Monday, April 2, 2007

Have We Won Yet?

It's Opening Day, the start of another season. Which, as I explained to a friend, is not such a big deal when you're a Yankee fan. Because whereas other teams still strain in the muck and mire of the baseball season, the Yankees have long since transcended into the rarified atmosphere of baseball history. Other teams may bask in the ephemeral glory of last season's success, and their fans hold out hope for the one to come. A Yankee fan barely notices them passing, so tuned in is he to the longterm narrative of the game. There's a reason why Hemingway's Old Man talks about the Mighty Yankees as he chases his mythic shark. What other team could hold up the weight of such an adjective?

But there's something else that keeps me from getting geared up for baseball season, or basketball season, or the NCAA Tournament. And J.C. Bradbury nails it in his NY Times op-ed titled "What Really Ruined Baseball": Expansion.

Between the deflation in the quality of the performances, the increase in the number of players, teams and playoff formulas to follow, and the bi-polar media coverage veering from pitch-by-pitch analysis to highlight reel hysteria, I don't even start paying attention until late August.

To me, baseball has always been about a certain kind of nostalgia, in its imagery if not always in its reality. So you can dismiss it as just the grumpy complaints of a purist. I just don't see how a town like Tampa Bay has a Major League franchise. Or Jacksonville an NFL football team. That's what Triple-A ball and the NCAA is for.

Posted by Judah in:  Hoops, Hardball & Fisticuffs   

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