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   Thursday, July 18, 2002

BASEBALL'S BEEN BERY, BERY GOOD TO ME

Spent my evening at the SkyDome watching the Blue Jays humiliate the Baltimore Orioles 7-1. I know, it's Baltimore so big deal, but it was fun. We were in the upper level, back from first base -- not the best seats but our noses weren't bleeding -- and surrounded by children. Oddly, that wasn't as awful as it might sound, since they made me laugh. Two kids were loudly rooting for the Jays with those creepy high-pitched little-boy-voices while two others were tepidly rooting for Baltimore ("You're gonna get us killed," one hissed to his noisier brother at one point, so I told him they'd be pretty safe with a Toronto crowd).

It was a genuine pleasure to see kids at the ballpark enjoying themselves, especially since -- when we first arrived -- two older kids were sitting behind us and heckling the game. "Can't get enough of this non...stop...action," one said, while the other whined, "If this was basketball, there'd be lots of music and running up and down the field." After about ten minutes of this, I was about to suggest they go look for some basketball but someone must have done it for me. I heard the first one mutter, "Oh, I forgot -- we're supposed to watch with rapt attention," and they both disappeared shortly. I silently gave him points for the "rapt attention" snark, though.

It's not hard to notice these days that baseball is in trouble. Sure, it was only a Wednesday night but there were fewer than 18,000 fans in a stadium that holds three times that and I felt the Jays' real emphasis on making the experience fun for kids. It's obvious that baseball has never truly recovered from that huge strike some years back -- during which we all realized that we didn't miss it all that much -- and it's starting to cut its losses and focus on grooming the next generation of fans. I wish the sport all the luck, as long as it doesn't start adding lots of music and running up and down the field.

Labels: Trawna