BLOOMINGBURG, NY – Happy Easter and Happy Passover to one and all. I’m not here to eat a chocolate bunny or something with unleavened bread, but rather to lament over a few sports related items: NHL and Cactus/Grapefruit MLB Plans.
Major League Baseball is proposing an alternative plan to the 2020 season, as Short Matt and Replacement have discussed. I think it sucks – not them talking about it – but the plan. The one sport where tradition is its most charming quality is about to be blown to bits. Maybe I am getting older and more set in my ways but I like my baseball unmolested and pure. These are unchartered times and can hear most fans saying something is better than nothing.
Is it really though?
Watching a live game on the tube would be a welcomed distraction right now except seeing an empty stadium in the backdrop is just as depressing as zero baseball. Silence is not golden in any sporting event. No cheer of the crowd, no organ music… only the cavernous sound of what used to be the crack of bat hitting the ball. I’d rather see a monkey cam that navigates the field during live play to experience what the on field players are going through. It’s just not worth it right now to put a grossly amended return of baseball for the sake of showing product.
AND… Have you seen the realignment of divisions, making a mishmash of what is normally the American and National Leagues? Ridiculous! The suits want Florida and Arizona leagues based upon a team’s Spring Training locales. Too lazy to pull up what they would be the divisions make life infinitely more difficult for the Mets ever to make the playoffs while the Yankees, of course, can smoothly make the post season if they played their Scranton lineup. Wait it out MLB… PLEASE!
And what of the NHL?
This is the time of year where it’s wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling hockey playoffs. None to be found. Just the memories of playoffs past like posing in front of a church with middle finger flying after Pat LaFontaine ended the Easter Epic against the Washington Capitals. There was also the one time me and Grote2DMax lit a novena prior to Game 7 against the Quebec Nordiques where Terry O’Reilly took a swipe at referee Andy Van Hellemond in the waning moments of a frustrating 2-1 loss. The right handed punch missed – probably and thankfully – because Taz was a lefty roundhouse thrower that felled the likes of Gillies, Schultz and many more. The twenty-game suspension levied would have been doubled had O’Reilly connected.
But here we are. There are no Game 7 heroics, many which have come over the past ten years for us Boston Bruins fans. We wait for all of this to come once again. Easter and Springtime is a time of rebirth and renewal and so may our sports soon prove to be only in its traditional form, however.
That’s it. I’ve got to get back to eating my chocolate bunny and her peeps. Comment below and come back tomorrow for Junoir Blaber, who will be late and sloppy.
