s money. This is 2014. Baseball is over one hundred years old. If it werent for replay, it would feel closer to two hundred. Finally, baseball is taking a step in the right direction. It is starting to move forward. Its a little awkward, like watching an infant getting around shortly after taking those first steps. Instant replay could have been baseballs gateway to resurrection. It could have a been a party for the ages. Baseball is on its way back, baby! Time to celebrate. Except the corks to the champagne are rotted in the dusty bottles sitting in some dank, dark room down some long empty forgotten tunnel off the beaten path within those archaic stadiums. Just as the party gets going, the purists are back casting a gloomy pall over the first ray of sunshine baseball has seen since the Astrodome was opened. Instant replay is increasing the time to these games. The time of games is well over 3 hours. Replay promises to add to an already lengthy sporting event, so they say. Maybe. Or maybe the focus is being purposefully and intentionally misdirected. Baseball games are long. If little has changed over the years, then why are game times increasing? The answer is simple: commercials. More commercials means more television revenue. This is the hand that feeds the owners, and there is no way you are going to change this. After all, baseball is not about change, and those old-timers steering those creaky ships are not about to change course.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 22:24:05 +0000
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