<p>You got me there, alumom. However, the Boston series starts tonight. Will it be another sweep?</p>
<p>Re:Blue Jays. It was an actual consideration for my S that the college he attend be in an American league city, ie, Toronto. He’s at McGill - he didn’t take it that far, thank goodness.</p>
<p>Yes, I know of many Red Sox fans who travel elsewhere to see games. The Red Sox have a travel agency where they will package game getaway trips. They just started doing it for Boston College games as well to enhance how well that team (ie the fans) travel.</p>
<p>It breaks my heart to see all those empty baseball stadiums, and nice new ones at that, of other teams. It is even easier (according to some friends) to get tickets to a Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium than to Fenway. The Red Sox even sell out many of their spring training games.</p>
<p>As a Red Sox fan, baseball is alive and well.</p>
<p>As a Pirates fan on the cusp of our 15th consecutive losing season, it’s as dead as a doornail.</p>
<p>As the say in real estate it’s location, location, location. Or probably more accurately for MLB: money, money, money.</p>
<p>woody, that’s funny that your son considered baseball when choosing his college list. It mustn’t have been a strong consideration, though, because 1-Montreal has never been a baseball city, even before the Expos left town, and 2- there are many excellent reasons to choose Toronto but baseball isn’t one of them. ;)</p>
<p>In some ways, I’m amazed that the Jays continue to draw the crowds that they do because the team really hasn’t been very good. This year, admittedly, it’s been better (except for when the bullpen ruins a perfectly good game) and the city is certainly fond of Halliday. Maybe they’ll return to the grandeur of the early 90’s teams someday, and Toronto fans are famously patient and loyal. All one needs do is to look at the Leafs to see that!</p>
<p>Interesting book on the “demise” of baseball:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Ball-Baseballs-Troubles-Solve/dp/1416534482/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4022216-7942236?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189774930&sr=8-1[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Ball-Baseballs-Troubles-Solve/dp/1416534482/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4022216-7942236?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189774930&sr=8-1</a></p>
<p>(Yankees are on every night in this house!)</p>
<p>I’ve bled Dodger blue since watching Drysdale pitch against the Braves back in 19<em>cough</em>, but I will admit that it hasn’t really been the same since the O’Malleys sold out to Rupert Murcoch’s soulless corporation in 1998. I like to think that it’s no coincidence that the O’Malleys sold out when I moved to Washington.</p>
<p>“Baseball Heaven” typically has less than 1,000 tickets available. The number of available seats has gone up some this year, but we still get a pretty good sea of red.</p>
<p>Cardinal fans show up on the road quite a bit. There’s many times the broadcasters have said there was more Cardinal red in the place than the other team.</p>
<p>Big Red Sox fan.</p>
<p>We like to go to spring training games here in Florida. They are cheap, up-close, and personal. You can meet the players, get stuff signed. For next to nothing, you can sit right behind the plate and watch your favorite teams play. Sure, it’s just pre-season, but it’s a lot of fun.<br>
Going to spring training games, however, has spoiled us. The thought of paying a small fortune to go sit behind left field leaves me cold. I just can’t bring myself to do it- no thanks, I’ll be out there watching my boys in February/March. (The weather’s a lot better, too).</p>
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<p>You don’t have to go all the way to Venezuela - just swing over to the north side of Chicago.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.sportsfeatures.com/index.php?section=pp&action=show&id=42572[/url]”>http://www.sportsfeatures.com/index.php?section=pp&action=show&id=42572</a></p>
<p>Yes, baseball is alive in Boston, but perhaps their obsession with the Yankees is a bit much??? Apparently it is quite common in public venues for people to spontaneously break out with a “Yankees suck” cheer. </p>
