Grim news from the Ongoing Drivel Slog between MLB owners and players:
Nothing is happening, neither side is budging, and the Feb. 16 opening of baseball camps - a traditional sign that winter is done with us - looks shakier than ever.
Damn them... They blew it up... Damn them all to hell...
So... help me, folks. How should we deal with this slow-motion avalanche of greed, hubris and stupidity?
Today, I was going to write how the Yankees are so bereft and adrift that they may need to trade Gleyber Torres - the only guy other teams will take - but... why bother? Why give these assholes free ether? They're using Feb. 16 as a cudgel. We shouldn't get in their way.
In a time of great impending cultural turmoil, we are watching baseball shoot itself - not in the foot, but in the head.
Frankly, it's stunning how the powers who run the game - I mostly refer to the owners, but the union is not guiltless - have let this dispute linger so far. For years now, the sport has faced a troubling impasse, but the reactions of both sides were to draw lines in the sand and wait for the apocalypse - the end of the labor agreement. Well, it's almost here. Will anybody step up to the plate?
Baseball is surviving via its popularity within a rapidly graying demographic, while it simultaneously prices itself out of future generations.
I have three kids, all grown up. None gives a shit about baseball. They saw the greed, the tedium, the tiredness - and it lost them long ago. I don't blame them. They're better off not caring.
The Yankees are now the Mets, and vice-versa. Thomas Boswell once wrote "Why Time Begins on Opening Day." Well, opening day is in trouble, folks, and if the 2022 season gets delayed - well - it will be time for baseball's fanbase to do the right thing... to stay home.
MLB better not have thrown out those cardboard fan cutouts from 2020. And it might need to resurrect those sound tracks of cheering crowds.
They have two weeks to settle this. That's enough time, unless they're too stupid to know better. If so, damn them all to hell.
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7 comments:
I was watching, I think it was a Knick game but it could have been the NFL, and one of the hundreds of commercials that I saw that weekend for sports betting apps caught my eye, and revealed the future of baseball.
The commercial was about how, when you bet, every play counts. It had an animation of crushing quarter back hits and ferocious slam dunks. It also showed two guys in the stands of a baseball game growing animated beards because the game is so slow and boring. The commercial said that their app was so good it could even make baseball exciting. With its unlimited pitch to pitch opportunities to wager.
And there it is...
Duque, like you I have two kids who don't give a crap about the game (as spectator - my son played club ball through college). He will watch an inning or two with me but that's just to hang out.
The game is doomed as a sport and soon will exist only as a live action roulette wheel. That's why the new stadiums have all those distractions. Now they are adding betting kiosks.
A place to hang out with friends, get drunk and lose money watching people catch and throw.
You know... Jai Lai.
Once again, I refer everyone to the final season of "Brockmire." It's funny, but there's a lot of truth in it about where baseball goes in the not-too-distant future.
JM,
Really one of the best shows ever.
There's a Brockmire podcast where Hank, in character, interviews real sports figures. The Charles Barkley one is particularly good.
Here's an Apple link to the show. I get it with Amazon.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jim-brockmire-podcast/id1558873755
Random trivia fact I learned today: The Yankees haven't developed a home-grown All-Star third baseman since Gil McDougald in 1959, that's the longest drought of any team.
What Duque and Doug posted about their kids disturbed me more than any other aspect of this whole debacle. How sad is it that we may not be able to pass our love and enjoyment of the game to our children as our fathers (or mothers!) did to us. As fans we must make our displeasure known. Stop buying merch, cut the cable, and most of all stay the fuck away from the shopping mall masquerading as a ballpark on River Ave. For once, let’s be strong!
I forgot to mention--while the Olympics start officially on Friday, competition actually started today.
With curling.
Yes!
We don't need no stinking Spring Training.
Baseball had always been a game one learned to love in their youth and it grew within them through adulthood. Often fathers passed down the love of the game to theirs sons. As far as the Yankees go, to watch a game means subscribing to the MLB network or buying a cable package that inclues YES. Guess what, the youth today are not buying into cable. They're streaming Prime, Hulu, Netfix, etc.and are not watching baseball on the MLB network. Why shell out money to the MLB network to watch only one team. The greed of the owners (especially those owning the Yankees)have cut off the blood supply to the next generation and foolishly think the sport will still thrive. Good luck with that one. My two adult sons, who both played a lot of baseball and were huge Yankee fans, now only tune in once a year to watch them lose the Wild Card game.
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