Baseball Cracks Down on Fan Sites

serutan writes: "Looks like Major League Baseball has joined other players in the big-media content industry to crack down on fans who overstep their proper place as consumers. Anybody with a website dedicated to America's favorite pastime better read this story on Yahoo."

Comments

Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[MrFenty]

You really would think that baseball, of all sports, could do with some good publicity, what with all the strikes going on. Shooting yourself in the foot all the time will only drive away those casual fans, and hence revenue. Deary, deary me.

Re:Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[technix4beos]

I'm so sick of these bloody corporations dictating what is proper to be posted for PUBLIC consumption.

What is stopping someone from simply making a website that lists statistics, player info, and so on, but changing the relevant information in such a way that there is no hint of MLB, or NFL, or any other sports logo anywhere?

What I'm getting at is this... a translator website that simply lists the information, as neutral as it can, without directly stating or "infringing" on their copyrights.

Not that it matters anyhow.. Why can't someone just put up a website on a non-US server?

What is wrong with posting information, plain information.. pure and simple???

Rant over. Flame away you slashturds.

Re:Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[Lshmael]

As the article says, "It's business, not personal..." A lack of fan sites will push those casual fans to surf over to the league's official sites, thereby creating a massive infusion of advertising dollars, created by banner ads...oh, wait, it's September 2002...

There is something to be said about the sites using the team's official trademarks. If I set up a Mr Fenty fan site, can I use your official Mr Fenty logos? Please....

Re:Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[technix4beos]

Tell me how they own the information that comprises a game score?

Radio stations do not pay a fee to announce game scores as part of their news program, neither do TV.

However.. MLB pays THEM to advertise the game highlights, and other related information, when they need exposure.

Re:Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[NanoGator]

"Shooting yourself in the foot all the time will only drive away those casual fans, and hence revenue. Deary, deary me."

For some reason that seems to be a popular business model lately:

- Squeeze every penny out of your customer
- Provide less and less quality
- Call them names including thief
- Cry like a baby to the gov't when you're not making enough money

I only took one semester of economics, and maybe I'm just being naieve, but how could this business plan possibly work?

Re:Foot, gun, aim - shoot !

[DEBEDb]

Let me guess. This is the microecon.
class where they teach you about
Adam Smith and explain that in this world
the business plan could not possibly work.

Then you take the next course, and realize
that laws of supply-demand are all well and
good, but we don't have a perfect market,
we have government with all sorts of regulations
that are not all there to stop fraud - no, many
of them are payback to large companies
contributing to politicians' campaigns.
Simplistic rules no longer apply, that is,
they apply instead to the laws instead
of the product. :)

MLB = Money, Lawyers, Bitching

[Zork the Almighty]

These people make me want to shove a bat where the sun doesn't shine.

Re:MLB = Money, Lawyers, Bitching

[AngstMerchant]

Settle down!! It's not healthy to take your aggressions out on yourself. . .

Shock!

[LooneyScotsman]

I'm shocked that the industry would do something like this! Oh, wait, no i'm not... Its probably all done on the advice of lawyers trying to justify their own existence (and jobs) by making trouble. Dont you just hate people like that?

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about a game that's only being played on a serious level in America?

Now if this were about football (and I'm not talking about the kind of "foot"ball where you carry the ball) then I'd get upset.

Re:Who cares?

[FyRE666]

Hmm, baseball? Baseball.... Ah yes, now I remember, it's that game where you hit a ball with a stick and run around in a circle. We have that over in the UK too - it's only played by girls though, and called "rounders".

So they actually pay people to do that over in the US? ;-)

Re:Who cares?

[yobbo]

I assume you have never been to Japan?

Re:Who cares?

[Milalwi]

Now if this were about football (and I'm not talking about the kind of "foot"ball where you carry the ball) then I'd get upset.

So the "foot"ball where you bang the ball around with your head is ok? ;-)

Milalwi

Re:Who cares?

[rmohr02]

They mention that the other kind of football (where you do carry the ball) doesn't care about fan sites, as long as the sites are non-commercial.

Re:Who cares?

[dhogaza]

Or Cuba? Or Mexico? Or the Dominican Republic? Europeans might be surprised by the number of Major League players who weren't born in the US. Nowadays on a team like the US Dodgers you'll hear Japanese, Spanish and American English being spoken.

Re:Who cares?

[WIAKywbfatw]

I'm a big fan of baseball (and a European) and, yes you're right, baseball isn't only an American sport.

But you have to admit that having guys like Pedro Martinez, Ichiro Suzuki, Danys Baez, Bobby Abreu and Byung Hyung Kim (from the Dominican Republic, Japan, Cuba, Venezuela and South Korea respectively) doesn't make baseball a truly global game.

Sure, it's big in the Carribean, parts of Latin America, Japan and Korea, and these nations are represented on MLB rosters and have their own professional and semi-professional leagues, but where is the game in Europe, or Africa, or Asia, or Australasia?

Outside of those countries that I mentioned, baseball is mainly an amateur sport, taken as seriously as log rolling. Amongst the four major US sports in Europe, it lags way behind basketball, ice hockey and even American football in its popularity.

Why is this? Well, for one thing, MLB has not marketed the game well beyond those borders that it sees as its "traditional" territories. While the NBA and the NFL have played exhibition games overseas regularly, MLB has not.

Credit where credit is due, MLB has played a regular season game, one that counts for something at the end of the year, outside North America but even that game was in Japan, a market in which baseball already is the dominant imported sport. And when the game was played (at the start of the 2001 season I believe) many of the players sent on that diplomatic mission were negative about going, none more so than Mark McGuire, who was adamant that baseball was an American game, played by Americans for Americans. Hardly "a hands across the ocean" approach.

Personally, I think that MLB has been too focused on breaking the players' union, and the players' union too focused on taking what it can with both hands, to focus on what's really important: the fans and the game as a whole.

Once the two parties get beyond their petty rivalries (and even after the narrowly avoided strike they are still years away from real partnership) then, and only then, does baseball have a chance at being a truly global game.

Re:Who cares?

[WIAKywbfatw]

I think you know what I mean.

Where's baseball taken seriously in Asia outside of Japan and South Korea? Where are there any leagues?

And where are the MLB players born and raised in India, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Thailand or even the Phillipenes?

Nowhere, because they don't exist. Outside of a handful of countries, MLB and baseball in general is about as popular as John Rocker at a gay pride festival.

