I don’t know what October feels like for a Red Sox fan. But for this Yankee fan, October has traditionally been a time of joy and rebirth. For a few weeks, world-weary cynicism gives way to the youthful excitement inspired by Yankee postseason brilliance. For a few weeks, I am a child again. At least that’s how it used to be.
Now the game’s just way … too … slow. It’s a simple problem that won’t be fixed anytime soon, and there are plenty of people to blame. The players, owners, networks and corporations all share some responsibility for turning America’s pastime into a tedious bore.
FOX’s game 2 coverage of the Division Series between the Yankees and Anaheim Angels began at 8 p.m. The first inning ended 47 minutes later, sending young fans to bed with visions of absolutely nothing dancing through their heads. The game’s rich history is filled with legendary moments of greatness. Moments that cultivate fans and make baseball an absolute joy to watch. None of these moments occur during the first inning. Nowadays they rarely occur before 10 p.m. The viewer must first endure hours of painfully un-exhilarating and unnecessary moments that make baseball an absolute drag.
Batter takes a minute to adjust his shin-guard. He fouls off a pitch. Pitcher steps off the mound to dig the dirt out of his cleats. He grabs the resin bag. Another pitch fouled off. Batter takes a few practice swings outside the batters box. Catcher walks to the mound to talk things over with the pitcher. Pitcher throws to first to hold the base runner. Pitcher throws to first again to hold the base runner. Again.
Viewer writes a letter to his Congressman, calculates Pi to the 187th place, cooks a Hot Pocket and grows a beard. Another pitch fouled off.
It’s a cruel form of torture that grows crueler with each inning. Excessive pitching changes, excessive jock-scratching. A maddening barrage of network promotions for the fall lineup. You MUST watch “24,” the show that “broke every rule in television suspense!” Seizure-inducing graphics invading the screen at a frenetic pace, each accompanied by its own high-tech, swoosh-type sound effect.
Online “Virtual Manager” poll questions that give us the valuable opportunity to hear what every dolt with an Internet connection would do in Joe Torre’s shoes. Enough time between batters to show close-ups of virtually everyone in the stadium. And through it all, the inane banter of broadcasters faced with the daunting task of trying to make it all sound interesting.
In the bottom of the 6th, Alfonso Soriano put the Yankees ahead with a two-run homer. For a Yankees fan, it was a beautiful October moment. It’s the reason we watch. The reason we sit through the crap. But before it’s over, we’ll sit through much more crap.
At the seventh inning stretch, the game’s momentum grinds to a halt, as Irish tenor Ronan Tynan sings “God Bless America” to the New York crowd — a tradition started after 9-11. The patriotism is well-intended, but it strikes me as redundant and yet another impediment from my getting to bed at a reasonable hour.
We’re in the midst of an October baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Soriano has just drilled a go-ahead home-run. The crowd is wired. So what could be more perfectly American than the game itself? You wouldn’t take a break from a steak dinner to yell, “I sure would like a steak!” It’s just unnecessary.
And it’s quarter after 11! We’ve still got 2 1/2 innings to go here, let’s move it along! After requesting God’s blessing during the stretch, I damn him for subjecting us to yet another commercial break, which is, of course, the true reason behind a long, drawn-out seventh inning stretch. One more chance to plug the fall lineup, one more chance to bring in ad revenue.
After a disturbing Nissan ad comparing man’s walk on the moon and the plight of third-world refugees to a car purchase, I begin to think that maybe my exhaustion is making me delusional. I see Siegfried and Roy in a convenience store and a Sprint spokesman says I can take pictures of them with my phone and email it to my friends instantaneously. It’s astounding that technology makes incredible feats such as this possible. Maybe one day, technology will figure out a way to speed up a baseball game. But I doubt it.
The Angels ended up winning the game, hitting back-to-back home runs in the eighth inning. And though the Yankees lost the series in game four, I was personally defeated by the conclusion of game two. Because, sadly, a part of me felt relieved that they’d lost. These Octobers take their toll on me. My grades suffer, my relationships suffer and unlike the players, I have to wake up early the day after a game. As a result, I look like crap, I feel like crap and I write like crap.
I love the Yankees. I love baseball. But faced with two more seven-game series, I probably would’ve failed out of school by November. It’s depressing when an experience that once gave you such a thrill is degraded to a laborious, time-consuming task. The greed and ineptitude of many have spoiled a pure and magnificent American institution. There is no joy in Mudville.