Armchair Quarterback: It’s a boring time for non-baseball fans
It’s pretty sad when, like a junkie, a man has to hold on to little things like arena league football and NFL Europe to hold him over until football season begins.
But, with the NBA already into its championship series (Spurs in 6), all we will be left with is baseball and that’s just not going to cut it. Hey, I like going to baseball games and yes, I will watch it on television when the playoffs roll around. However, it’s a waste of time and effort to sit down and watch regular season Major League baseball.
My wife actually watches baseball once in a while. Being a big Cubs fan, she’ll take it quite hard when the Cubs lose, leaving me wondering why.
“Okay, honey, they lost one game, they’ve got 161 more to go, I think they can make it up,” I’ll say, pointing to the incredible length of a Major League season.
But, the absolute worst part about being stuck with nothing but baseball is the painfully boring highlights on ESPN. How many times can you call a boring shot to the center field bleachers? Try as you will, sooner or later it gets dull seeing the camera pan into the stands.
“Say hello to my little friend” or “Back, Back, Back, Back” or even the old school “It could be…it is…home run…holy cow” isn’t enough to make baseball highlights interesting night after night, especially once the Yankees are pulling out to a big lead in the AL East. And, adding insult to injury, even NASCAR goes on their boring northeastern swing (Pocono, Dover, Loudon) during the height of baseball-only season.
Me, I’ll be in front of the television today squeezing the last out of the arena league when the championship game airs today from Las Vegas pitting the Colorado Crush against the George Force. Actually, arena league isn’t all that bad. You have non-stop action and a set of rules that makes the game exciting. I went to a Kats game this year, and I ended up enjoying it despite the fact they weren’t quite up to speed yet in their first year back at Gaylord. However, given the fun I had and the low price of admission (something the NFL could take a cue from) I will likely get season tickets next year for the Kats.
As I said, arena league ends this week and the NBA should close out by early next week, leaving us with only NFL Europe, which, in my opinion isn’t as much fun to watch as arena ball. The only really interesting part about NFL Europe is looking for the little stickers on the backs of the helmets to see what NFL team the players actually play for during the season.
But, hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At this point I’d take some good old XFL action with the New Jersey Hitmen and He Hate Me or maybe even some of the USFL and those New Jersey Generals or Philadelphia Stars. Even the very old school World Football League with the likes of the Memphis Southmen and Birmingham Americans were better than no football at all.
Hey, it’s wide open. The days between early June and mid August (NFL pre-season) are just begging for a viewable sport for those people who get tired of baseball. Minor league football is okay, for a stop gap, but maybe something like an interesting soccer league with its recent climb in popularity would be a big seller. Just give us an alternative to a 2-2 count in the bottom of the fourth on ESPN 2 with a million more regular season games to go.