Saturday, July 18, 2009

Dog days: between NBA and NFL seasons.

The dog days of baseball are not in August. They begin the day after the final NBA playoff game in June. That's when we are exposed to MLB in its naked form, without basketball or football to entertain us. Baseball and only baseball. For almost two months, until NFL pre-season games. Argh!
There are some interruptions: U.S. Open golf, Wimbledon, Tour De France if Lance Armstrong is racing. But the dog days expose us to the incredible silliness of an ancient American sport that has had the life sucked out of it over so long a time that fans have hardly noticed why they prefer basketball and football. It's because basketball and football are much more entertaining. They have much more action. They have evolved and improved. Baseball has devolved and gotten worse. Most of what is considered action in baseball is two guys playing catch ... very slowly.
Women are much smarter about this than men. Women who like the NBA and NFL, cannot understand why we men continue to insist that MLB is interesting. It is not. Kids get it, too. That's one reason the baseball fields are empty in summer. Kids are off doing other stuff.
The percent of MLB players who are foreign born increases each season. It's about 28%. The great American pastime is being outsourced. Americans do not even want to play baseball. Why would they watch it?

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