Re:Who cares?

[WIAKywbfatw]

My point exactly - while the MLB owners and players spend their time trying to beat each other up they can't make a concerted effort to do anything else.

Fan apathy in the US and Canada is one consequence of the recent labour unrest and the international standing of the game is another (albeit a more long term issue).

The other major American sports have made major inroads overseas - basketball leads the way but American football and even ice hockey are growing in popularity outside of North America.

Take Britain as an example - professional basketball and ice hockey leagues, long established amateur American football leagues and an NFL Europe franchise but only a handful of amateur baseball teams.

I'm not saying that the game's non-existant outside of its core heartlands, what I'm saying is that the game isn't as big globally as it could or should be.

And, as long as the owners and the players continue to work against each other rather than with each other, the situation isn't going to change in a hurry.

Re:Who cares?

[Gordonjcp]

Last time I looked, Cuba, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic were all in America.

Re:Who cares?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Hey, I think you have me confused with someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Let me give you a quick background check. At university I was the Sports Editor on the student newspaper. Since then, I've been a journalist, mainly dealing with IT but sometimes, when the opportunity has arisen, I've covered professional sports too.

I've reviewed Premiership and international football (that's soccer to you Americans), the World League of American Football (what's now NFL Europe), professional basketball, rugby, tennis and other sports.

I've dealt with PR people from all sorts of sports organisations, ranging from the NFL (very helpful) to university sports administrators (often indifferent).

MLB is one of the few professional sports that doesn't have its own house in order. In fact, speaking from personal experience, I'd go as far as to say they were almost paranoid about any media exposure that they couldn't control.

When I spoke to someone their asking for a comment on the 1994 player's strike I was surprised at how paranoid the people I spoke to were about even the slightest bit of negative publicity - as if it was possible to put a positive spin on a strike that wiped out a World Series, Tony Gwynn's shot at a .400 season, etc. In the end, I gave up hitting my head against a brick wall and decided to use a handful of quotes that were already out there and a picture that didn't come from their press office. (Did I mention that they would only release a photo to me if they could see and veto the article first?)

Don't get me wrong, I love baseball. I subscribe to the radio broadcasts available on mlb.com and, once I have a broadband connection, I'll probably subscribe to some of their video highlights too. I listen to a large proportion of the Houston Astros' games - despite the time difference, which means that most of the games start at 1.05am over here.

But, having dealt with people from the NFL, NBA and NHL, even while working on the student newspaper, I can honestly say that those organisations are many orders of magnitude better in how they approach the development and fan base of their games overseas.

This isn't some kind of "parochial worldview". This is fact.

Re:Who cares?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Of course, the reason the IOC is considering dropping Baseball and Softball is precisely because the Europeans suck at it.

Who are the perennial contenders in Baseball? North Americans (and Caribbean), South Americans, and Asian.

Softball? Same thing (and add the Aussies).

So that's why they want to replace those sports with golf and rugby!

Not flamebait

[loraksus]

But seriously, who cares about baseball anymore. It's not like the strike of '95ish didn't kill attendance at games, and there are more exciting sports to watch (australian rules "football" for example). Most of the people I know think baseball is a pain in the ass in the tv schedule, with games running 9 or whatever-the-hell extra innings.

That said, this is a brilliant move on their part, nothing like pissing off hardcore fans to drum up hatred against the the MLB and lower their tv ratings to the level of donahue's new show.

Re:Not flamebait

[zerocool^]

Exactly. I have a real problem with a sport in which there is no time limit.

I was flipping over to espn to catch sports center yesterday, to see some college football scores and comments. You know what I got? 30 minutes of baseball, then I turned it off. It's so stupid - major league baseball gets so much airtime, and no one cares. If you watch highlights reels from the game, you notice that whenever someone hits a homerun, there's never anyone in the stands to catch it. I mean, these are premium seats, and the 3 people in the section are all scrambling over the chairs to get to the ball.

And they keep demanding more money. Tickets for baseball are *so* expensive, like $50. And these greedy fucks they call players want more. Well, I'll tell you how to get more. Make the game interesting, get more people into the stands. I was actually pissed off that you people didn't go on strike - Friday was a sad day. Strike = less TV converage.

Eventually we will abandon the all american past time in favor of someone else's past time that doesn't suck. I mean, think, baseball's only been here for ~100 years, mabey theres something about soccer that keeps it around for everyone else. Mabey we should check it out.

~Will

Re:Not flamebait

[zerocool^]

And a couple more parting shots that I just thought of about how baseball sucks...

1.) Most of the people that you hear about anymore in the all-american past time aren't even American.

2.) These once-roll models for our community - according to people on the inside of the league, anywhere from 1/2 to 80% of them to steroids. And they still can't hit like Ruth.

~Will

Re:Not flamebait

[gowen]

And they still can't hit like Ruth.

Hmmm. Barry Bonds 2001 -- More home runs, more walks, better SLG%, better OBP%. Not necessarily better than Ruth, but certainly Ruthian.

Re:Not flamebait

[zerocool^]

It's more that, rather than long games being what I don't like, it's just that there's nothing to move the game along. When I watch a baseball game, there just doesn't seem to be much happening. I mean, the action happens for, what, twenty seconds at a time? Guy hits the ball, every one runs like mad, in 5 seconds he's on base, and then it takes 3 or 4 minutes to throw the next pitch. Let's see, in baseball, you have 9 innings, top and bottom of both, so 18 rounds, and let's say 8 people bat per round. That's 144 at-bats, which I think is probably a fair or high number. Now, at 20 seconds each, plus another 40 seconds to get situated, and then some time for everything to switch over between sets, I'd say a baseball game should take 2.5 hours. Instead, they take upwards of 4 most of the time. Plus, in 2.5 hours, there's not more than 20 minutes of action, really. People lollygag their way to the plate. People lollygag their way down to first, etc etc.

I just don't see the intensity or intelligence that baseball requires. I don't think they're there.

Re:Not flamebait

[Reziac]

I have to agree with your first point. But ML-calibre players aren't an off-the-shelf item, and teams take 'em where they find 'em.

But re steroid use, there are physical symptoms that are fairly obvious to the eye -- mainly the Neanderthal browline and chinline, also the shape of a user's muscling is somewhat different, plus they tend to have more broken bones and the infamous 'roid-monster temper. The only ML player I'm dead sure did use steroids is Jose Canseco (compare how he looked and behaved to his identical twin brother, also a ML baseball player but evidently NOT a steroid user).

