Most days, I've been able to stomach the absence of baseball, because the serenity prayer was basically designed for this situation. Occasionally, said stomach takes a haymaker.
A recent episode of the Effectively Wild podcast delivered the latest punch to the gut. Sam Miller introduced a draft to select their favorite specific ways of following a baseball game, and while he, Meg Rowley and Ben Lindbergh ventured into idiosyncratic methods and conditions that not everybody can relate to, it did the job of thinking of the ways I didn't know I missed following a game.
The summary...
Miller:
- Intensifying focus on a game while a radio signal weakens.
- Watching a game while walking around the house between pitches.
- Baseball dinners.
Rowley:
- Watching a game anonymously.
- Putting on the wrong archived MLB.tv game.
- Leaving the office to walk to the ballpark.
Lindbergh:
- Falling asleep while watching a game.
- Watching/listening to a game covertly.
- Consuming baseball as a link to home.
Rowley's third choice resonated the most strongly to me, although I didn't (and don't) have an MLB product convenient to last-second planning. The sentiment applies to any kind of affiliated ball, and I'd say there is something special about being at a ballpark because that game is the best way you could maximize that particular day.
It's even easier for minor-league ball, because it costs about half as much to go, so the financial barrier to entry is dramatically lower. When there are actual baseball reasons to see the game, so much the better. Last summer, I saw Adley Rutschman and Casey Mize up close on short notice in perfect conditions, and parking was free. All of those elements are multipliers.
This came to mind when reading over the weekend that the group trying to bring Major League Baseball to Nashville applied for a logo trademark.
On one hand, it'd be cool to have an MLB team right here, especially one with a good name (Nashville Stars) and better backstory (tie-in with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum). But I was also looking forward to seeing high-level baseball in the form of the Triple-A Nashville Sounds, which doesn't carry the pressures that MLB status automatically applies (higher costs, larger crowds, additional time for entry and exit). The fewer things in between me realizing on a Tuesday afternoon that I want to go to a game that Tuesday evening and making it happen, the better.
The other specific way that I miss absorbing baseball: In a public place where I can't change the channel. There's something about giving a game between two teams I don't care about a chance to win me over. Or maybe I just miss being able to go to bars and airports.
Both of these get back to the idea that baseball fans have never really dealt with scarcity of its product, and whether that could rekindle interest in those who might not have known how much they enjoyed its omnipresence. That's reliant on the labor negotiations not using fan fondness as collateral damage, and if Bob Nightengale's spin is any indication of what's coming, I wouldn't place too much hope on that.
