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Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.
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4.23.2003
Baaack I'm back from England after about a week. My grandparents, with whom I stayed during my trip, do not have any reasonable internet access (they have a very watered-down version of WebTV called "Bush Internet"), so I was completely in the dark about everything that was going on in the world, both sports-related and otherwise. While bummed to see that my Pistons lost Game 1 to Orlando over in the NBA Playoffs, it's very nice to see that the Yankees are continuing to roll, now standing at 17-3. In another part of town, I got the chance to see the Mets take on the Marlins on Friday night before leaving for Europe. The ballpark was virtually empty, which is really inexcusable in a market like New York where the Yankees are drawing really well in a significantly worse area. Sure it was cold, sure the Mets suck, but the attendance (which couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 thousand - in terms of actual bodies in the seats, not what they announced) was pretty horrible for a Friday night. I know New York's got major budgetary problems at the moment, and I don't know how it could get done without a great deal of public investment, but the Mets would really, really benefit from a new ballpark. There's no way, even with everything else being the same as it is now, that if you had a new stadium (preferably one with a retractable roof, as has been suggested for many years now) that you wouldn't have drawn 25,000+ to even an early season tilt with the Marlins. New Yorkers love baseball and people will come from far and wide to get to Met games when there's a reason to go...but Shea is a dump and a deterrant to anyone interested in taking in a game. (Not that it stops me, of course.) If you're interested in taking a look at the proposed new Met ballpark - nobody's holding their breath, it was proposed quite some time ago - I highly recommend ballparks.com, which has information on not only baseball facilities, but also NBA and NFL buildings. I'll be back with more later, and I still don't understand why MLB.TV needs to blackout games when there's no baseball national telecast (like for tonight's late game). - |