Today: Mar 29, 2024

Play Ball – opinion column

Morgan DouglasSports Editor

The regular season for Major League Baseball begins this Thursday, April 7, and I am feeling ebullient. 

Without any football and with college basketball having ended this week, baseball will be a welcome addition to my daily sports consumption. 

Games starting at 7:05 p.m. just as they were intended. 

Sure, baseball has its problems.  

After all, we are coming fresh off a lockout which nearly canceled regular season games, but it goes beyond that. 

Baseball is boring. 

I hate saying it, because it was my first love in sports, but I must admit it. 

As a Boston Red Sox fan, I have had an awesome run, with four World Series teams in my lifetime, so my interest in the sport never wanes. 

I am lucky to be a fan of a competent organization, and it keeps me engaged with the Red Sox specifically. 

By law, as a Sox fan, I am obligated to keep up with the New York Yankees as well but mustering the energy to care about the other 28 big league ball clubs is more than I can bear. 

I can and do watch Boston seven nights a week and look forward to it because I follow that specific team. 

You will never catch me spending an evening watching the Seattle Mariners vs. the Baltimore Orioles. 

This is a case unique to baseball in my experience. 

The NFL showcases some really putrid games and matchups on Thursday Night Football, but I’ll watch the whole messy slog no matter who is playing because the athleticism on display is unlike anything you will find on the planet. 

Also, fantasy football implications, but that’s beside the point. 

I will tune into an NBA game to watch Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Giannis Antetokounmpo, I could go on, and I am not a fan of any of their teams. 

I cannot say the same about baseball. 

As great as they are, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout do not make the Los Angeles Angels appointment viewing, where I have to watch them live, the way the big stars in football and basketball do. 

While I am just another in a long line of people who poke fun at baseball, it is still a very popular sport, just more popular in a regional sense than in a national sense when compared to the NBA and NFL. 

There are many fans like me who are fully devoted to their one franchise, while the other franchises garner only a glancing interest.  

I know Sean Manaea got traded to the San Diego Padres, but don’t care because it doesn’t affect Boston. See what I mean? 

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