Is there a more recognizable icon in the colorful eras of American sports than Yankee Stadium? “The House that Ruth Built” will soon be demolished after hosting 85 years of some of the most exciting moments and players in baseball history. Baseball will never be the same without its presence on the Bronx skyline, and the sense of of history it imparted to everyone whom visited the stands for an afternoon of relaxation. Can you imagine a young boy’s eyes getting large as saucers when one of the great sluggers whom played there popped a homer over his head? Can you imagine going into the spanking new home of the Yankees and buying pieces of the venerable old stadium as souvenirs?

Baseball, like some other popular sports, has been in decline for many years, mostly due to its own successes of the 1950’s which brought tv into the picture. When CBS bought the Yankees in the 60’s, the youthful glory years of the sport still being a game were over. Big money took over from big fun, and it has been nothing more than a meat market ever since. The players are overpaid, especially the super-stars, and the owners are going to do whatever it takes to get the most people in the stands at the highest ticket prices the market will endure, and concessions are priced so high that “buy me some peanuts and cracker jack” are only song lyrics nowadays because a poor person cannot afford the seventh-inning-stretch treats.

Baseball is not a good sport to watch on television; it is just too big for all of it to be seen. The worst seat in the stands is far better for viewing the game than is the best seat in front of a television. The tv shows a closeup of the pitcher on his mound and in his windup and delivery, then another camera takes over and shows the batter at the plate as the ball is either hit or zooms by at incredible speed. There are at least nine other players on the field while this is happening, plus base coaches, umpires and various personnel in the bullpens and around the dugouts. If the camera zooms out to try to take it all in, very little can be seen of anything even on today’s big screen television sets. There is always something going on with the players on the field and elsewhere, coaches, bat boys (or girls), field maintenance crews, and the fans in the stands, but because of its limitations, tv shows only immediate action wherever the ball happens to be. My biggest gripe with television sports coverage is the constant and inane chatter that goes on between the game announcer and the “color commentator” whom is there to tell us every single thing he knows about his particular sport in very few words and phrases that are repeated over and over and over to give us idiots at home who are watching and listening some insight into how the game “really” should be played. Shaddup!

This spring when the new season begins and if you are like me and do not live near a major league team, go out and buy a ticket to a minor league professional game, then go home and watch a big league game on tv  for comparison. I believe you will see that the entertainment and a bit of the glory years exist in a small stadium where you can afford to buy your kid a pack of peanuts and some Cracker Jacks, and maybe even see a future super-star.
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This is my Brasstacks for January 21, 2009.

I intend to continue this subject matter at a later date.