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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > March > 26
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tradition going, going .. almost gone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is so ridiculous. The first couple of Major League Baseball games this season ended before many fans could yawn their way out of bed.
It’s bad enough that Opening Day is years removed from its rightful place in Cincinnati, only the birthplace of professional baseball.
But Japan?
There is no way the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s should have started the season during the last two days anywhere but Fenway Park, McAfee Coliseum or any other diamond that sits between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Then again, there is now way this madness involving American professional sports leagues playing games that count on foreign soil is going to stop.
It’s all about the potential for the greedy folks involved with these leagues to add megabucks to their megabucks. So, while the NFL already is holding regular-season games in foreign lands, the NBA is thinking about it, and baseball has joined its football counterpart by actually doing it.
I understand what’s happening here and why it’s happening. I just don’t like it, especially when the most endearing part of what was our national pastime keeps getting belted a few steroid-induced swings toward the ozone.
Tradition.
Once, the baseball opener always was in Cincinnati, and it always was the only game played that day. Now you’ve got this Japan mess, and then you’ll have the Braves becoming part of the “United States” opener on Sunday night against the Nationals in Washington D.C.
Then, on Monday, you’ll have 1:05 p.m. starts for the Kansas City Royals against the Tigers in Detroit and the Toronto Blue Jays against the Yankees in New York.
Then the Reds will play the Arizona Diamondbacks at 2:10 in Cincinnati as mostly an afterthought.
Night games in the World Series starting later and later. The DH rule. Lights in Wrigley Field. Interleague play and wild cards. The Dodgers bolting Dodgertown and the Yankees bolting Yankee Stadium. Opening Days near Tokyo Bay instead of the Ohio River.
Yes, look toward the ozone.
Tradition in baseball is going, going, almost gone.
Not that those greedy folks care.
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