Baseball withdrawals

This.

;D

 

MLB Network is great, and I do watch baseball movies most of the winter.
But ... there is just something so nice about knowing every night at 7 p.m. you can turn on the TV and watch a game.

I'm fine for a sports fix. We're getting ready to start the bowl season, then the NFL playoffs, the Premier League doesn't have a winter break, then it's time for testing at Daytona. I used to watch a lot more hockey, but the influx of European players has dampened my interest (not opening a shit storm, just sayin for me personally).

 

No changing the ending!

 

There was a great old film (Dick Young was listed in the credits) of the Mets' '71 season on SNY last night. Went from instructional league (where they were trying to accelerate the progress of budding superstar Ken Singleton and future shortstop Tim Foli, and showed Ralph Kiner tutoring Singleton in the cage about turning his back leg and extending his arms) through the end of the season. Seaver getting his 289th strikeout (286.1 innings) was awesome and I forgot how good Danny Frisella was that year. Team couldn't hit worth shit, though (Cleon Jones being the notable exception), and had especially little power. But there was hope: John "Hammer" Milner was on the way.

 

Definitely go thorugh some baseball withdrawl once the season ends. I don't follow the NFL as much as I used to since I work every Sunday (still watch as many college games as I can get up here in Canuckistan). I watch very little NHL and no basketball.

But as Shoeless Joe said a couple of posts up, it's great to be able to turn the TV on every day for six months at 7 p.m. - or 1 or 2 p.m. on weekends - and get a ball game. Wish we got MLB Network up here.

 

Can't you get MLB Network as part of the Rogers Sports Pak?

 

It was kind of nice when sports actually had off seasons.

 

Probably, but I don't have that. Wish it was part of the package I have like NFL Network.

 

OK, you can believe Bud Selig at your peril, but he's named some heavy hitters to a committee investigating ways to speed up the game so it's played as it was in the 1960s.

That's the biggest problem with MLB right now. They can play fast - games in September between non-contenders often zip right along - but TV and pitching changes and human rain delays in the batter's box add 30 minutes a night of non-action.

Of course, the Player's Association will find something to complain about, instead of really focusing on the issues that are detrimental to players, like PEDs, crappy synthetic surfaces, too many night games, etc.

Length of games is another reason I love summer college wood-bat baseball: games generally played in 2:30 or less.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/1817/recommending-a-few-minor-changes

 

Game 7 1960 World Series: 19 runs, 24 hits, 7 pitching changes . . . played in 2 hours, 36 minutes.

That's baseball.

Cliff Lee throws a six-hitter in Game 1 this year . . . and the game takes 3:27. Un-bleeping-acceptable.

 

Feb. 2-7 on Venezuela's Margarita Island. No idea if somebody's going to blow out a flip-flop.

 

And it's going to be that way indefinitely as long as MLB lets the networks dictate policy. Just like Bud Selig's newfound quest for a day World Series game (which has been approached with all the tenacity and sincerity of O.J.'s search for the real killers). He's repeatedly said, "We'd love to do it, but Fox calls the shots and doesn't want to lose the ratings."

Likewise, I doubt anyone in MLB (other than the accountants) likes the (what is it), two minutes of commercial break between half-innings. But as long as MLB is letting networks dictate coverage, that's the way it's going to be.