"Sports Media Whining Again!"

Have you ever gone to a well-written play and two hours into it, just when the mystery

is about to be revealed and all the questions within the story answered, you look at

your watch, stand up and say, "Man, this is a long show!  I wish it would end already,

so I can go home..."?  No?

How about getting up to leave about two hours and fifteen minutes into a gripping

action film?  Never done that either, huh?  Neither have I.

But for a long time now, baseball broadcasters and writers have been carping and

whining about the length of ballgames and how we need to find a way to shorten them

before all the game's fans go away for good.  Suggestions range from not allowing the

batter to step out of the box during an at-bat to limiting the number of times a

pitcher can throw over to first base.  Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay used to end

every lengthy game he did by calling it an "unmanageable three hours-and-whatever-

minutes", and older broadcasters lament the passing of the days when Bob Gibson or

Lefty Gomez could throw a complete game in an hour-forty-eight.  Yeah, and I miss the

days when all the male patrons at the ballpark wore shirts and ties, too...

Look, I understand that Tony LaRussa did his best to turn the National Pastime into a

study in the psychology of the middle-relief pitcher and that most Yankee-Red Sox

games are twice as long as your average Russian docu-drama.  But here's the real

truth:  ticket prices, for everything, are getting very close to the ridiculous stage.  Not

even mentioning the borderline criminality of PSL's that football is foisting on its fans, a

regular day at the ballpark for just two people comes to well over a hundred bucks

unless you walk to the stadium, don't drink any alcohol, and sit in the old Bob Uecker

seats, where a play at the plate is something you can only read about the next day.  

So honestly, when I shell out my c-note for a decent view, a couple of beers, and

maybe a t-shirt with my favorite rookie's name emblazoned on the back, I feel a little

cheated when I'm back in my car inside of three hours.  With the possible exception of

watching a team continue to indulge in double switches even though they're down

14-1, I never remember turning to a friend and saying, "God, this thing is going on

forever...I got my money's worth already...I wish we could get the hell out of here!" 

Not once.  And do you know why I've never said that, but folks like Michael Kay have? 

Because covering baseball to him is a job!  

Let's look at it this way:  say you work in a ladies' shoe store and your shift ends at

6pm.  But at 5:50, some trailer-park whale comes in to the place; she's just seen "Sex

and the City 2" and thought Sarah Jessica's silver pumps were to die for.  So she makes

you take out every pair of pumps in your inventory until you find a pair that fits her. 

You want to slough the job off on one of your late-shift co-workers, but no, your boss

says it was your customer, you have to stay until she makes her purchase.  You're

dyin', man--you wanna go home and have a couple of pops before the last episode of

"24", but this Amazon has you here until 7:30...and does she care?  Hell no, all she

can see is a carpet filled with silver pumps as far as her eye can see and she wants to

stay there forever...she just can't fathom why anyone would ever want to leave!

Well, we're the fat girls and Michael Kay, Tim McCarver, and umpire Joe West are the

shoe salesmen.  They have dinner plans, planes to catch, wives, kids, and most

importantly, they have deadlines!  If a game they're covering doesn't end until 11:45,

they know they won't finish their game stories, host their wrap-up shows, or get home

to their refrigerators until God-knows-when.  Hence, we get the never-ending

rants from every media outlet that the games are too long and that something has to

be done.  Yeah, for them, not for the fans--we paid to get in!  The longer the game,

the more baseball we see, the more bratwurst we can munch, the more we get for our

'entertainment dollar'...        

And with this in mind came "The Great Frozen Super Bowl Debate" of last week.  As a

native New Yorker, I have long advocated cold-weather Super Bowl sites.  I am SO

tired of reading stories in USA Today titled "Here's the Best Bars in South Beach", and

"Guide to New Orleans' Top Ten Brothels" every off-week before the Super Bowl.  I

loved when they played it in Detroit and wished the game in Minneapolis could

somehow been staged outdoors.  So last week's announcement of a Super Bowl for the

new Giants-Jets stadium in New Jersey in February of 2014 was a day of celebration for

me.  Hallelujah to that!

But wait, here come those media moguls again:  "How can you let the possibility

of freezing cold weather effect the outcome of the season's most important football

game?" they asked.  Huh?!?!  There can't be a good pro football game played in cold

weather?  Someone needs to inform Bart Starr and Jerry Kramer about this, quick!  And

how toasty do you think it was the day the Buffalo Bills came from 32 points down to

beat the Houston Oilers in one of the most famous playoff games in history?  A January

game in Buffalo?  Should have moved that one to Miami!

"It's not fair to the fans!" screamed some media members last week about the game

being played in the Northeast.  Really?  It's going to be cold at the

Meadowlands??  Never seems to effect 50,000-plus screaming Jet fans when they play

Miami in week 16, with a playoff spot on the line.  And did anyone see the NFC

Championship game two years ago in Green Bay?  Temperatures hovered close to Arctic

territory when they played that one in prime time--did the fans look like they were

suffering?  (Well, at least until their QB, Brett Favre, threw his obligatory pick in

overtime to give the Giants the conference title....)

Point here?  The people doing the screaming aren't fans.  They're writers, columnists,

broadcasters--in short, the guys that have to actually work that day, the folks

that might have to trudge their way through wind and snow to attend the Maxim party

at Radio City the night before.  Those poor souls that might have to brave the cold

to race from sponsor event to sponsor event on game day, in order to indulge in the

free food that media members have come to feel is their birthright. 

But they're not the fans and their concerns are only falling on deaf ears.

Here's an offer, media whiners:  when February of 2014 rolls around and it's about

twelve- below with a forty-below wind chill, and two feet of Merry Christmas has been

dumped on the tri-state area the night before, any of you who want to give up your

ticket, please get in touch.  My name is listed right at the top of this article.

And I have a warm coat.