Quote:
Originally posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
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And yes, I agree that it is hard to call it baseball when two teams, neither of whom are the Cincinatti Reds are playing in the first game of the season, and the game is being played in Japan. Whatever happened to tradition.
[/B][/QUOTE]Amen! Cincinatti traditionaly had the home opener. It was almost a rite of passage. Kids bagged school to go to the game. It signalled that winter was over, and here comes summer. Great tradition!
Then ESPN gets the opener. Now it's "Hey, we've got a great idea". Let's play the opener at 8:30 on a Sunday night. Kids are in bed? Ah, who the hell cares. We don't need new fans. A few years later, they get another bright idea. This one I can picture in my mind. Two ESPN pointy-heads sitting in a boardroom talking. One says to the other- "Say, Mort, we haven't pissed off all of the real baseball fans in a looooong time. Doesn't seem right to me. Any idea what we could do to take care of that?" Mort replies- "Tell you what, Moe.We got 'em good by making 'em stay up 'til after midnight on a Sunday night if they wanted to watch the opener. Why don't we take it one step further? We'll send 2 teams to Japan to open the season, and to make it even better, if the fans wanna see the game, they'll have to damn well get up in the middle of the night to do so". Moe sez- "Great idea, Mort. We'll do it. But we ain't sending no damn small-market team like Cincinatti. T'hell with tradition!"
Agree with you completely on this one, Mark.