So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

From the same place as the one who publishes an article that claims such a deity does exist, I would imagine.

As for "In God We Trust" on money is concerned, I agree with Teddy Roosevelt, who considered the slogan both presumptuous and sacrligeous. While it was used on all coinage beginning in the early 1900s, we managed to survive as a society without having it on paper money until 1957. It was placed there following a campaign spearheaded by a front group of the National Association of Manufacturers, a group which knows a thing or two about the god of money.

 

[Fading Fast]

My main issue is that there's just too damn much pink-hat nonsense at the ballpark nowadays. Leave that bombastic foolishness to pro football, a sport I am delighted to ignore. I just want to see a no-frills ballgame.

I also refuse to sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park. No good, no good, no good.

Agreed - forget the God / patriotism argument, there was way too much everything going on at the game, most specifically, the non-stop snippets of (mainly) rock music marginally tied to this, that or the other play or moment of tension in the game. Also, all the birthday wishes, mini-contests, lotteries, etc., were way too much IMHO.

When an inning is over, I don't need to be assaulted with all that nonsense to keep me entertained - I kid you not, I thought it made it harder to concentrate on the game. To be truly engaged, one has to think about what is going on and what potential strategies are - when they are changing sides is a great time to do that if you weren't being bombarded with all the above or "highlights" of recent Yankee achievements shown on the video screen and blasted out of the sound system.

I was happy to see a young guy a few rows in front of me diligently filling out a scorecard.

 

[Fading Fast]

From the same place as the one who publishes an article that claims such a deity does exist, I would imagine.

As for "In God We Trust" on money is concerned, I agree with Teddy Roosevelt, who considered the slogan both presumptuous and sacrligeous. While it was used on all coinage beginning in the early 1900s, we managed to survive as a society without having it on paper money until 1957. It was placed there following a campaign spearheaded by a front group of the National Association of Manufacturers, a group which knows a thing or two about the god of money.

Put it on / take it off - I don't think it matters one bit. From a philosophical purity point of view - off is better, but even arguing that, IMHO, makes the issue more important than it is and emboldens the other side and, then, on it goes. Call me when my real religious freedom - to practice or not - is threatened and I'll fight arm and arm with you. If each side could allow the other its small meaningless or even modestly meaningful victories, some needless rancor could be reduced and we could then resume focusing all our fight on real issues.

 

[MisterCairo]

Go Jays...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Agreed - forget the God / patriotism argument, there was way too much everything going on at the game, most specifically, the non-stop snippets of (mainly) rock music marginally tied to this, that or the other play or moment of tension in the game. Also, all the birthday wishes, mini-contests, lotteries, etc., were way too much IMHO.

When an inning is over, I don't need to be assaulted with all that nonsense to keep me entertained - I kid you not, I thought it made it harder to concentrate on the game. To be truly engaged, one has to think about what is going on and what potential strategies are - when they are changing sides is a great time to do that if you weren't being bombarded with all the above or "highlights" of recent Yankee achievements shown on the video screen and blasted out of the sound system.

I was happy to see a young guy a few rows in front of me diligently filling out a scorecard.

When I'm dictator video screens at ballparks will be ceremoniously demolished by a giant iron wrecking ball painted white with red stitches like a baseball. If you want to watch television, stay home.

 

[Fading Fast]

When I'm dictator video screens at ballparks will be ceremoniously demolished by a giant iron wrecking ball painted white with red stitches like a baseball. If you want to watch television, stay home.

You're going to hate me for this, but I do like the ability to see replays, but I'd petition you as dictator to allow them for that use only.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just saw this:

Top 10 sports leagues by revenue

• National Football League (NFL): $13 billion
• Major League Baseball (MLB): $9.5 billion
• Premier League (English/Welsh football league): $5.3 billion
• National Basketball Association (NBA): $4.8 billion
• National Hockey League (NHL): $3.7 billion
• Bundesliga (German football league): $2.8 billion
• La Liga (Spanish football league): $2.2 billion
• Serie A (Italian football league): $1.9 billion
• Ligue 1 (France/Monaco football league): $1.5 billion
• Nippon Professional Baseball (Japanese baseball league): $1.1 billion

Really surprised by two things - (1) glad to see baseball firmly in the number 2 spot and (2) thought soccer would have been higher up (even combining all the soccer leagues listed - the total isn't what I thought as I thought it would have dwarfed American football).

 

[Harp]

And I agree, there is overkill at the ball game.

Wrigley Field hot dogs and Miller Lite prices are astronomical.

 

[LizzieMaine]

$7.75 for a 12 ounce cup of Narragansett at Fenway Park. $5.25 for a regular hot dog, with all the Gulden's mustard you can squirt on it.

One reason ballparks jack up the price of beer is to keep the soaks in the bleachers from swilling too much of it. This strategy doesn't always work.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Wrigley Field hot dogs and Miller Lite prices are astronomical.

Food was always better on the South Side, anyway. Although Wrigley always seemed to attract the more gorgeous women-- a consolation when I was a teenager and the Cubs never really seemed to get it together after that September '69 choke.

 

[Harp]

... and the Cubs never really seemed to get it together after that September '69 choke.