Also contrast to the NFL, where steroid use was once almost universal, but has dropped considerably over the past few years. You can see the physical-symptom shifts as use came into and went out of the league.

Now, as to some of the other enhancements, such as whatever performance-enhancing drug it was that caused a scandal at the last Olympics, that may be another issue, since it apparently doesn't have the obvious physical side effects that make steroid use so easy to spot.

Re:Not flamebait

[mother_superius]

And reduce the ticket prices and stop demanding new stadiums using *MY* money. We rejected the last 5 proposals, GIVE IT UP baseball!

There, I feel better.

What the Slashdot summary fails to mention...

[blincoln]

...is that the site owners who were hassled were trying to make money from their sites.
I don't think *any* corporation has a problem with fan sites that are put together as a resource or community for their subject matter. Most of them are even generous about letting them use their IP.
What becomes an issue is when the owners of those sites decide to try and use their position for their own gain - for example, selling unauthorized merchandise, as at least one of the people quoted in the article did.
This is simply the difference between running a Star Trek fan site and using your site to sell bootleg CDRs of the episodes. Even if you're just covering the cost of hosting, it's still a crime, and naive to think that any copyright holder will allow it.

Re:What the Slashdot summary fails to mention...

[flamingmoose]

The sites were making money using MLB-related logos that were not theirs to use.
There are plenty of informative baseballsites that are not being taken down by MLB.
They took action against just four sites - don't you think there are more baseball sites than four?

Re:What the Slashdot summary fails to mention...

[GutBomb]

it does not matter what they were using the profit for (to continue the existence of the site) they were using the site to get money. plain and simple. only a few sites were even contacted by MLB, and ofd those, ALL of them were using cafepress to sell unauthorized merchandise.

Re:What the Slashdot summary fails to mention...

[egburr]

I don't think *any* corporation has a problem with fan sites that are put together as a resource or community for their subject matter. Most of them are even generous about letting them use their IP.

Maybe you should go read Taubman Sucks! about a fansite for a local shoping mall in Texas.

Re:What the Slashdot summary fails to mention...

[WIAKywbfatw]

I'm sorry but I don't buy that. Several fan sites were nothing more than mouth pieces for real fans (remember them Bud Selig and Donald Fehr?) to exchange their views on their teams, provide other fans with a greater depth of information that that being handed out at mlb.com, etc.

But, more than anything, what these fans sites provided was greater publicity for the game. Sure, not every fan site was positive about the state of the game, but why would they be with a strike looming, $252 million salaries, a glaring disparity between small and large market teams and a draft that doesn't do what it's meant to do?

If you were a die-hard Kansas City Royals fan, following a team that was going nowhere and with no chance of that changing for the forseeable future then why should I put on a "life is rosy" smile for the world?

It's precisely because these sites don't always tow the line that they are being censored. The issue of copyright infringement - in some cases, this was no more than a few pictures of players wearing MLB uniforms - was simply the baseball bat (pardon the pun) used to clobber them.

It's a real shame. But MLB isn't exactly known for showing common sense and doing the right thing so why would this be any different?

This says it all

[leviramsey]

The NFL is one of the few major businesses which has a modicum of sense. Consider this quote:

"To the extent that it's purely a noncommercial site devoted to commentary about the team, we're supportive and happy that fans are excited about our sport," says Paula Guibault, NFL senior counsel. "It's not an issue for us."

What the NFL realizes is that fan sites are good: they are free promotion (I know a few people who ran a Scottish Claymores fansite. When the club decided to do a new official site, they hired them to do it), and the people who run and read those sites are the hardcore fans, who either shell out hundreds of dollars a year for season tickets or who subscribe to the NFL Sunday Ticket.

Yet again baseball shoots itself in the foot, thanks to a management that has been slow to adapt to any change over the past 80 years. For instance, as late as 1930, none of the three New York teams allowed radio coverage of the games for fear that it would cut into the gate. It wasn't until the 70's that baseball teams began allowing televising of all games.

Mixing American Pastimes

[Inominate]

They're just mixing the great american pastimes of baseball and lawsuits.

Good God.

[Steve Cox]

Imagine if sites dedicated to rounders were removed in the UK.....

Re:Good God.

[Space cowboy]

Out of all the posts here, that one made me laugh out loud:-))

Simon.

Major League Baseball Pushing mlb.com

[OaITw]

Major League Baseball is aiming for mlb.com to be a supper site that meets all baseball fan needs. I would guess that the director of the mlb.com asked the legal division to rain in the none mlb.com sites a little bit with the aim of increasing their own sites hits and revenue.

This is a pretty good strategy for baseball actually. First is provides uniformity to there product. If all fans start there baseball related news gathering by going to mlb.com you get a central influence on news and hype. Second it produces general revenue. This is exactly what baseball needs right now. Of course no general revenue source can overcome the local revenue associated with ticket sales; but baseball needs to look for as much shared revenue as possible in order to reestablish parity. A fan site devoted to the Yankees is taking eyeballs from advertising that benifits all teams.

I have been converted. I think mlb.com is the best professional sports web portal. I used to go the WGN to listen to Cubs baseball on the web but mlb.com centralized web broadcasting of baseball games. I still can hear the Cubs with WGN broadcasters but I have the pay the $10 a season on mlb.com. For this $10 you get the ability to listen to every other team also. And I am guessing the revenue is shared.

Since I like the Cubs it is bad in a way that my dollars are shared but for all the fans of Yankees and Mets doing the same thing, it is good for me and the Cubs that some of their dollars are shared.

Re:Major League Baseball Pushing mlb.com

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Major League Baseball is aiming for mlb.com to be a supper site that meets all baseball fan needs.

Haven't you ever considered what an MLB supper consists of? $3 pretzels, $5 hot dogs and $7 beers....... the sticker shock and nutritional value alone are enough to send a person into anaphylactic shock.

No thanks..... I'll stay home and cook my own meals.

oh well

[GoatPigSheep]

Fan sites are just what baseball needs, as it's popularity has been seriously declining over years, being sidelined by more trendy sports such as basketball (which in itself is a joke, as it's 8 foot tall black guys throwing a ball into a hoop a foot above them). The article mentioned that they had advertising on their sites (and thus could in theory make money, which the teams wouldn't want) but most sites these days need advertising just to cover bandwidth costs. It's baseball digging it's own grave.

