I'm Afraid of Americans
I've grown up a lifelong Dodger fan although If I am being honest, I find baseball (like most Americans) really boring. When baseball was at it's peak of popularity in the early 1900's, people were delighted to escape from their hard working life by going out to a beautiful ballpark with lots of greenery and NO TIME clcock. That very same, no time limit is what drives me (and most) fans crazy as life travels at insane speeds and there is simply no way/excuse to slow/stop time for a mundane baseball game. Although technically, one could accelerate an entire massive ballpark near the speed of light and time would basically crawl whlie speed everywhere else would travel at normal time.
Regardless of the possibility of time travel, the rate of speed near massive objects/objects traveling near the speed of light is how I perceive a standard baseball game. NO other sport last nearly as long. Even with commercials.
Now, that I've given a physics lesson on time travel, that's more interesting than a full game of baseball. Where most sports (that are good) have 20-40 games in a regular season, baseball has 180+. Now, what could be more meaningless than an April noon meeting bewtween Milwaukee and Cleveland??
If the winning team won the next dozen games in a row, it might not even affect their standings. In other words, there are way, way too many games.
And the only sport with less action than baseball is ....soccer. Seriously, there's no point in watching a whole game as NOTHING happens. I.e. I missed the first 45 minutes of the World Cup Finale (among the supposed two greatest teams in the world) and I probably missed one shot (and several fouls). The game itself, ended in a nil-nil draw, but then we are treated (forced to endure not one, but TWO "15ish" minutes of overtime). And why can't they be like most sports and know exaclty how much time is left instead of this amorphous concept called "stop time" which allows only the referees to know when the game will end? If NOTHING happens for NINETY MINUTES, WHY treat/bore the fans with another guaranteed 30 + ish minutes? How badly was ABC regretting televising the finals?
And if soccer is such an athletic game, how is it that players can play 90+ minutes with a short break? By contrast, Ice Hockey is played in one minute shifts because it requires so much energy and skill.
So, this weekend, I wasted lots of time with not one, but two boring sports.
And while soccer may just be boring with dangerously violent fans called "hooligans" (and even the name inspires fear, doesn't it?) , baseball fans are equally dangerous TO THEMSEVLES!.
The sport does encourage it. The popualr song "Take me Out to the ball Game" has as it's 2nd line "BUY me peanuts and crackerjacks" suggesting one can't enjoy baseball without gluttonous, Capitalistic eating of junk food.
Sure enough, my ticket came with "all you can eat food" and I was unable to resist the temptation. Pastrami sandwiches, Dodger dogs, peanuts (although not for me), cheesey popcorn, soda, nachos in unlimited quantities were presented to me each time that I got out of my seat (which unfortunately was way too often as I cannot sit long with my ADHD and herniated discs). We watched the Dodgers jump out to a 9-3 lead, only to be forced to leave at the so-called seventh inning stretch because we could not move much less something semi athletic like stretching.
Apparently, *I* am the Dodgers lucky charm because as soon as I left the Cubbies put up 4 more runs in the next inning and half to only lose by 2 runs. That is an impressive feat in an unremarkable mid season game between two teams who are not even in the same division.
Regardless of the possibility of time travel, the rate of speed near massive objects/objects traveling near the speed of light is how I perceive a standard baseball game. NO other sport last nearly as long. Even with commercials.
Now, that I've given a physics lesson on time travel, that's more interesting than a full game of baseball. Where most sports (that are good) have 20-40 games in a regular season, baseball has 180+. Now, what could be more meaningless than an April noon meeting bewtween Milwaukee and Cleveland??
If the winning team won the next dozen games in a row, it might not even affect their standings. In other words, there are way, way too many games.
And the only sport with less action than baseball is ....soccer. Seriously, there's no point in watching a whole game as NOTHING happens. I.e. I missed the first 45 minutes of the World Cup Finale (among the supposed two greatest teams in the world) and I probably missed one shot (and several fouls). The game itself, ended in a nil-nil draw, but then we are treated (forced to endure not one, but TWO "15ish" minutes of overtime). And why can't they be like most sports and know exaclty how much time is left instead of this amorphous concept called "stop time" which allows only the referees to know when the game will end? If NOTHING happens for NINETY MINUTES, WHY treat/bore the fans with another guaranteed 30 + ish minutes? How badly was ABC regretting televising the finals?
And if soccer is such an athletic game, how is it that players can play 90+ minutes with a short break? By contrast, Ice Hockey is played in one minute shifts because it requires so much energy and skill.
So, this weekend, I wasted lots of time with not one, but two boring sports.
And while soccer may just be boring with dangerously violent fans called "hooligans" (and even the name inspires fear, doesn't it?) , baseball fans are equally dangerous TO THEMSEVLES!.
The sport does encourage it. The popualr song "Take me Out to the ball Game" has as it's 2nd line "BUY me peanuts and crackerjacks" suggesting one can't enjoy baseball without gluttonous, Capitalistic eating of junk food.
Sure enough, my ticket came with "all you can eat food" and I was unable to resist the temptation. Pastrami sandwiches, Dodger dogs, peanuts (although not for me), cheesey popcorn, soda, nachos in unlimited quantities were presented to me each time that I got out of my seat (which unfortunately was way too often as I cannot sit long with my ADHD and herniated discs). We watched the Dodgers jump out to a 9-3 lead, only to be forced to leave at the so-called seventh inning stretch because we could not move much less something semi athletic like stretching.
Apparently, *I* am the Dodgers lucky charm because as soon as I left the Cubbies put up 4 more runs in the next inning and half to only lose by 2 runs. That is an impressive feat in an unremarkable mid season game between two teams who are not even in the same division.