“In the same way that a baseball season never really begins, it never really ends either.” - Lonnie Wheeler, "Bleachers, A Summer in Wrigley Field"
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I believe in the church of baseball.
When I was a kid I could barely sleep the night before. I'm ate up with it, as they say.
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"Sit over here next to Johnathan (Bench)...sit right here, he's smart."--Sparky Anderson
I as you consider this a national holiday....I have invested in $$$$ worth of electronic gear and have taken the day off year after year to at least watch the game on TV.
I would however, appreciate it if you could remove the term "holy day" from your title RMetz.
“In the same way that a baseball season never really begins, it never really ends either.” - Lonnie Wheeler, "Bleachers, A Summer in Wrigley Field"
The Baseball Emporium - Books & Things.
The Baseball Bookstore
http://tsc-sales.com/
http://tscsales.blogspot.com/
http://silverscreenbooks.com/
I went to grade school in Delhi, where teachers would wheel a TV into the room for those kids who didn't take the day off. If a teacher wouldn't do that, she could pretty much be assured that half of us would have a transistor radio in our pockets with the cord for the ear piece running down our sleeves. In 1975, I spent entire classes leaning my head on my right hand during day games.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that part of baseball culture is gone. MLB cares more about fantasy players and prime time ratings than about making sure that the next generation of kids can see or hear the games. It's a shame.
Next Reds manager, second shooter. --Confirmed on Redszone.
Isn't the NCAA finals usually on opening Monday? Looks like that tournament is a whole week later.
Actually, it's probably EASIER for kids now to follow day games than it was back in 1975. With internet on cell phones, etc. it's probably pretty simple if they really wanted to follow along. But there's the rub.
Does a middle shcool kid really care about the Reds thesedays? They certainly care about the NFL and some other sports, but there is certainly a widening gap for the interest of kids and baseball. Just looking at the declining numbers of African-American ballplayers at all levels points to a certain "crisis" within American Youth Baseball.
People say that MLB is still going strong with good attendance, ratings, etc. but I think those numbers are skewed.
Baseball is still BIG TIME in the long-time baseball areas (Cincy, NYC, Chicago, etc.) baseball will always remain strong in those areas and in many cases, will remain the #1 sport.
However, the "in between" spots have really deteriorated in terms of MLB interest.
I live in OKC, and until the Sonics get here (very strong interest in the NBA here), we have no pro teams. Yet, the NFL is HUGE here, and people obviously love college football and basketball. The NBA as I mentioned is also quite popular. But I can tell you that I may be the only person in the state today excited about opening day. I'd say many really good sports fans don't even realize that today is opening day.
MLB is still very strong in places where it has a traditional foothold, but I think it's really lost the interest in many pockets around the country.
I do consider that Monday to be Opening Day, yes, not because of the Reds but because of the standard. But even disregarding that, I don't see where you're looking. Years in which there were games prior to the Monday adds only one March game in the last 10 years (2002). Not a few more. (And yes, I just looked this up, because I'm killing time.)
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
I didn't have to subscribe to anything to follow the Reds when I was twelve. Sure, following them is easy now, but with our family income back then, there is no way my parents would have sprung to foot the bill if it were the same as today. Perhaps I should have made that point more clear; MLB (and other sports) are no longer allowing access to their product like they did when I was a kid. It's for people who want to (and can) pony up the cash to pay for the content. And for a business with an anti trust exemption, that just doesn't seem right to me.
Next Reds manager, second shooter. --Confirmed on Redszone.
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