But then again, who here really cares about sports anyway?

No news?

[Mr_Silver]

It's business, not personal, baseball officials said. They moved against the four Web sites over the alleged use of team logos or trademarks to draw site traffic or turn a profit.

So .. in short, you're more than welcome to run a baseball fan site just so long as you don't use the team logos without permission to bring people to the site or make some money.

This is hardly an infringement of civil rights. It's their logo, if you don't have permission to use it or you're trying to make a buck off it, then they have every right to close you down.

Re:No news?

[Fastolfe]

The real question is: what is making a profit and what is covering expenses?

I'm afraid it doesn't really matter. Once you slap advertising on your site and try to sell your site's content to advertisers, you've gone commercial. It doesn't matter that it isn't successful or that the incoming cash doesn't balance the costs of the business, it's still legally a commercial venture at that point.

I see no problem in a fan hosting a site about public entertainment, with logos, and make some money off of it.

I completely agree, but unfortunately it's up to the trademark holders here, and they've spoken. The problem is that you are using their logos to say "hey, come over here! we have XYZ-related content on this site!". Without the use of their logos, the site owners would (arguably!) not be able to attract the same size audience they usually would, which would impact the amount of money they take in through advertising. Here, the presence of the trademarked logo has a direct impact on the money the site owner receives through its advertisers. This is the problem the MLB is trying to address: the use of their logos to attempt to make a profit.

Now, I totally agree that it's kind of stupid for them to be going after fan sites like this, especially in these times. I think what they're doing is kind of silly, but I'm trying to present the above in a more rational way so that you're aware of their line of reasoning here.

Re:dirtbag

[radja]

good thing soccer only exists in the US then, the rest of the world plays football. Coincidence? I think not.. ;) //rdj

take me out to the ballgame

[t0qer]

take me out to the crowds

where i'll pay 10 dollars for cracker jack
wont have enough money to drive my car back

Lets build the giants a stadium
let the panhandlers sleep on the street

cause it's 1 2 3 strikes your out ......

Fuck it, Its 4:30, cartoons are on.

Re:take me out to the ballgame

[Safety Cap]

you picked the only one that was privately financed.

What kind of tax set-asides and credits did the city give them?

Does that count as part of the "private" (i.e., by the average private citizen) financing?

good

[Ender Ryan]

This is just more fuel for the fire in the backlash against MLB. MLB, players and execs, has turned into nothing but a big stupid corporate game, not a sport.

I hope the sport dies, then maybe it can be reborn as what it should be, an American pasttime.

Personally, I don't care for baseball, I think it's a boring sport. But, I know people who like it, and most of them have quit paying attention to it these days because they're sick of the BS, except for tuning in now and then for a good laugh at the players, etc. I really hope the sport will eventually be reborn for these fans who actually enjoy the sport.

I'm sure there will be a hundred more comments just like mine, but that will certainly say something about America's "pasttime"...

How to make baseball better for everyone

[Dyslexic]

The main reason you see low attendance at baseball games is because there is oh, I dunno 100 games per team in the regular season.

American football has maybe a fifth of that and its TV ratings are constantly on top. Not to mention it almost always packs 50,000-seat stadiums to capacity, even if tickets are $50 (or in many cases much more).

A shorter regular season would make everything worthwhile. No more 30 minutes of highlights on the 11 'oclock news. No more sparsely populated million dollar stadiums (which, urgh, my tax dollars paid for). It would make the game far more exciting, for every game counts tenfold. Teams wouldn't be able to say, "Too bad we lost...oh well we have another 80 games to make it up..."

Dys.

Re:How to make baseball better for everyone

[Detritus]

If you want to watch football, watch football. Don't screw up baseball in a misguided attempt to make it attractive to people with short attention spans and no regard for tradition.

Re:How to make baseball better for everyone

[catfood]

...there is oh, I dunno 100 games per team in the regular season.

A hundred sixty-two. (Which only reinforces your point.)

American football has maybe a fifth of that...

...or a tenth.

Point well taken, but as the other dude says, baseball is the way it is. Trying to make it into a weekend spectacle sport will just ruin it. (Heck, I'm still annoyed over the designated hitter rule. Talk about a kludge!)

Re:How to make baseball better for everyone

[Reziac]

I can live with the DH rule since it helps define differences in style between the two leagues. (Or did, til this interleague-play crap came along and diluted it -- might as well have ONE league now.)

But .. somewhere above, I rant about the horrible new divisions and playoffs with football style wildcards -- they've made a team's standings pretty much meaningless, since now practically any team can make the playoffs. What the suits who designed the new system didn't understand is that unlike football, baseball isn't just about winning a few times and then it's over. Baseball at its best is part of your everyday life, and while winning is great, losing doesn't mean The End. Tomorrow is another day.

Example: While my ongoing love is the Angels, I became a closet Cleveland fan while they were chronically in the cellar. They'd be 30 games back, yet they'd come to town, play like maniacs with nothing to lose, and whup the contending Angels by 13-1. You gotta admire that.

And as I never tire of pointing out... Baseball should be played on grass, in daylight. Football should be played in the mud. :)

Re:How to make baseball better for everyone

[forkboy]

I don't think that's the case....

Look at hockey. Hockey games sell out almost every time, and they play 82 games per season, not too far from what baseball players hit. (And that's not counting playoffs which add could potentially add up to 35 more games to a team's schedule. Oh, and I forgot mention pre-season)

Not to mention a very large viewership when games are televised...maybe not to the level of football, but still well within the realm of drooling fandom.

No, the problem with baseball is that the fans feel betrayed by the teams and the players. The first strike made them realize that their big heroes were just in it for the money and don't give a rats ass about the fans. They lost integrity and honor in the eyes of baseball viewers, and it keeps getting worse, what with rampant drug abuse, threats of strikes, and now this intellectual property issue.

The state of baseball now does make me sad, I used to spend my summers as a kid planning my activities around Cubs games. Now, I could honestly care less. The greed of the players and the greed of the franchises ruined it for everyone.

Re:dirtbag

[G-funk]

good thing soccer only exists in the US then, the rest of the world plays football. Coincidence? I think not.. ;) //rdj

No, no, no, no, no... you english have it all wrong... You guys call soccer football, and you call football Rugby! Sheesh! ;-)

Time limits?

