Baseball Playoffs 2008 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I saw three major league baseball games this past week. The White Sox division win over the Minnesota Twins and the two Milwaukee Brewers home games against the Phillies, a win and a loss.

The Brewers are my fourth favorite team behind the White Sox, the Cubs and the Dodgers. This past year I have warmed to them considerably and it has to do with a combination of their talented young stars like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, and especially their new owner, Mark Attanasio.

On to a summary on the state of Major League Baseball.

The Good: Attanasio can be seen sitting  in the box seats adjacent to the Brewers dugout. Unlike a lot of owners and other swells, he prefers sitting near the field rather than in remote sky boxes. Now don't get me wrong, sky boxes are great on cold and windy days, the food is better and more accessible than in the granstands, but they do not give the fan a feel for the game. Between knowledge of baseball, his bold moves with the Brewers and his choice of seats, Attanasio is not just good, he is great for baseball.

The Bad: Rally Towels. They suck. They may have used them in Pittsburgh for thirty years, but their demise cannot come a season too soon. Try watching a game with a sea of fans twirling the towels as the pitcher fires a fast ball at only 92 miles per hour. Even if you can see the ball when it is released, the wave of towels obliterates the ball on the way to the plate.

This is a stupid idea. Why pay all this money to got to a ballgame so you can play hide and seek with the ball?  If Attanasio follows the rest of these silly owners with more rally towels, he can quickly fall to the ranking of mediocre with a majority of the owners.

The Ugly. Thunder Stix These profoundly disturbing air-filled plastic noisemakers should be banned along with off-shore drilling, nuclear weapons, and international terrorism. If this is what is needed to boast fan enthusiasm and team support, we might as all start following water polo or table tennis.

The beauty of baseball is that it allows the dedicated fans to follow the game, and to converse intelligently with one another about how Suppan cannot find the strike zone or Ryan Braun may be a great hitter but has trouble moving to his right on short pop flies hit down the line. Thunder Stixs are an affront to the game and at best should be limited to pee wee hockey games.

Don't get me started on Gary Glitter and the idiotic stadium music.

Comments

[James Rowen]

You are right about the Brewers, but I was at the Thunder Stix game, too, and I thought they made a truly joyous sound. If only there were more thunder in the Brewers' bats.