Philly celebrates but baseball must face issues
By TIM DAHLBERG
AP SPORTS COLUMNIST
Everybody loves a parade,
especially the people of
Philadelphia who haven't had
anything to cheer about in, oh,
about a quarter century or so.
Several hundred thousand
of them gathered Friday to
celebrate, a turnout so meaningful
and heartfelt that in one city for
one day it almost seemed like
the clock had been turned back
to a time when baseball reigned
supreme.
On that feel-good moment we
can say goodbye to baseball for
another year, knowing as always
that the familiar rite of pitchers
and catchers reporting to camp is
just a few months away. Baseball
junkies who can't wait even that
long can rest easy knowing that
major league baseball will launch
its own television network at the
beginning of the year.
The new year will bring
new stadiums and new hope
in cities around the nation.
Forgotten almost everywhere
but in Philadelphia will be a
IM Sports Corner:
Work done on Cooper Express,
McLovin rolls
BY LOGAN ZUGAY
INTRAMURAL ASSISTANT
LXZSOI6@PSU.EDU
The regular season has been
full of diving catches, amazing
interceptions, and laughs and
smiles. The intramural football
league at Harrisburg has been the
talk of the campus the past few
weeks, whether it is about scores
or strategy.
"The Hill," as it has become
known as, has been active
Monday through Thursday nights
from 9 to 11 p.m., for gridiron
battles and now, halfway through
the year, the cream has risen to
the top.
In two heavyweight battles
of titans, Team Do Work and
McLovin established themselves
as the teams to bat. Do Work
defeated a young Cooper Express
squad 26-20 with a balanced
postseason that never lived up
to expectations and a World
Series that caught the country's
attention only for the quirkiness
of the last 18 outs.
Bud Selig said he was ready
to wait until Thanksgiving if
necessary to crown a champion
between the Phillies and Tampa
Bay. His worse nightmare,
though, wasn't the miserable
weather that forced a World
Series game to be played out over
three days for the first time, but
the chance the Rays could come
back to win the whole thing.
Imagine the celebration that
would have broken out then.
A couple of people waving on
a street corner, maybe. A few
thousand more at Tropicana
Field, assuming they remembered
where it was.
Baseball got lucky, but baseball's
been getting lucky for a long
time. Mismanaged, filled with
cheats, and so greedy that it casts
aside the future for the profits of
today, it somehow manages to
survive despite itself.
But for how long? How long can
baseball continue its ways until
offensive attack and a defense
that contained the multi-faceted
Express offense.
Despite a solid comeback behind
wide receivers Charlie Keller (2
TD) and Malcolm Egun (I TD), the
D.W. offense was just too much.
Alex Weaber emerges as the deep
threat in the game to change the
pace of the underneath routes of
the tight ends and slot receivers.
In the white division, it was
McLovin showing why they
are the defending champions
by taking Ownage behind the
woodshed in a 39 to 22 rout.
Linebacker and team captain
Tryan Dinger set the tone with a
crucial interception returned for a
touchdown on the opening drive.
Doug Cantrell and Nick Knull
paced the underdogs in place of
star Wide-out Brett Harmony
(sprained ankle). Ownage never
led.
it finally becomes just another
niche sport in a country where
football has long since reigned
as king?
Don't look now, but it's
happening already.
Not in Philadelphia, where a
long history of losing has bonded
fathers and sons and mothers and
daughters into Phillies followers.
Not in Chicago, where misery
truly does love company.
And certainly not in the New
York where the Yankees are
almost a religion and the Mets
aren't far behind.
Outside of traditional big
markets, though, the game has
become largely a place to take
the family for a night, enjoy the
ambiance of a new ballpark, and
gorge on the latest in stadium
cuisine. Nothing wrong with
that, but the casual relationship
doesn't breed the intense loyalties
the sport once commanded.
Fans keep coming the 1.1
percent drop this year was the
first after four years of record
attendance but the lack of
attention paid the World Series
has become a reminder that
The Capital Times is looking for sports writers.
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baseball will never regain the
status it once held as the national
pastime.
A lot of that is baseball's fault,
of course, particularly in its
never ending drive to squeeze
the last dollar out of the sport.
There's little doubt that starting
games so late and littering them
with endless commercial breaks
is much to blame for ratings that
each year shrink more and more.
But the ratings this year just
didn't shrink. They plunged.
Just 14 percent of people
watching TV during the World
Series were tuned in to the games,
a record low since Nielsen began
compiling figures decades ago.
That compares to 60 percent of
televisions tuned into the game
during the '6os, and 50 percent
as late as the early 1980 s.
A country that once used to
pause for the World Series now
seems barely aware that it is
on. Children who once brought
transistor radios to school to
listen to games are now in bed
long before they're over.
Baseball is losing generations
and either doesn't care or hasn't
You may be eligible to participate if you:
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U.Ed. MED 09-9277 RES
noticed. Even as postseason
ratings tanked and bad weather
made a mockery of the World
Series, Selig was declaring the
2008 season a tremendous success
and proof of the continuation
of baseball's renaissance in
America.
The commissioner is supposed
to accentuate the positive, of
course, and there was something
good about the way the season
ended. Presented with a night
of abbreviated baseball,
America responded by giving
the completion of Game 5 the
highest ratings of the series.
The game was tense, exciting
and quickly played. Kids could
stay up to watch it and it went by
so fast we barely noticed the extra
commercials between innings.
That doesn't mean every
World Series game should be
shortened to 312 half innings.
Traditionalists might just object,
and Fox wouldn't be able to sell
nearly as many commercials.
But quicker games and earlier
start times could be a wise
investment in a future baseball
has so far chosen to ignore.
IRB 28903 (09118008)