[fruey]

Unless a draw is an acceptable outcome, you need a proper deciding endgame. Since baseball is all about hitting the ball as hard as you can away from fielders, it's difficult to get an endgame out of it except extra innings. Unless you go into statistics calculations.

Cricket has a draw system for long games, and one day games have limits in the number of balls bowled (that's pitched to the ignorant). Far superior technically too. American sports all suffer from one thing: "jock" culture. Whilst there are exceptions, most of it is about sponsorship, hitting hard, stopping frequently for commercials, and statistics. *yawn*

Soccer is by far the best sport in terms of accessibility, simplicity of rules, and yet eventual complexity of the game. Great footballers are always those with the best touch, not just some hard kicker, agressive player, etc. Plenty other sports are around which are superior to baseball anyway. None of us outside the US even care, we just laugh that a sport like baseball could have been so popular in the first place.

Re:Time limits?

[hawk]

> we just laugh that a sport like baseball could
>have been so popular in the first place.

Hmm, maybe there *is* something to the old soviet claim that Russian's invented baseball; it clearly has a lot in common with russian novels . . . although I'm not quite sure what the analogy to committing suicide by jumping off your manuscript is . . .

:)

hawk

Re:Time limits?

[Reziac]

Um.. baseball is NOT just about "hitting the ball as hard as you can away from the fielder". Know what a bunt is? Didn't think so. Baseball is, if anything, more complex than soccer, and it literally IS (as the old saying goes) a game of inches -- check out how many microsecond-close plays there are at first base, and you'll realise how well-designed the game really is.

Just as in soccer, the best baseball players are also those with the best touch, ie. the ability to throw or hit the ball *exactly* where they want it to go. The best fielders have "soft hands". The best players are those who "do all the little things right". Hitting and pitching stars get big press, and they'll often win a game in a pinch, but the everyday players are what keep a team in contention. That's why no one cares if a good second baseman can hit above .200, or if a good shortstop never hits a home run in his whole career.

Tinker to Evans to Chance. :)

Re:Time limits?

[Reziac]

You're absolutely right -- frex, I'm not a soccer fan, and it's hard for me to see the subtleties of the game, tho I'm sure they exist. Baseball being what it is, must be even harder for an outsider to appreciate, especially since baseball has its own language. (Imagine telling a fan with dumb questions to "RTFM" when the fan doesn't speak Baseball. :)

While I think you're right that in most cases a person has to grow up with a sport to really get into it, I'm one of the rarities who came to baseball as an adult with no prior interest to speak of, during the 1986 World Series. Bill Buckner's famous all-day-at-bat was probably the turning point in my understanding of the game. I think to love a sport, you have to at least somewhat understand it, otherwise it's just visual noise.

(One word: golf. :)

Re:Time limits?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

You've got it there, Buck2.

I was always a fan. Then I started playing (synagogue league softball), and I started appreciating what I saw more. Then I started coaching (my daughter's softball team -- G-d help them :-P), and can appreciate the beauty and elegance of the game even more.

As for those philistines who bitch about no time limit, that's also part of the beauty of the game. As Yogi said, "It ain't over till it's over".

Re:Time limits?

[Reziac]

Okay, I'll forgive you :) Personally I couldn't care less about statistics. I'm much more interested in whether the player "does all the little things right" and is a good *team* player, than whether he hits .350 and 50 homers and runs like a deer. In fact I don't WANT a Jose Canseco or a Ricky Henderson on my team no matter how great their stats are -- their attitudes are too embarrassing, and tend to undermine overall quality of play.

As to TV replays, the really skilled ones can recreate the rush of beating the throw by half an inch, but I'd agree a lot are just lame "repeat the action" shots, to fill time for people who don't grok the undercurrents. It can actually be quite annoying for real baseball fans. In football.. well, anything beats the camera being glued to the huddle for 20 seconds between every play, which is how it used to be done back in the days when a replay meant rewinding the tape first. Bleah!!

In APAzines (which til recently were mainly typewritten -- which is more flexible than computer printouts) one often sees the "sarcasm mark" made by overstriking a caret above a period. Don't think I've ever seen an "irony mark" tho the language could certainly use one :)

"World Series"

[fantomas]

Is this where we get to make the gag about baseball having a world series that is only for American teams? (I'd heard Cubans and Japanese are pretty good at baseball but they don't seem to take part)

Even cricket has more countries playing at the top level...

Re:"World Series"

[hawk]

>Is this where we get to make the gag about
>baseball having a world series that is only for
>American teams?

Only if you're ignorant enough to read "world" as "global," "international," or some such.

The "World Series" is an event put to gether by the New York World's sports department, producing a series between the champions of the two major baseball leagues. The World, of course, has exclusive marketing and coverage rights, and sells more papers for a week or two . , ,

The World is long gon, but the series continues . . .

[As a side issue, even if we ignore reality and assume that other nations belong in this american series, the cuban and japanese teams just wouldn't be on the same level, any more than the rest of the world agains the US olympic basketbal team, or against Japanese sumo wrestlers]

hawk, who never came back from the last baseball strike, anyway

Re:"World Series"

[stubear]

Actually the World Series was created by the owners of the Boston Red Sox. They felt thay had the best ball team in the, at the time, major leagues (I forget the actual league name). They challenged the next best ball team to a championship series (best of 5 I believe) and it would be the most spectacular championship the world had ever seen, hence the name WOrld Series. The name as stuck and teh Red Sox took most of the series until 1918 when they sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees and teh Red Sox haven't won a series since. They've come close only to lose it on a stupid error or other mishap.

Re:"World Series"

[ZxCv]

Is this where we get to make the gag about baseball having a world series that is only for American teams?

Sssh, no one tell the Toronto Blue Jays or the Montreal Expos.

Re:"World Series"

[fantomas]

I thought Canada was in North America... give me some names of the Cuban or Japanese teams who take part? ;-P

Re:dirtbag

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Soccer also exists in Australia and Canada. "Football" probably doesn't exist in most non-English speaking lands. It's highly possible that if you threw all English-speaking people together, showed them a man kicking a black and white ball, asked them what it was called, that most would say "soccer". But it's not likely, as I think they call it "football" in India.

Rights vs. business sense

[dtmos]

To me this is a case of operating within one's rights, to the detriment of one's business. Baseball has done this in spades for as long as I can remember, and it's finally beginning to affect the business.

