The Anti-Climatic Summer of Baseball

In mid-June, I finally recovered from the punch to the gut that was the end of the Bruins season. I'm slightly okay with the fact that Boston has met the same fate as the '04 Yankees, and that this town of annoying pink-hat fan-dom knows what that kind of embarrassment feels like. But ask me if I had my choice between the Bruins advancing a round and Boston getting what's been coming to 'em, I'd 100% of the time take the former.

When I finally got around to watching baseball--July 4th is good for that; there's nothing more American than Tim McCarver and Joe Buck calling a Yankees game on Fox; that and the hot dog eating contest--the regular season was basically over. The Yankees had surged to the top of the A.L. East. The Red Sox had begun there 2nd-half downward spiral a month early. And the success of Tampa Bay was leading many in the Nation to question whether or not Boston would even be in contention for a wild card spot.

How did this all get missed? Where did sports fans go instead of to America's Past time?

1. Lakers/Celtics Final: The Lakers and the Celtics are two of the most polarizing teams in the NBA (add Miami to that list now): You either love them or hate them. Even if you are so-so about one of them, your feelings are extreme about the other. This means you're not watching Darnell MacDonald man centerfield at Fenway. You're watching basketball.

2. World Cup: Despite the US being the only (and therefore, the biggest) fair-weather soccer nation in the world, ESPN/ABC jammed world cup coverage down our throats. Even if you didn't enjoy watching the games played accross a perfect green pitch on your 60" HD, it was better than watching Manny DelCarmen give up 5 runs in the 8th inning.

3. Recessionary Baseball: The MLB has taken advantage of fans for a while, making it harder to pay to go to a game that you are probably going to enjoy more watching from home in the A/C with a cheap beer in your hand. Even if you get a good deal on scalped tickets, you're blowing $60-80 on food an drinks by the 3rd inning. The only problem with this concept is that when baseball teams are mediocre, the only way they get attention in their town is by making it affordable to go to games. Without people getting their thrills at the old ball park and without a local team in contention to top their division, TV ratings fall drastically. The advertising dollars go towards America's Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance. And the summer of sports turns into a countdown to football training camp. (BTW: anyone going to Pats camp this week?)

Let's face it: Baseball is the sport of summer. Just not this summer.