<p>My nephew, who is attending grad school at MIT was at a concert with a friend of his when the people waiting for the concert to start started that cheer. Being the wise guy that he is, he and his friend started to cheer “Let’s go Yankees” (note: they are both Tiger fans and hate the Yankees as much as anyone.) Well, the guy in front of them turned around as if to start a fight, but then looked up at two very fit, 6’5’ Air Force Academy grads and suddenly decided that discretion was the better part of valor.</p>
<p>Does anyone know, offhand, how many teams have hit the 4 million attendance mark? I know the Jays have done it twice but I wondered if teams in other cities have also done so. The Yankees maybe?</p>
<p>Yankee games unfortunately do bring out some nastiness; it is definitely not “Family Night” at the ballpark. That said, watching a night game in August from the bleachers at Fenway is a cultural experience not to be missed.</p>
<p>S N O R E… yes, baseball is dead. However, the NFL is alive and well! (But, fencing beats all!)</p>
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<p>The only reason why the teams with perhaps the most devoted fans in baseball - the Cubs and the Red Sox - haven’t hit this figure is that their parks are (thank God!) so initimate (making it mathematically impossible).</p>
<p>Baseball is not for the short of attention span folks, for sure :).</p>
<p>what I love about it is that it does not represent war or battle or any thing in real life; it is the most purely abstract major sport (ie watching Jose Reyes race home on a sac fly ball hit to Francouer–great speed against great arm, but they’re not directly opposing each other). Or a fantastic catch at the wall that happens 400 feet away from the batter, but puts him out.</p>
<p>It’s poetry transfered to a sports field. (and it gives lots of time to talk during, and about, the game–why English majors love baseball, LOL).</p>
<p>epistrophy, thanks. I wondered if perhaps it was simply a matter of the size of the stadium for some teams. The Skydome/Rogers Centre is very large, around 50,000, but it’s a pretty nice place to watch a game, unless you’re on the upper deck. I grew up in south Jersey and was a Phillies fan (very conflicted when the Jays beat them for the World Series and I was at the game!) and have many fond memories of Connie Mack Stadium, where you felt close to the field no matter where your seat was.</p>
<p>After watching just about every game of the Little League World Series this year (remember when they only broadcast the final game?) my pessimism about the future of the game did a 180…</p>
<p>Lets. Go. Mets. (the 1986 championship t-shirt is still in the drawer, but don’t ask me if it still fits!)</p>
<p>FM: out of curiosity…foil, epee, or saber?</p>
<p>Garland, you’re right about baseball being poetry.</p>
<p>Red Sox fans travel to other parks for several reasons:</p>
<p>1) Loyalty
2) Fenway is small so it sells out nightly. It is much easier to get Sox tickets in other towns.
3) Fenway is so small and Sox fans so loyal that the Sox can charge outrageous prices and still sell out. Single ticket prices range from $20 for STANDING ROOM to $312 for “Dugout Box” premium seats. The infield grandstand is $45/ticket. It’s a LOT cheaper to go to a Sox game in another city, notwithstanding travel costs. Many people make a weekend of it - go to Baltimore and catch a couple of games at Camden Yards, eat at the inner-harbor, maybe go to the Maryland shore or tour Washington DC.</p>
<p>It’s poetry transfered to a sports field.</p>
<p>Yep. T.S. Elliot worote: “At the still point, that’s where the dance is” That’s baseball. THe best games are ones in which almost nothing happens. That appeals to to the cerbreal sort I guess. My favorite game ever was Jim Abbott’s no-hitter back in 1993, watching a one-armed pitcher win.Baseball is what happens when everyone is standing still: Before the 3-2 pitch in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game with the bases loaded; when Ichiro or A-Rod is in the hole and you can see the pitcher sweating already; when Wakefield releases and you wonder for a split second that seems like an eternity if the ball will actually make it to the catcher’s mitt . </p>
<p>Basketball, you watch the last five minutes of a game and that’s all you need.
Football is an hour game stretched to three times that length to see --and people think baseball is boring? </p>
<p>And after all of a baseball game’s still points, you still have the ecstasy of release in that home run, that steal, that clutch bloop single, that strikeout.</p>
<p>Of course all that feels much better when your team is good.</p>
<p>And of course, the Yankees will put it to Boston tonight, natch!</p>