Play Ball!
Did you hear it? No, everyone pretty much knows about March Madness (yeah, Georgetown is out!). The Major League Baseball season started this morning (for those of us in North America) or tonight, if you are in Japan or other parts of Asia. In not going to begin to figure it out for Istanbul. At least they didn't start the season tomorrow. The defending World Series Champion Boston Redsox defeated the Oakland A's 6-5 in 10 innings. Yes, it was also the first extra innings game for the season.
What's sad is along with greedy MLB, who had originally decided not to pay coaches, trainers and other support staff, they had to get this series going in Japan, despite the Washington Nationals starting the season in a brand new stadium.
OK, call me bias, but I'm not. Look at it this way. They went out of their way to schedule a single opening day game, to be broadcast on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball with the Atlanta Braves coming in for just this one game. If you are going to go to all that trouble, why schedule the Japanese series? In reverse, they could have kept the Japanese games on and scheduled the Nationals to open sometime later, without the special one game series. The Japan series are important to an extent, and I hope it leads to a "true" World Series when the best of the world battle it out, just like the Little Leaguers do. Besides, we all need a little bit of Bobby Valentine back on our TV. Who else wears the Groucho Marx glasses and 'stache better?