I have had season tickets to a major league baseball team for the past ten years, meaning that during that time I have seen over 750 games (I've had to miss a few due to business trips, etc.). The basic attitude of the team and MLB in general, seems to be that fans are obligated to attend, regardless of how they are treated.

Probably the best example of this is the stadium's "security" policy regarding material one may bring to the games. I would like to bring in things like a score book, media guide, binoculars, sunscreen, pencils, etc., but they won't allow a bag larger than 8-1/2" x 11" (21.5 cm x 28 cm) into the stadium--even if you let them search the bag, or even empty it out at the feet of the inspector. The bag itself is not permitted, for some reason. However, they *will* allow women's purses and infants' diaper bags of any size, and they don't perform body searches or use metal detectors--whatever is in your pockets or under your clothes is yours to keep.

What they *think* they are accomplishing by this I cannot imagine, but I can say what they *are* accomplishing: As a result of this policy I can always tell a new, prospective fan, going to a game for the first time--I pass him walking back out to the parking lot as I am walking in, carrying the bag or knapsack he quite reasonably expected to be able to take to the game. Or I pass him at the inspector's station at the stadium entrance, presenting rational but useless arguments and expressions of surprise and disbelief to the bored workers there. As a business, the team has the right to set up rules for all those who enter, but the team shouldn't complain when no one bothers to come any more, and new fans prove difficult to attract. It's always been a puzzle to me how baseball owners could have business acumen sufficient to amass personal fortunes, yet run major league baseball as if they were the stupidest form of life on the planet.

This kind of behavior is rampant in MLB and, barring an unforeseen turnaround, may soon enable baseball to reach the popularity of those other major sports of the 1950's--boxing and horse racing.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[Tomun]

Bart: You're probably wondering about the coat hangers. They're to
block the satellite that's been spying on me.
Marge: [with trepidation] Okay ...
Bart: It can read your electric organizer from space.
Homer: Even mine? [Bart takes it and smashes it] Hey, I had
Lenny's name on that!
Bart: They have it now.
Lisa: Who are they, exactly?
Bart: Who else? Major League Baseball.

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/AABF22

Re:dirtbag

[radja]

I'm a dutchman... we don't play rugby either, and I watch my 'voetbal' in a coffeeshop.

then again, dutch coffeeshops have about as much to do with coffee as american football has to do with feet (or balls...)

//rdj

Time to Put This Sport Down

[Hangtime]

I was hoping the two sides would be dumb enough to allow a strike to happen, but I was wrong. Now, will someone please take this sport out back and put a bullet through it. Football season starts in six days.

Do you ever run out of things to complain about?

[gelfling]

Honestly this whole week is a /. "Everything in the whole world is shit, I alone am great and all knowning" moment.

This used to be such a nice neighborhood how it's just a skater wannabe strip mall.

At least some of this was resolved...

[SwedishChef]

Apparently MLB Properties hassled the Houston Astros site without the knowledge of the Houston Astros. In "A note to any newcomers to the Astos Daily" dated yesterday and featured prominently on their home page, Ray Kerby, the owner of http://www.astrosdaily.com said, "I just ant to make it clear that the Houston Astros had nothing to do with the "Cease & Desist" letter sent to me by MLB Properties on July 5th."

The Houston Astos themselves helped resolve the problem between astrostoday.com and MLB Properties which revolved around the use of player photographs. Kerby says that he was a guest of Astros owner Drayton Mclane at a game Sunday just to show there are no hard feelings.

While I, personally, have elected to boycott professional sports in their entirety due to their attitude of "screw the fans... build us another stadium or we'll leave" attitude, at least in this case the team behaved properly. And the site itself (astrostoday.com) is a very good fan site.

Your story is an urban legend

[Scratch-O-Matic]

Read more about it here.

but those sound like athletes!

[hawk]

Who was it that said, "I'm not an athlete, I'm a baseball player?"

hawk

Guess football guys aren't so dumb

[Infonaut]

Not only does the NFL recognize the value of fans much more then MLB does, the NFL also has a system of revenue-sharing that makes pro football much more interesting to watch from season to season.

I love baseball, but MLB has consistently refused to get with the program and shake up the paradigm that they built decades ago. When's the last time the Yankees weren't a contender? When's the last time the Dodgers were so bad that nobody could seriously give them any hope of winning their division? Since Turner came along, Atlanta has always been in the running, season after season. The big market teams have huge amounts of money to lavish on the top players, the little guys don't. It's that simple.

Look at the NFL, on the other hand. In the last few years in particular, every season has been exciting, because it's anyone's guess as to which teams will be the most powerful. There are dynasties in football, but they're nothing like the dynasties in baseball. The Cowboys of the 70s, the 49ers of the 90s, sure. But compare that to the Yankees of the 20th Century, and you see that competition is alive and well in the NFL, but not in MLB.

Re:Guess football guys aren't so dumb

[Infonaut]

Good points. I'd still say that in general, revenue-sharing leads to a more level playing field. Of course, skilled management and coaching can negate a lot of disadvantages as you pointed out.

Maybe there's more to it with football. I wonder if there are other factors in the NFL that simply make it more difficult to maintain a dynasty. For example, the number of games in a season is far less than either basketball or baseball. Someone somewhere has probably devoted a lot of time and energy to figuring out why the NFL is more competitive than MLB (if in fact, it statistically is more competitive - it could just be my perception).

Already seen some of this

[red_dragon]

A friend of mine has been running PhilsPhans.com since the beginning of this year with a focus on forum discussions, in response to many people who complained about the forums at the official site being crowded with spammers. The site gathered popularity among Phillies fans pretty quickly, and soon a lot of users from the official Phillies forums switched to the little new site. About a month or so ago, he received a letter from the Phillies ordering him to shut down his site due to "trademark infringement"; their claim was that the word "phils" is their property, and thus he can't use it as part of the site's name. How could anyone trademark such a common word is beyond logic, but since he doesn't have the resources to fight this, so he's being forced to move the site to a different domain.

Time Limits

[dmaxwell]

Throaty masculine voice:
Football is rigidly timed and the game WILL end even if we have to go to Sudden Death.

Simpering squealy voice:
In Baseball, you don't know when it's gonna end. We might even have to have extra innings.....

George Carlin

Re:No more trademarks

[reallocate]

Where did you pick up the notion that trademark and patent law is intended to protect "the little guy"? They're intended to protect the holder of a trademark or patent. Ditto copyright.

