World (blah) Series

So I'm sitting here watching the World Series at work, waiting for high school football coaches to call in their scores (yes, in Minnesota they play some HS football games on Saturday once playoff time runs around). Actually I'm more listening than watching -- my desk is up against the wall and I can only see about half the TV screen. And the TV here is only about 24 inches (rough estimate), so I've only got about a foot of viewable baseball. Why have all the newspapers I've worked at (Kansan, Olathe News, St. Cloud Times) had such tiny TVs? After watching on the widescreen, 60-inch "Unger special" this seems pretty pathetic.

Thing is, it doesn't even bother me a whole lot. This is possibly the least interesting World Series in my lifetime. Yankees/Phillies? Who cares. One is possibly the most overexposed team in American professional sports and the other had no tradition outside of Mike Schmidt before last year. Blah.

The most recent Sports Illustrated tried to trump up the Series by casting it as an epic battle between two of the game's top sluggers -- Ryan Howard and Alex Rodriguez. Through the first two games I believe the two of them were a combined 0-for-25 with 24 strikeouts. OK, so that's an exaggeration, but they've both been gawd-awful. At least that's what I've read. I hadn't been able to bring myself to watch a single inning of this snooze-fest until tonight, and I'm only pseudo-watching it now because I'm being held against my will. Just have to keep reminding myself that I'm gettig paid to be here.

Of course, some of my apathy might just be baseball fatigue (though I adamantly reiterate that I care not one bit about the Yankees and Phillies). It is almost November, after all. How in the heck did this season manage to drag out so long? At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man whining about the "good ol' days," I remember when the World Series used to be played in October. Exclusively in October. Now we've got two teams in the frigid Northeast desperately trying to get a series in before the snow starts to fly.

I believe what happened was some TV exec decided that they needed to add a bunch of off-days to the playoff schedule so that no two games were played simultaneously. It's hard to televise two games simultaneously on the same station, after all. And then the baseball commissioner and owners all bowed down to that exec and said, "So let it be written, so let it be done, Oh Mighty Bringer of Television Revenues."

Be interesting to see how this whole "November baseball" thing works out if the Twins ever make it to the Series in their new outdoor park. I don't know precisely what the temp was here today, but it cold enough that several of the trick-or-treaters were in their "witch-wearing-parka" costumes.

I would certainly be a lot more interested in a "Twins vs. Anybody" Series in November than I am with the current Series. But I don't think I would try and get tickets. I'm not sure how much I would pay to watch 4 hours of baseball outdoors in sub-freezing temps. Hopefully I'll at least be near a bigger TV if said hypothetical Series ever comes to pass.