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MLB: Posing for the Fences
By Riverboat in Flotsam and Jetsam
July 14, 2010

The TV schedule said the baseball all-star game began at 7:00. My son (#2) promised he’d be here, so I dutifully began boiling four all-beef ballpark weenies in time for the first pitch. (I like mine toasted in the oven with jalapeños and cheddar cheese.) Meanwhile, I looked around for pregame festivities, maybe some old clips of players from a bygone era. Nothing? Well, maybe the game was boiled down to the essentials: Announce the players, sing the National Anthem, have a venerated player throw out the first ball and get down to business.

Cable TV Guide finally scrolled down to the channel we needed. We tuned into Fox in time for more coverage of George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner, of course, was the owner of the New York Yankees, and the less said of him, the better. Except to say that it’d be just like that showboater to pick a day like this to make that last slide across home plate on his way to meet the great Umpire in the Sky.

The first pitch didn’t make it across the plate until a quarter to the next hour. Meanwhile, the pregame festivities consisted of a montage of community leaders from across this fruity plain. Major League Baseball CARES! I get it! Kids crowded the field, only they weren’t trying to get autographs. They were props in a full-blown publicity stunt. At some point, the players finally lined up along the first and third-base lines waiting to be announced. After a commercial break, two more kids read the line-up from a cue card, followed by more hugging. E-NUFF already! Someone wake up the umpire to yell Play Ball! Or is he in a diabetic coma?

I realize that baseball is filled with tradition, but having a dead announcer calling up a Yankee batter was a touch of the macabre. I don’t recall hearing Harry Carey call up the next Cubs batter.

On the plus side, camera shots of that panty-waist Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, were mercifully short and seldom. It didn’t end in a tie, and the players got to wear their team uniforms. The game itself was a nail-biter and righteous victory for the National League. That means that if the Houston Astros win the pennant, they’ll get home-field advantage. Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my . . . Hey! Was that Yogi Berra dancing on Steinbrenner’s picture in center field?

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