Throwing lawyers at fan sites is not a smart move by MLB, but semi-coherent whinings on /. won't do any good, either.

Somewhat true even to a baseball fan :(

[Reziac]

Actually, you're right to some extent even for me, a rabid diehard baseball fan. It stopped being interesting when they introduced interleague play and football[NFL]-style playoffs, with wildcards and more divisions. It took away something that's hard to explain -- about how it's more fun to follow your team with loyal hope even if they're lost in the basement, than it is when anybody and their brother can make the playoffs.

Supposedly these changes were made to draw more fans, but apparently I'm not alone in my feelings about it, because since then, attendance has dropped 20%. Which is more than the rising price of tickets could account for by itself (consider that movie theatre tickets have risen at a similar pace without killing their audience).

Tho this notion that a star pitcher is worth $120M annual salary cuts into the fun, too. (Scale for everyday players is what, somewhere around $200k now? Yeah, that's real parity.) Now that's supply and demand run amok. Yeah, there are very damn few major-league calibre pitchers (ill-considered expansion went to prove that there really *are* only about 600 truly ML-quality players in the world at any given moment) but there comes a point when I'd rather watch enthusiastic youngsters in local college games, where this sort of massive egoboo hasn't yet tainted their attitudes.

BTW, I also love American football, and Australian-rules football is great too. But the best was the mad enthusiasm of the World League (as I think it was called) -- NFL rules meets Aussie go-gettum!!

As you also point out -- yeah, killing fannish activities is a really great way to encourage fan loyalty. NOT!!

There's talk of Tommy Lasorda as the next baseball commissioner -- and he's always said that baseball is about the *fans*. If he gets the seat, I'd like to see him put his money where his mouth is, and *encourage* fan websites. Don't hold your breath.

Re:Somewhat true even to a baseball fan :(

[Reziac]

Those were negotiations? I thought it was a hostage situation!!

Disgusting indeed. Tho I don't begrudge the everyday players a nice six-figure wage -- they do earn it. It's the multimillion dollar over-the-top contracts that have skewed things all out of proportion.

Re:Somewhat true even to a baseball fan :(

[Reziac]

Ha, I wouldn't mind earning a 6-figure wage of ANY description :) But yeah, being out there making your own way does change your perspective. (I say from the ripe old viewpoint of 47 years :)

Time was when average ballplayers weren't even paid a living wage -- most needed to hold down regular jobs in the off season just to scrape by. Used to be the owners screwed the players up, down, and sideways; now the spikes are on the other foot.

The free market and capitalism have their share of problems and drawbacks, but they do beat the alternatives. As someone once put it, "the worst system in the world -- except for all the others!"

Re:Somewhat true even to a baseball fan :(

[Amazing Quantum Man]

There's talk of Tommy Lasorda as the next baseball commissioner -- and he's always said that baseball is about the *fans*.

I hate the Dodgers (my sister bled blue, and I'm an Angels fan -- used to disappointment), but Tommy would probably be the best commish that there ever could be.

Actually, and this just occurred to me while I was writing this... when he gets out of office in either 2004 or 2008, Bush would probably be an excellent commissioner.

DISCLAIMER: I am professing no opinion one way or another about W's politics.

Re:Somewhat true even to a baseball fan :(

[Reziac]

I can root for the Dodgers if the alternative is the Hated Giants, but I too am really an Angels fan (actually, I started as a fan of Al and Kemmer, but they made me into an Angels follower with their *marvelous* broadcasts.) So I cheer the Angels, and whoever is playing the Unspeakable Athletics. :)

Maybe that's where I learned to appreciate the game for itself and not for the Pennants -- can't appreciate what you don't got :/

When they cut open Lasorda, they'll find he's made of horsehide and twine... yeah, I think he would really work to do what's best for baseball, but he's not entirely above political games (he used to run with Sinatra's crowd, and you know who they are, right?)

As to Bush, that's a helluva good thought, and I believe you're right, he'd be excellent. Someone ought to suggest it to TPTB. Aside from knowledge of and love of the game, he's got the ability to get along with everyone, which a position like that needs.

It's a game of *aniticpation*, not of action!

[Reziac]

Baseball is NOT a game of action. It's a game of *anticipation*. There's a huge chess game going on in the background ALL the time, between rival players and rival managers. Baseball is really about microplays, not the macroplays (frex, home runs) that are visible to the untrained eye. The microplay can be something like the player on first taking half a step toward second, thus throwing the pitcher's rhythm off so maybe he'll hang a curveball, and "You hang 'em, we bang 'em." Or conversely maybe the pitcher holds the ball half a second longer, to freeze the runner who was just about to take off for second, and oops, now he's pick-off bait. This sort of thing goes on *constantly* throughout every game, but you have to learn to see it. Even something as small as someone shifting their weight from one foot to the other can be a significant microplay.

It's like the difference between a programmer and a user. Does the user see or appreciate all the beautiful or ugly code that's under the hood? Nope, the user just sees the macro-effect on his screen. But another coder will see and appreciate what's going on behind the CRT. Baseball fans are the programmers of the sporting world. :)

When a game goes slowly it's usually due to a pitcher who dilly-dallies between pitches, which has the bad side effect that his fielders behind him get stale and lose concentration (and while occasionally it's to screw with the batter's concentration, just as often it means the pitcher isn't sure of his next pitch and is procrastinating). The steadier pitchers usually get ball, get sign, throw pitch, and don't step off the mound unless it's to hold a runner on base (who might otherwise take off).

"Throw strikes. Home plate don't move." -- Satchel Paige

Tho that brings up another point. Pitching is NOT just about throwing the ball so hard that the batter can't catch up with it. It's much more about fooling the batter into swinging at a bad pitch, ie. a pitch that he can't do anything useful with, so he makes an out. It's a lot more efficient to get your 27 outs with 27 ground balls or pop-ups than it is to throw 27 strikeouts.

Conversely hitting isn't just about getting the ball past everyone. It's about putting the ball where no fielder can do anything *useful* with it. Watch the entire infield fall on their noses when some clever batter unexpectedly dribbles a piddly little bunt that barely makes it out of the batter's box. :)

Re:It's a game of *aniticpation*, not of action!

[zerocool^]

I just wanted to say I appreciate your reasoned and articulate response, instead of flaming me. It was a pleasant read, and I really respect you for it.

