Culture

millions of dollars. They’ve come a long way from the days of cut-rate hucksters, cheapskates, and charlatans who first sold tickets to curious spectators itching to catch a gander of this newfangled game of baseball.  Here in the 21st century, some team owners are still individuals, but most are either the leaders of investment syndicates, or large, faceless corporations.  Either way, they are not merely hawking tickets to some sideshow attraction.  Rather, they are sitting upon monstrous business organizations that reap revenue from a myriad of sources, game day tickets just being a small piece of the action.  Television broadcasting, product licensing, concessions, in-house advertising, and of course the dreaded public subsidies, all boost revenues into the billions.  And every dime of it, in one way or another, comes from you and me, the “customers.”  Let them thank us.

Simon says:

I am entertained by this sport despite knowing that it ravages my fellow human beings.  The men who play the game fall victim to serious disabilities at an alarming rate.  Recent attention has been paid to the severe brain damage that afflicts some former players.  From the team I follow, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Webster and Justin Strzelczyk are just two examples of players whose lives were tragically short and mired in the erratic, confounding, dangerous, and self-destructive behavior that has marred the post-NFL days of men afflicted with serious brain damage resulting from years of tackle football.  They are but two of many.  And beyond closed head injuries, there are also the more traditional and mundane matters of broken bones and mangled joints.  Staring at a gathering of former NFL players is often like walking through a hospital ward; men, looking old before their time, and few of them ever becoming very old, are haggard and beaten, bent and broken, their limping, misshapen bodies a testament to the physical toll the game has taken.

State from their name, added a fancy new logo that looks something like an accidental paint smear from a semi-dry brush, and got themselves a slogan.  I think the latest one is Towson: Thinking Outside.  I guess the marketing firm that dreamed it up thought it would be clever to leave off “The Box.”  Nothing like turning a lame, business-speak cliche into a witty pun for the purpose of branding your university.

.  But being 11 year old boys, we couldn’t simply play with it.  We each had to choose a team that we would represent and personify.  But which to choose?  This wouldn’t take too long.  I only knew of four teams.

announcing has become so incestuous that most people behind the mic are either former athletes or relatives of former announcers is another topic I’ll address at a future date.  But for now, I’d like to focus on these two, Buck and McCarver, who’ve made watching the World Series an increasingly painful experience over the years, to the point that it has become excruciating. When the now 69 year-old McCarver first came on the national scene as a baseball color analyst back in 1980, he was a breath of fresh air.  He was smart and articulate.  As the preferred catcher of Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton, he brought tremendous insights to the booth.  He was cerebral and serious but also had a sense of humor.  That was 30 years ago. As time has rolled by, McCarver has started to wear thin.  Most New Yorkers got sick of him a while ago, over the course of his career calling Mets and Yankees games on local TV. 

only because he’s pushing 60.  It’s because Robert “Bob” Costas has transformed of late into a cranky old man.  Long known for his baby face and boyish exuberance, Costas has recently been spending his time as host of NBC’s Sunday Night Football devolving into the kind of crotchety old fart who screams at those damn kids to stop break dancing on his lawn.  His unadulterated enthusiasm and thoughtful love for sports is slowly being replaced by self-righteous sanctimony and smarminess, last week’s broadcast being another step toward the aisle where they keep the Depends. First came Costas’ pre-game quip to Cris Collinsworth, a sarcastic joke that Costas should get himself a Twitter account so he can  tell the whole world whenever he’s having a cup of coffee.  Now that right there is a genuine old man joke, and for two reasons.  First, it’s a joke we’ve all heard a hundred times before, and the only people who tell jokes everyone’s heard a hundred times before are old people and small children, both of whom are out of the loop and have just heard the joke for the first time.  Whether it’s a 6 year old telling a knock-knock joke or an old guy telling a Twitter joke, they both think this material is funny and fresh.  No grandpa, I haven’t heard that one before.