The
baseball Opening Day, scheduled for Sunday at Wrigley Field and on Monday for
all other teams, is going to get drowned out by the nonsense that has become “March
Madness.”
AS
IN THE NCAA’s men’s basketball tourney – which is now down to four college
teams who will play on Saturday, with the two winners advancing to a
championship game on Monday.
Opening
Day, that ritual that is supposed to be a part of the rebirth of our society
each year from the doldrums of winter, is going to get overshadowed by college
basketball teams that I suspect the bulk of sports fans could care less about.
It
always works out that the basketball tourney commonly called “March Madness”
(even though any knowledgeable sports fan knows the term was first used with
regards to the Illinois state high school basketball championship tourney)
spills over and invades what ought to be baseball’s time clock.
And
yes, I’ll be honest and admit I find it equally ridiculous that the World
Series always gets played each year in a mad race to complete the event before
Halloween. It’s like the sports spectacles we watch don’t know how to keep
track of time or when they’ll be played.
IF
IT’S REALLY “March Madness,” then why are we still playing it in April? Is this
an April Fool’s gag (albeit a few days delayed) on baseball?
Don’t
tell me that the average sports fan really cares that much about Duke or
Kentucky (a part of me is spiteful enough to hope that the championship game
comes down to Big Ten teams Wisconsin and Michigan State, just because it would
screw up the thought processes of those who actually care about the game).
Besides,
the Great Lakes states could use the public attention. Which they otherwise would
have got from the season opener Sunday when the Chicago Cubs take on the St.
Louis Cardinals.
And
we’ll get to see for ourselves just how far from completion (mid-May is the
current time estimate) the Cubs are from rebuilding their outfield bleacher
section with ultra-modern video board that won’t look totally ridiculous in a
101-year-old ball park!
ADMITTEDLY,
IT IS a novelty for the entire baseball season to begin in Chicago – a move
that hasn’t happened since 2006 when that season began at U.S. Cellular Field
and the then-defending champion Chicago White Sox (who wound up being a
third-place team that season) beat up on the Cleveland Indians 10-4 before a
national audience, courtesy of ESPN.
The
same attention (on ESPN2, to be exact) that the Cubs are expecting to get from
their Sunday opener (the White Sox start their season in Kansas City and don’t
get to play a home game until a week from Friday).
But
how much of the sports fan attention will wind up getting shifted away to
pontificating about who will win Monday? And on Monday, will the basketball
winner wind up being the “big” story, rather than the assorted Opening Days
taking place across the country?
Somehow,
that just seems wrong for a tourney that could have ended a week earlier (the
NCAA basketball tourneys for Division II and III are already complete), with
those athletes having to return to campus to go back to pretending to be
full-fledged college students for the next couple of months.
OF
COURSE, THIS isn’t the only intrusion, of sorts, taking place this weekend.
For
Sunday is Easter. Major League Baseball has the nerve to use its holiest
(allegedly) shrine of Wrigley Field to kick off the season on the holiest of
all holy holidays. For
those who are Jewish, Passover is Saturday. Does this mean the NCAA semi-finals
are intruding on that holy event?
How many clergy of so many religious denominations will have something to rant about this weekend?
Are
we likely to see family battles reminiscent of Thanksgiving, where one faction
of the family wants to sit down and eat while the other just can’t tear
themselves away from the television to watch some football?
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment