Okay, so this blog isn't exactly a happy, uplifting place at the moment, but I have to air another grievance.
I am a Phillies fan. I live approximately 100 miles from Philadelphia. Yet, I cannot listen to Phillies games on the radio, nor can I get more than about 20% of them on my TV. The TV thing I don't groan too much about, because at least to some degree, it's of my own choosing. If I wanted to switch back to Comcast for my TV service, I would then get Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia again, and that would allow me to see virtually every Phillies game on TV. It frustrates me a bit that Comcast won't make that channel available to satellite providers (they have several other regional sports networks which ARE available on satellite), but they are a business and so I understand their position. Besides, it's probably best for me that I don't have a Phillies game to sit down and watch 6 out of every 7 nights during the baseball season.
The radio bit is something I just don't get, however. As long as I can remember, there's been a Harrisburg station that carried the Phillies games. That changed last year, when AM 1460 stopped carrying the Phillies games and started their own broadcast of the Harrisburg Senators games. I'm sure on some level that was a sound business move for them, but I really can't understand why no other Harrisburg station has picked the games back up, especially given that for one of the few times in the long history of the Phillies, the team has actually been competative for a number of years. Anyhow, I've mainly come to terms with that particular grieveance as well. I've been able to compensate in a number of ways. I can usually pick up AM 1210 out of Philly from my car, and when I'm in the house, I can get the games streamed over the internet via a plan I pay 15 bucks a season for. A pain, yes but nothing terrible.
However, these last few days the whole offense of 1460 broadcasting the Senators rather than carrying the Phillies took a new twist. 1460 is sports talk station I listen to during the day at work. The Senators, like any team, occasionally will play a midweek afternoon game, which meant 1460 would cut away from Jim Rome for my last hour and a half at work. Not the biggest deal, but minorly annoying because I have no real desire to listen to minor league baseball. Attending a minor league game is great fun, but listening to it over the radio is not so much, especially when it comes in place of a radio show I find very entertaining. Yesterday, however, I'm in the middle of listening to Dan Patrick, and all of a sudden, at freakin' 10:30 am, they cut in with a Senators' broadcast from Altoona. Who in their right mind schedules a professional baseball game for 10:30 am in Pennsylvania in late April/early May? I'm relatively certain the temperature never cleared 60 during yesterday's game, and then to compound matters, today's game was ALSO a 10:30 game. Are you kidding me?
Okay, I've cleared the air on that one, and I feel better. Thankfully that series is over and the Senators don't play another midweek day game until next week.
2 months ago
7 comments:
I get what you mean about the Senators pre-empting Dan Patrick (and Rome).
Who wants to listen to a AA ballgame anyways? The whole point of minor league baseball is the ballpark experience, not listening on the radio.
Exactly. Without the minor league ballpark experience, there's nothing to distract you from the fact that you have no clue who any of these guys are, and that only and handful of them (at best) will ever see a big league roster.
This is nothing against the Senators, of course. I've been wanting to get out to a game for a while, a desire that was only enhanced when I found out The Spot was setting up shop at the park...
What a pity we still have slave minor league teams. In Des Moines, there is no question that the most talented team we have are the I-Cubs, yet people get more excited about the arena football team. Why? Because unlike the I-Cubs, they're actually trying to win. If the I-Cubs get in a pennant race, they might find their best player called up to Chicago to pinch-run.
We should start a Minor League Liberation Front. A free minor league system would be, I believe, as popular as college basketball if the teams were actually trying to win and hadn't broken faith with their fans. (Lots of college basketball players never make it to the NBA, but people still enjoy watching them.) I have nothing but admiration for Branch Rickey, but I wish he hadn't won his war with Judge Landis over the minors. Landis was right that Rickey's minor league system would spell the doom of the minor leagues, who can't survive at all any more without subsidies.
Release the minors from bondage; baseball as a whole will profit from it.
I think there's a lot to what you have to say, especially since my understanding is that the well established and well run independant leagues tend to draw better support (at least relative to their markets) than equivalent minor league teams.
Minor league basketball being as popular as college basketball seems to be stretching it, however. There are independant professional basketball leagues out there, and I don't think any of them are nearly as popular as the college game, though they should be populated with equivalent/better talent. I think there are some other things about college hoops that lend itself to the mass appeal it has.
As for whether going back to the independant minor league system would be better for baseball as a whole right now, I'm going to have say it would not be, at least not given the current economic realities of the major leagues. I will concede I'm not well versed in the pre-affiliation days, and you've piqued my curiosity to explore it further than just the basic research I've done to respond to your comment, but it strikes me that such a system would essentially turn everything into a free agent free for all. The capitalist in me says that's just fine, but the realist in me who looks at what kind of scenarios that would produce.
Although, such a decision could turn professional baseball into something that more resembles the tiered pro soccer leagues in Europe, where teams move up and down depending on performance. And I'll be honest, I find such a concept quite intriguing...
Consider me on the fence with your suggestion and willing to be swayed.
I agree that college athletics has some advantages over minor league athletics (alumni pride, for a start, is more powerful than mere civic pride). It's not clear to me that the independent leagues have ever had as much talent as the college game, though. The best players still go to college if they can, rather than straight to the pros (minor league pros, that is).
And, yes, it would turn into a free agent free for all and I think this would work much to the advantage of baseball. Marvin Miller was very clever. After he won the Messersmith decision which allowed free agency, he convinced teams to enter the current restricted free agency structure with players being locked up into long-term contracts or only eligible for free agency after a certain number of years of service, etc. This has the effect of making talent more scarce than it really is, bidding up the price. (You need a catcher; you must choose only from those catchers who are available due to free agency instead of being able to sign any catcher you can tempt away from his current team.) Charlie O. Finley saw immediately what Miller was doing. "Let them all be free agents," he said. I believe Finley was right. From the perspective of the owners, it's vastly better not to sign long-term contracts and employ "at will" the way every other employment situation in the world works. Of course, season-long contracts would still be desirable or else the whole system gets way too chaotic (you need some stability over the course of a single season).
I would also favor the tiered system for baseball, with MLB dropping out teams like Montreal without having to deprive Montreal of a team (a real team, that is, one that is trying to win) at all.
But really, I'm arguing more for simple justice. Why should Des Moines have nothing so that Chicago can have everything? Every city should be able to have its own proud, independent team which is trying to win its given league.
There's no question the best individual talent outside of the NBA in the US resides in college, but it's so spread out. Even in the independant leagues, you're talking about pretty much every player having been an excellent college player of some sorts. I think most of these independant league teams could compete at/near the highest levels of college basketball.
I remember in '98 during the NBA lockout, the US was represented at worlds by a team of CBA all-stars, and they finished 3rd.
I agree, but don't underestimate the thrill of watching "future stars." This is the primary thrill people find in minor league baseball (where the teams don't even care if they win and team effort takes a backseat to improving one's own stats). You do not get the same thrill in independent basketball like you do in college. No future superstars are taking that route. (Future superstars get drafted to the NBA straight out of college.)
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