A Snooze Fest

On Monday I posted about a long boring baseball game played between two American League baseball teams that lasted over 5 hours.  But, in fairness, the game lasted 13 innings.

Yesterday, the length and boredom of playoff baseball got even worse.  The Astros and White Sox took four hours and 32 minutes to play a nine inning game.  The game wasn't close.  Houston won it 10-1 and wrapped up the divisional playoff series between itself and Chicago.

There were a total of 18 strikeouts and eight walks.  But, the real boredom factor was fans had to sit through 11 pitching changes in which there was no action whatsoever.

MLB please wake up because your fans are all asleep. 

Classic? Hardly

ESPN, one of Major League Baseball's business partners, has taken it upon itself to declare last night's playoff game between Tampa Bay and Boston a "classic".  I've been watching baseball for over 60 years and this game was far from being a classic.

First off the game was just one of a best of five series, of four playoff series.  In the grand scheme of all baseball games played it is just a flyspeck on the windshield of all games played.

The game lasted 13 innings, which in MLB's bastardized version of baseball is fairly long.  But, that doesn't make it a classic.  In fact the game was boring and lasted 5 hours and 14 minutes.  Snooze. Yawn.  Boring.

And to top it off, 35 of the 105 at bats in the game had absolutely no action by the fielders.  28 batters struck out and there were an additional seven hitters who walked.  A full one third of the game was played without the ball being put into play.

Still, MLB plods along clueless as to why attendance is falling and TV ratings continue to shrink.  It's simple; the games are boring and they last way too long.

Thoughts on September

If you read this blog you know I have been a long time St. Louis Cardinal fan.  The Cardinals had a hell of a run this month.  They won 17 games in a row and cemented themselves a position in the MLB post season tournament.  The problem for St. Louis is it will most likely face the Los Angeles Dodgers in MLB's hokey one game wild card playoff.  The Dodgers will probably start Max Scherzer, who owns the Redbirds.  My guess is Adam Wainwright, who has had an amazing year will get the start for St. Louis.  I think it will be one and done for the Cards, but I had the same thoughts in 2011 when they played the Atlanta Braves in the one game playoff.  That year ended well for the Cardinals as they won the World Series.

-For me it was a very good month.  I had laser surgery on both of my eyes to remove cataracts.  The results of the surgery were almost immediate.  I am seeing 20/22 out of one eye and 20/40 out of the other eye just days after they were repaired.  And colors which had been kind of dull previously are now vivid.  Watching the sunset has once again become a thing of beauty.

-I hope you had a good September and that the coming month is even better for you.  I will write soon.