I suppose I'll just have to draw a line and say that I don't understand baseball the way you (and many others) do. I'm not sure I'm willing to learn, but until recently I didn't like football - then I went to college... So mabey there's hope.

I'd imagine it was easier to pick it up earlier in the game, before it was so high priced, for tickets, for player's salaries, before there were sponsers for everything. Now, any time we can get a commercial, we do, and there isn't a surface in the stadium without a logo on it.

In the same vein, let me make a couple of comments. One: This does carry over to other sports, I know that. I can't stand watching football on ABC. They take FOREVER, TV timeouts last an age. And they're MUCH worse when you're at the game - a la Virginia Tech v. LSU on Sunday. I was at the game (I'm a Hokie), and I was in a wool uniform (I'm also in the marching band), an thus, I didn't appreciate the length of the game (while I did appreciate it's content).

Another point: I have ZERO problem with paying athletes millions of dollars. It works on a simple supply and demand scale, with the addition of skill levels. Why do you get paid $5.65 at burger king? Because, while there is a huge demand, there is a much larger supply, there are millions of people willing to do your job, and it takes no skill. Why do you get paid $60,000 to be a tech consultant? Because there is a high demand - not very, but it's higher than the supply, and that's because the skill level limits the supply.

Now, everyone sees where this is going - Why does Michael Vick get paid so much? Because the demand for his services is astronomical, and his skill level is so hard to find that the supply is almost zero. There are 150 million people in this country capable of working at Burger King, there are probably 1 million people capable of working tech sector jobs competently, but there are probably only 10 or so people in the world capable of both being a supurb scramble quarterback in the NFL *and* bringing the level of excitement that Vick brings with him wherever he is.

My problem with baseball players wanting more money is that I think they percieve their demand to be much higher than it really is. If Michael Vick wanted more money, he could probably get it. Why? Because people would demand that he is worth WHATEVER he wants to keep him on this team. If Casey Fossum really wants more money, who gives a shit. A lot less people.

Now, I also don't think that baseball players should get the standard $15/hr for their efforts. I think that there are probably players who are worth $500,000 or so per year, based on what they do for a team, and what they do monitarily for a franchise. There are a couple of players that deserve a few million a year for their presence - Bonds, McGuire, Martinez, whoever... These people are worth money because they bring money and they bring buzz, as well as good games.

They're just not worth $15 million, etc.

Thanks for reading this, if you got this far. I always read replies.

~Will

Re:It's a game of *aniticpation*, not of action!

[Reziac]

Flames are neither useful nor educational, and I "know" you from your other posts, so I thought it would be worth expounding a bit. :)

Until I had an Epiphany (see some other post where I talk about that), I'd actively disliked baseball, and outright hated football. The whole problem was that all I could see was the action, but I had no understanding of the game. So I do know where you're at! And every sport isn't for everyone's taste anyway.

Football TV timeouts (for commercials) are all set up by contract with the TV network. X-many minutes per TV timeout, x-many TV timeouts per quarter, x-many total TV timeouts per game. Ever notice that sometimes during overtime, there are no TV timeouts? that's because all the contracted TV timeouts have already been done, so they don't have to do any more of 'em. I agree they're highly annoying, and they have to disrupt the players as much as they do the fans. Not to mention the various peripheral personnel like marching bands, roasting or freezing on the sidelines for that much longer without any compensation for it.

As to salaries and perceived worth, I think you've nailed it on the nose. Also, supply and demand is all very well, but the bloated salaries some pro athletes currently command reminds me of the dot-bombs before the bubble burst. Even with salary caps and revenue sharing, at some point the available revenue simply won't be able to support those ever-rising toplevel salaries, and something has to give. Greed on this scale sets itself up for collapse. And eventually the perception of worth is going to come down to reality -- with considerable force. Baseball is quite capable of doing this, if finances dictate it:

Remember the ML umpires' strike? They only wanted a reasonable salary increase, commeasurate with inflation and to some degree reflective of the base salary for players. MLB decided they weren't worth it (a very bad decision IMO, and really annoying since I am a big fan of good umpiring!), locked out the striking umpires, and permanently promoted the minor league substitutes. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point, they said enough is enough and did the same with players, thus ditching ALL the 8-figure-and-up contracts in one swell foop. Minor leaguers' abilities don't look half-bad if you aren't comparing them with experienced ML players.

Re:dirtbag

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Wrong. The term is used in many (if not most) non-english speaking countries.

Whether it sounds the same or if it's of the form , no, it isn't the same term. It's in another language, and for the purpose of figuring out whether the English word for you-know-what is football, it's not relevant.

An entertainment industry sector needs to die

[alizard]

From what I'm seeing, the unnecessary death of an established entertainment industry sector due to obvious short-sighted stupidity and greed, i.e. the new entertainment rule seems to be - when profits drop, attack the hard-core fans. . . will be necessary before this stops.

This puts MLB neck and neck with the RIAA labels. Perhaps some enterprising slashdotter ought to set up death watch pools for each of these markets... set up an acceptable definition for industry death (MLB declaring bankruptcy? 3 of the 5 RIAA major labels closing?) either for fun or profit... so we can start entering our guesses as to when these industry segments will crash and burn.

More than one citation

[FreeUser]

Wrong, apparently....

From snopes urban legend page linked on other comment:

Origins: For nearly a century now, baseball's annual championship, the World Series, has been an essential American ritual...

Snopes is a great resource for debunking Urban Myth's and Legends, but I am curious if there are additional citations available. Why?

Because checks and balances are IMHO very important, and it is entirely possible for one source to be incorrect about this or that fact. Add to that the (possible) temptation to take a particular stance on one or another political issue (like the myth that the United States is the only country to misuse the adjective "world" ... I personally saw the term misused in Europe more than once when I lived there).

While I have no reason to believe Snopes is wrong about this (or any of their other points, for that matter) I'd feel more comfortable with a second, corroborating citation.

hehehe....... I never seem to win any fights

[Ride-My-Rocket]

I thought I was gonna get my ass kicked at a Sox-Yankees game a few months ago. Sox ended up waxing the Yankees by the 8th, and everybody started leaving. This after they were so vocal about how they sucked........ so I stood up and started yelling: "Why are you all leaving? It's not over yet, is it? The Yankees really are the best players in baseball, right?". Got some very unpleasant looks from people....... fortunately, I had already spent upwards of $50 on beer, so I didn't mind at the time.