A Take From the Weekend

Some thoughts from a rare weekend spent at home...

It's wonderful that horse racing may have a genuine star in Big Brown. The horse has a chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978 and he may very well do it in a fashion that might cause people to invoke the sacred name of Secretariat. He may not win The Belmont by 31 lengths but he may very well dominate the race based on his performances in The Kentucky Derby and The Preakness.

And yet, if you were paying attention this past weekend, it is readily apparent why the sport has been in trouble for so many years. To begin with, how depressing is it that the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 30 years (if he does so) will be named for a corporation? It's bad enough that corporate logos and drop-ins now dominate the sports landscape but now animals are being named in honor of corporate slogans?

Stadiums and arenas being plastered with corporate names has, unfortunately, become old news. The New York Mets new ballpark had a corporate name on it two years before its scheduled opening. Try listening to a baseball broadcast these days. See how often the game actually goes on for five minutes without a corporate drop-in of some kind. No one is worse about this than the too-rich-for-words New York Yankees. Nowadays, every single time a half inning ends the listener is reminded that he is listening to The New York Yankees baseball network that is, "powered by..." you fill in the corporation name.

It's bad enough to slap logos on to stadiums, arenas, bowl games, starting lineups and any other thing you can name. But now we're on to living beings? Next thing you know the political conventions will have corporate sponsors. Actually that might work, "The Halliburton Republican Convention," kind of has a ring to it doesn't it?

Where does it all end? Probably, it doesn't. Within 10 years there will be corporate names attached to hallowed places like Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Wrigley Field -- which was named, for the record, for the person who started the company, not after the company itself. About the only event that may withstand the barrage is The Masters, if only because the membership there is so wealthy it can afford to say no to millions of dollars every year. Everyone else is at risk.

It may not be long before team owners and athletes put corporate logos on their children... "FedEx delivers Daniel M. Snyder Jr." That has a ring to it too.

*****

Baseball continues to prosper as a sport even though it continues to try to lose its soul.

Let's forget for a moment the never-ending steroid mess that won't go away, the bloated salaries and the bloated prices for everything. Let's talk about something simple: doubleheaders.

If you are under the age of 30, the word may be meaningless to you. Once upon a time doubleheaders were part of the game's tradition: two for the price of one, usually on Sunday afternoons and on holidays but later in the season, when rainouts occurred, they could pop up anywhere as twi-nighters -- first game at 5 o'clock (or so) followed by the second. Back then scoreboards actually had a place (usually right after runs, hits and errors) which read "1G." That was where the score of the first game that day was posted during the second game. Seriously.

Nowadays, no one actually schedules a doubleheader even in cities where sellouts are rare, the notion being to maximize revenues. Holiday doubleheaders are not only gone but frequently teams are "OFF" on Memorial Day and Labor Day.