After the Sox won the '06 Series I had the privilege of being introduced to my boyhood idol, Ernie Banks, and I casually remarked how great it was that the Sox had won the World Series.
"What's so great about it?"

 

[tonyb]

I gotta wonder if all the sound and visual effects at MLB parks are in part a response to a changing audience -- one that on balance doesn't understand the game as well as the fans of previous generations understood it. So the breaks in the on-field action get filled with all these spectacles, so that the attendees don't get bored and not come back.

I am old enough to remember when baseball truly was the national pastime. Every household had bats and balls and gloves and every kid played the game, one way or another, or so it seemed. I can't recall when I last saw a kid walking down the road with a bat resting on his shoulder, his glove hanging over the knob.

 

[Fading Fast]

$7.75 for a 12 ounce cup of Narragansett at Fenway Park. $5.25 for a regular hot dog, with all the Gulden's mustard you can squirt on it.

One reason ballparks jack up the price of beer is to keep the soaks in the bleachers from swilling too much of it. This strategy doesn't always work.

1) The only approach I can take is that I only go to, at most, a game or two a year (and recently a game ever four years), so I ignore the prices and enjoy the day (not easy to do if you go regularly) - went this past week and two beers, one large water (toward the end, blazing hot) cost us $25 all in - insane, but your only option is pay or pass.

2)Interesting, so the swells don't over drink and get drunk and rowdy - is that true - it's only the "soaks in the bleaches?"

 

[ChiTownScion]

I gotta wonder if all the sound and visual effects at MLB parks are in part a response to a changing audience -- one that on balance doesn't understand the game as well as the fans of previous generations understood it. So the breaks in the on-field action get filled with all these spectacles, so that the attendees don't get bored and not come back.

Just filling out a scorecard is a dying art.

 

[ChiTownScion]

1) The only approach I can take is that I only go to, at most, a game or two a year (and recently a game ever four years), so I ignore the prices and enjoy the day (not easy to do if you go regularly) - went this past week and two beers, one large water (toward the end, blazing hot) cost us $25 all in - insane, but your only option is pay or pass.

2)Interesting, so the swells don't over drink and get drunk and rowdy - is that true - it's only the "soaks in the bleaches?"

One solution is minor league games. The play isn't as good, obviously, but the young guys really seem to love the game for the sake of the game itself. They all want that shot at the majors, most will never see it, and yet there is that burning desire to play their hearts out. And for the fans: a lot less expensive, with fan friendly players. They're still the good guys that you want to see succeed.

 

[GHT]

Wrigley Field hot dogs and Miller Lite prices are astronomical.

Cost of 10 strawberries and a pathetic blob of cream at this year's Wimbledon: £5:00. That's if you are lucky.
Highest price I have paid for something that should be quite cheap was last year at Goodwood. A small bottle of beer, (about half a pint,) and a mineral water, in a similar size bottle as the beer. £11:20. Cost about £2 in a supermarket.

Really surprised by two things - (1) glad to see baseball firmly in the number 2 spot and (2) thought soccer would have been higher up (even combining all the soccer leagues listed - the total isn't what I thought as I thought it would have dwarfed American football).

The game itself, that's football, as in soccer, probably does dwarf the NFL, because it truly is a worldwide sport. It's massive in South America, but they simply don't have the spending power that developed countries have. And American Football has a worldwide following, the fans pay to view on TV, there has to be a royalty spin off for the NFL from that.

 

[swanson_eyes]

Mine for the day--I have this: https://res.cloudinary.com/keep/ima...l-images/fae101b90c88f263c5d731629c72d619.jpg Yes, that exact one, with all those bright colors. I can't tell you how many people walking behind me pass me and almost trip over it. In fact, as I was coming around a corner once someone did trip over it and me. People need to pay attention when walking in a public place with lots of people.

 

[Touchofevil]

Mine for the day--I have this: https://res.cloudinary.com/keep/ima...l-images/fae101b90c88f263c5d731629c72d619.jpg Yes, that exact one, with all those bright colors. I can't tell you how many people walking behind me pass me and almost trip over it. In fact, as I was coming around a corner once someone did trip over it and me. People need to pay attention when walking in a public place with lots of people.

They would have to take their eyes off their phones and that
is a no-can-do. But still, how do you miss those road flares? One's peripheral vision should see that even if focused on a phone.

 

[Zombie_61]

I gotta wonder if all the sound and visual effects at MLB parks are in part a response to a changing audience -- one that on balance doesn't understand the game as well as the fans of previous generations understood it. So the breaks in the on-field action get filled with all these spectacles, so that the attendees don't get bored and not come back...

I'm certain they're pandering to the Sensory Overload generation, i.e. those people who can't simply sit for five seconds without having some form of nonsense to entertain them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've only ever sat in the cheap seats, so I wouldn't know what goes on down where the elite meet to do whatever it is they do at a ball game. But most of the hard-core soaks at Fenway, who sit in the bleachers and the right-field grandstand, are college boys from BU and BC. I saw one of these louts pass out cold in about the third inning and his buddies used him as an end table to rest their drinks on for the rest of the game.