| America's pastime is officially dead. Yeah so I was watching the home run derby the other night and it suddenly struck me that baseball really is dead as a sport. Here are my top three reasons why:
1. ADVERTISMENTS----There is a thin line between promoting a product and shoving it down peoples' throats. Baseball has crossed that line by a good, um, how far away is the sun? I can understand a few ads on the scoreboard and maybe the outfield walls, but when you start putting them on just about every square inch of visible surface of the ballpark, the fans have the ads going through their eyes and overflowing through...well you get the picture. Then there's the camera angle for the batter. You would think they would have the best angle to see the pitch, but noooooo...they have to make sure to get the perfect shot of the bilboard behind home plate. Arizona's ballpark has not one, not two, but THREE different ads visible when someone is up to bat. And if all these in your face ads aren't enough, they've gotta put huge posters up on buildings for the good old home run derby. Then there are the countless ads the announcers read off during the game like it's a cheap AM talk show. My question is, where is all this money going to? It still costs a crapload of money to get halfway decent seats at a game, and the last time I checked, the cable bill hasn't gotten any cheaper. If I wanted to watch three hours of people selling stuff, I'd turn to QVC. It's gotten to the point where I can't even stand to watch baseball anymore.
2. PLAYERS----This is probably going to make some people mad, but this is my site so talk to the hand. So yeah, back to the good old home run derby. I sat down to watch the classic American home run derby, and what do I see? Three batters in a row who aren't...well...aren't from the U.S. If it isn't enough that all these people are pretty much invading our sport, they have to go and wave their flag all over the place it's their own backyard. Seriously, if you like your country so much, why aren't you living there instead? Now I'm not against diversity at all, but when roughly 60% of the participants in one of our country's proudest sporting events aren't from our country, that gets me a little upset.
3. BAD STUFF----If baseball isn't already going down the tubes enough for you, consider this. Jason Giambi admitted to using steroids, something that is illegal according to the rules of the game. Pete Rose admitted to betting on baseball, also illegal according to the rules. Giambi got off the hook with basically nothing done to him. Rose is still banned from the Hall of Fame. WTF?? I guess doing something wrong that directly affects the game is not as bad as something you do on the side. Then we have Sosa and his bat-o-cork. A smart person would take the corked batting practice bat back to the locker room before the game to not let it get mixed up with the regular bats. This can only mean that: a) Sosa is not a smart person, or b) see 2 above.
It's not just baseball that's getting to be like this. It seems like all other American sports are getting to be the same way. Everything is so commercialized now and it's getting to the point where you can't even enjoy watching a sport. I've been watching some Formula One racing and the Tour de France lately. Both sports have European announcers and almost no advertisments shoved down your throats. So now I think I'm going to boycott American sports altogether. If anyone has any suggestions for foreign sports to watch, I'm all ears. Just don't shove it down my throat.
*"Funny Sloganizer Quote to End the Saddness" of the Day*
"Don't play with fire, play with poop!" |
