Say, when is Opening Day?
It already happened? Almost a week ago? The Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks? In Australia? Get outta here!
No, really, when is Opening Day?
In his last year on the job, commissioner Bud Selig isn’t giving himself nearly enough credit.
Sure, he seems particularly proud of identifying himself as the “Damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead!” commodore in the battle to rid Major League Baseball of performance-enhancing drugs.
So what that MLB, on Selig’s watch and with his money-first mandate, silently indulged the introduction, then the growth of the shame-filled, self-evident Steroid Era? That he was disinclined to stop it until it was far too late placed him in the perfect position: He could fight a noble war caused by his see-no-evil, speak-no-evil status as the team owners’ front-man.
Never having demonstrated the foresight to see his negligence during this drug era eventually would explode in his face, Selig now pretends — supported by a media equally disinclined toward critical thinking and chronological examination — to be the Lone Ranger, galloping into the sunset having rid our prairie towns of desperados.
As for those things for which Selig deserves credit but takes none, several come to mind.
That the best seats in big league ballparks now regularly and obviously go empty is indisputably a clear and continuing feature of Selig’s reign. Even as those seats in brand new ballparks were abandoned by the corporate crowd that pornographic pricing targeted, Selig played blind.
Also, Selig is given no much-deserved credit for destroying Opening Day, now a commercial enterprise packaged, sold and played at any time and anywhere, from Japan to, last week, Australia.
“Can you believe it?” Andy Furman said. “They’re still playing exhibition games and Opening Day was a week ago! The Dodgers are 2-0. Since last week!”
Furman is a fellow who figures to have a good take on Opening Day. Born and preheated in Brooklyn, he’s a character who has ridden the sports rails, from publicist to entrepreneur to radio host. He’s been everywhere, man; he’s been everywhere.
He now has a morning show on Fox Sports Radio out of Cincinnati, his HQ since 1981. “Opening Day in Cincinnati,” said Furman, citing a fact that long preceded his arrival, “used to be very special.”
For decades, the Reds, founded 100 years before Furman hit town, were granted the privilege of playing the first game of the season, likely as baseball’s oldest team. And the city made good on that privilege, establishing MLB’s Opening Day as something baseball could both cherish and never mess with.
A 1 p.m. game was preceded by the downtown Findlay Market Parade. Clowns, elephants, city elders dressed in 1890s Reds uniforms, fan clubs, famous former players, current players waving to the townies and out-of-townies who crowded the curbs. Kids were given off from school to attend the parade then, if lucky, the game.
It was a wonderful small-town, Norman Rockwell-imaged tradition embraced and sustained by a big town. While Ed Bailey was the Reds’ catcher from 1953-60, George Bailey may as well have owned the bank. Opening Day, in Cincinnati and for Cincinnati, was such a sappy setup it was fabulous.
As late Reds manager Sparky Anderson put it: “A holiday — a baseball holiday. Ain’t no other place in America that got that!”
But it’s not the same, anymore. It largely has been lost to Selig’s mandate to make money at any cost.
“There’s still a parade, but a lot of the luster’s gone,” Furman said. “This year I think the home opener is a 4 p.m. start [4:10 p.m., to be precise]. Opening Day has become an ESPN thing. The Reds have nothing to do with it. It’s been lost to Bud Selig’s sense of what baseball is or should be.”
The Reds will open per MLB’s drop-dead addiction to TV money. It’s one of five Monday “MLB Opening Day on ESPN presented by Scotts” games.
“A few years ago, downtown merchants petitioned MLB to save Opening Day for Cincinnati, but nothing came of it,” Furman said. “It’s still an event, but it’s not the tradition it was because it can’t be; it wasn’t allowed. To me, there’s still a tremendous sense of loss.”
That’s progress.
By the time the Reds start this season, 10 games already will have been scheduled to precede it, three by the Dodgers. They’re scheduled to play their “U.S. Opener” this Sunday night — on and for ESPN. And who knows? Maybe ESPN’s graphics will show the Dodgers are first in all offensive categories — most hits, RBIs, runs, etc.
Bud Selig just doesn’t get enough credit. It’s a shame.
Rethinking the NCAA’s replay rule
Can’t see the forest for the trees? Some solutions are so simple they’re easily missed.
Though college basketball was able to survive and, for better or worse, even thrive for 100 years without TV replay rules, the game, in its last two minutes, is now regularly unplugged in order to “get it right” — even if for the wrong reason.
Thus, reader Brian Keenan of New York City has a time-saving suggestion worthy of the new replay rule: “Considering that the refs now must abandon the judgment that served them for the first 38 minutes of the game in order to review matters on a small, courtside TV, wouldn’t it stand to reason that they leave the court, with two minutes left, and call the game from a room with a TV?”
How about that? Live golf on NBC
NBC and its TV sibling Golf Channel this September will do for the Ryder Cup what NBC won’t do for the Olympics — show it all on live TV. All three days of U.S. versus Europe matches will be appear from Scotland, beginning at 2:30 a.m., EDT, and into the early afternoon.
♦ With Phoenix leading the Rangers 2-0 in the first period on MSG Monday, Sam Rosen and Joe Micheletti noted the Coyotes had blown leads — including two-goal leads — “in 10 of their last 19 games.” The Rangers won, 4-3.
♦ While I agree with Chris Russo’s SiriusXM assessment of Charles Barkley’s repetitive, flat and platitude-enriched assessments of NCAA Tournament games from CBS and Turner studios, what else is there for Barkley (or anyone else) to say? These sessions are sponsor-titled time-killers.
♦ NBC remains committed to selling its NHL telecasts with go-low come-ons to bloodthirsty fools. NBCSN’s “Rivals” pregame to Flyers-Rangers on Wednesday mostly was a collection of long-ago brawls. The game that followed didn’t include a single fight, let alone worse than a 2-minute penalty.