betED.com - The View from the Couch - by Gavin McDougald!
March 26th, 2008 - Getting a "Right" Wrong.
There are many ?rights of spring? - sporting shorts with hairy white legs, going to the driving range and hitting it pathetically, picking up a winter?s worth of accumulated dog poop that?s piled high in the back yard?
?but the top ?right? has long been baseball?s Opening Day.
Which this year is all wrong.
Once upon a time it was the perfect excuse for kids to sneak out of school, and older kids to skip an afternoon?s work to tune in the traditional opener, the Cincinnati Reds at home in the afternoon against whomever, and long for green grass and games played in the summer heat.
Nothing shook off the winter blues better.
Except for this year. Those kids who wanted to take in the 2008 opener had to get up at 3:00 am in the morning on Tuesday to watch the Boston Red Sox defeat the Oakland Athletics 6-5 in ten innings, indoors, in Japan.
It was over by the time they had to go to school. With dreams of Sushi dancing in their heads presumably.
Why the change? Why this whimper instead of the usual bang?
Well, this is not the first time baseball has shipped out Opening Day. In 2000, the Cubs opened up against the Mets. In 2004, the Yankees took on the Devil Rays.
All three have one thing in common. Marketing.
The marketing of the game overseas has become such a big deal; traditions like Opening Day are commodities to be capitalized upon.
In 2000, baseball could still count on exploiting the Sammy Sosa phenomenon. In 2004, the Yankees had Hideki Matsui on their roster. In 2008, the season-opening pitch was thrown by Daisuke Matsuzaka.
However, there is a noted difference in buzz this year. As in, except outside of Boston, there just isn?t any.
Which would lead most cynics, or any sports writer you can name, to believe that the lack of promotion and attention given to Opening Day this year is intentional.
Baseball?s PR machine usually ensures that forests are felled for the stories on the season?s start, covering the teams? hopes and dreams, whom we should keep our eyes on and who will disappoint. Except this year, the only major opening day ink was on the BoSox?s threatened strike over their coaches not being compensated for their Japanese jaunt.
Nothing says Opening Day more than a threatened wildcat walkout.
So ? why the low profile? Could it be that MLB is trying to come in under the radar? Have they decided that it may be in their best interest to let March Madness, the NBA and NHL regular season?s final throws, and Tiger Woods take up their usually allotted limelight?
Are they attempting to creep willy-nilly into our collective consciousness instead of cramming it down our throats? Are they concerned that if they do what they?ve always done, make a big deal about baseball being all about America, hotdogs and apple pie, that we may instead focus on all the stories that we?ve been seeing, hearing and reading while stuck in these winter doldrums these past few months?
That of course would require that baseball would know how to exhibit some subtlety, something they have never demonstrated in the past.
Major League Baseball is about as subtle as an Albert Pujols swing to the temple.
No. It?s simply that they don?t care. They don?t care that we know that their game has been tainted for years, or that contracts are once again escalating to obscenity-inducing levels, or that there are teams having substantive discussions with both Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds to bring them back for one more year ? or decade, depending upon the advances of medical science.
Baseball just doesn?t care for one simple reason.
They know they don?t have to.
Teams know that fans will come out regardless of what the game does to them.
2007 was supposed to be the most dangerous year for the game since the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Steroids finally were proven rampant and it was revealed that teams were in on it all the time.
So what happened?
Baseball set an all-time attendance record in 2007 and had revenues surpassing $6 billion, double the amount from 2000.
MLB makes the Terminator look like a tinker toy. It just cannot be killed.
Sticking it to the fans by shipping Opening Day overseas?
They know?
You?ll be back.
Cheers - Gavin McDougald - AKA Couch
Bet MLB odds at betED.com here!
March 26th, 2008 - Getting a "Right" Wrong.
There are many ?rights of spring? - sporting shorts with hairy white legs, going to the driving range and hitting it pathetically, picking up a winter?s worth of accumulated dog poop that?s piled high in the back yard?
?but the top ?right? has long been baseball?s Opening Day.
Which this year is all wrong.
Once upon a time it was the perfect excuse for kids to sneak out of school, and older kids to skip an afternoon?s work to tune in the traditional opener, the Cincinnati Reds at home in the afternoon against whomever, and long for green grass and games played in the summer heat.
Nothing shook off the winter blues better.
Except for this year. Those kids who wanted to take in the 2008 opener had to get up at 3:00 am in the morning on Tuesday to watch the Boston Red Sox defeat the Oakland Athletics 6-5 in ten innings, indoors, in Japan.
It was over by the time they had to go to school. With dreams of Sushi dancing in their heads presumably.
Why the change? Why this whimper instead of the usual bang?
Well, this is not the first time baseball has shipped out Opening Day. In 2000, the Cubs opened up against the Mets. In 2004, the Yankees took on the Devil Rays.
All three have one thing in common. Marketing.
The marketing of the game overseas has become such a big deal; traditions like Opening Day are commodities to be capitalized upon.
In 2000, baseball could still count on exploiting the Sammy Sosa phenomenon. In 2004, the Yankees had Hideki Matsui on their roster. In 2008, the season-opening pitch was thrown by Daisuke Matsuzaka.
However, there is a noted difference in buzz this year. As in, except outside of Boston, there just isn?t any.
Which would lead most cynics, or any sports writer you can name, to believe that the lack of promotion and attention given to Opening Day this year is intentional.
Baseball?s PR machine usually ensures that forests are felled for the stories on the season?s start, covering the teams? hopes and dreams, whom we should keep our eyes on and who will disappoint. Except this year, the only major opening day ink was on the BoSox?s threatened strike over their coaches not being compensated for their Japanese jaunt.
Nothing says Opening Day more than a threatened wildcat walkout.
So ? why the low profile? Could it be that MLB is trying to come in under the radar? Have they decided that it may be in their best interest to let March Madness, the NBA and NHL regular season?s final throws, and Tiger Woods take up their usually allotted limelight?
Are they attempting to creep willy-nilly into our collective consciousness instead of cramming it down our throats? Are they concerned that if they do what they?ve always done, make a big deal about baseball being all about America, hotdogs and apple pie, that we may instead focus on all the stories that we?ve been seeing, hearing and reading while stuck in these winter doldrums these past few months?
That of course would require that baseball would know how to exhibit some subtlety, something they have never demonstrated in the past.
Major League Baseball is about as subtle as an Albert Pujols swing to the temple.
No. It?s simply that they don?t care. They don?t care that we know that their game has been tainted for years, or that contracts are once again escalating to obscenity-inducing levels, or that there are teams having substantive discussions with both Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds to bring them back for one more year ? or decade, depending upon the advances of medical science.
Baseball just doesn?t care for one simple reason.
They know they don?t have to.
Teams know that fans will come out regardless of what the game does to them.
2007 was supposed to be the most dangerous year for the game since the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Steroids finally were proven rampant and it was revealed that teams were in on it all the time.
So what happened?
Baseball set an all-time attendance record in 2007 and had revenues surpassing $6 billion, double the amount from 2000.
MLB makes the Terminator look like a tinker toy. It just cannot be killed.
Sticking it to the fans by shipping Opening Day overseas?
They know?
You?ll be back.
Cheers - Gavin McDougald - AKA Couch
Bet MLB odds at betED.com here!
