Players, Personality and Major Fuego for the Game

 

“Hey, Fuego fans, let’s pass the hat for Matt Patrone’s home run,” the PA announcer says amid cheers. I’m certain Patrone’s blast here in Fort Marcy Ballpark, a Pecos League venue, would have been at least a ground rule double in about any major league park (a place no fan passes a hat for home runs after paying what he did to get into the park).

The next hitter lines a pitch out of play toward the parking lot behind the dugout. Hard hitters, these Santa Fe Fuegos.

“That foul ball is brought to you by Discount Glass and Glazing. Just mention Fuego baseball and get a discount on your next purchase.” I love it. This place has personality.

The woman in charge of collecting money for tickets wanders over to me from her top row seat. She’s right on time. We’d made a deal if I liked the place I chose to sit with my dog, Rusty, after two trial innings, she’d only charge $3. Dogs aren’t allowed in the $6 seats behind home plate. Either way, what bargains. I’m glad the Fuegos are in an independent pro baseball league, not even a minors system affiliated with a team in the majors. Think I’d be able to bring my beach chair, let alone dog, into their ballparks?

Sitting behind the Trinidad Triggers dugout, Rusty and I notice a Trigger player come our way. On his walk to the park’s all purpose port-a-potty, he stops to pet Rusty. He even lets me take pictures of the two together. On his return trip to the dugout, he gives Rusty some more love, saying that with so much time on the road, he misses his dogs back home terribly.

Strangely, however, the Trigger player doesn’t go into the dugout, but sits on top of it. In fact, neither the Triggers nor Fuego players sit in their dugouts – they sit around the dugouts.  It must be a Pecos League tradition. Again, what personality.

Out of nowhere, a pop foul comes my way and I catch it! – something I’ve never done in all my years attending crowded major league and AAA games. I feel special, like a kid again. I’d like to think that’s what baseball should be, a special connection directly from pitcher to batter to fan. To continue the link, I give my cherished first ball to a two-year-old who’s apparently already caught baseball fever.

Where else do you bring your own lawn chair to a professional baseball game? Negotiate a price and place to sit with your dog? Have more fun, pay less and see a competitive sporting event?  Switch gears from watching the game on the field to playing catch with a kid and then going back to the game. See players perform for practically nothing just for the love of the game?

Where else is there a meeting on the field of every team member in the bottom of the fifth inning for team unity, spirit and awareness of what this is all about?  Where else is there a pro sporting event where the majority of fans leave their cell phone behind? Fuego baseball is where.

It’s life in the moment for fans and particularly the impressionable young men playing. It’s a spirited, fast game. You have to watch closely. There are no scoreboard replays, let alone bathrooms every fifty feet.

I love the game just the way it is. I’m sorry the season is over. I’ll be back for 2016, connecting this season’s joy with the next.

I Don’t Get My Life Back Until They Lose. They Just Lost. Now I Don’t Like My Life

There’s a hole in my heart only a puck can fill.

Yes, I’m a hockey fan. A Washington Capitals hockey fan. I saw eighty regular season games on cable this year (well, most of them), all in hopes my Caps would make the Stanley Cup playoffs for only the second time in their forty-year history.

Well, they made the playoffs. That’s where the hysteria began.

Playoff madness takes over your mind, your life and you lose all perspective. Time becomes a blur. For any avid fan, life’s goal changes from spending time with friends and loved ones to intimately following your team through all four playoff rounds (and a possible twenty-eight games over a sixty day period) just so you can watch your ice heroes hoist the Stanley Cup sometime in June. June, as in beautiful late spring, early summer. When the weather is nice to be outside again. When chores need to be done. Yards need to be tended. What, little Johnnie is six now? When did that happen?

The worst part of the playoffs is pace: a game, a night off, another game, a night off – there’s practically no break until your team loses a best-of-seven round and is eliminated. I’m tired and the Caps only went two rounds this year. Think what it must be like to go to the finals.

If you’re a Caps fan, it gets even worse. Their hockey MO is to stretch series to the seven game limit. They cannot win or lose in four – they love teasing you with 3-1 series leads, then blowing the next three games. Sometimes they blow the next two and pull out the seventh in overtime, having succeeded in wearing themselves out just to do it all over again for another series, then ask for more.

They also love close games. There are no blow outs. They love overtime. They once played a playoff game into four overtimes, finally losing at 2 AM (I saw that one personally and stayed to the bitter end).

This is very difficult on fans. Sleep patterns are disrupted. Eating times are often rearranged. Bad moods last for days. Weight is gained. Interest in other activities wanes. Actually, bad moods never end. Unless … (until) you win the Cup.

The Capitals should be playing tonight. Had they beaten The New York Rangers in game seven Tuesday (losing in overtime, 2-1), they’d be playing Tampa Bay this weekend in the Eastern Conference finals. I miss the misery. I miss my emotions being yanked up and down like a yo-yo. I miss having to skip laundry because the game is on. I miss screaming at the TV, “Take that, Marcel #!%@* de &#@!#, you &#%$!!!”

Time now to clean the bathroom, refill prescriptions, vacuum, replace burned out light bulbs, refill the empty freezer case, take the snow shovel away from the front door, fix the front door lock, dust.  No wonder I can’t wait for the first preseason game in September.

MLB Stadiums Without Crowd Noise?

There’s a point in any game where everything changes. Every player feels it. It’s when the crowd is so loud, player’s emotions and abilities swing on a dime, for better or worse. That’s exactly what players compete for, that rush, the roar of the crowd, the adulation to prove they’ve done something great or are important people. So, can you imagine NFL, NBA or NHL games played in empty stadiums? Major League Baseball may be headed that way.

The current average length of a Major League Baseball game is 3:02, of which only eighteen minutes is actual action, meaning there’s almost three hours of non-action. The current human attention span average is eight seconds, one second less than a goldfish. (And, yes, these figures come from credible research study).

Can you imagine a kid today going to his first live baseball game? He’s used to thrill-a-minute stimulation from his device, or television, or anything nowadays. The kids of this and future generations are tomorrow’s MLB fans – also known by team owners as “fannies in the seats,” the people who pay most of the player’s salaries.

But wait, young people aren’t the only ones distracted by modern-day living and technology.

The average worker today checks his email thirty times an hour. Typical mobile users check their phones 150 times a day. From 2011 to 2013, social media sharing doubled.

This is trouble for MLB. Look at the trends. The average length of an MLB contest in 1980 was 2:39, and we had far fewer distractions then. With the average 2014 MLB ticket price at $27.93, plus expensive concessions, plus travel time, plus the fact the game is available on cable, one might ask why go to baseball games at all?

Rob Manfred, MLB Commissioner, says he realizes these problems and is implementing new rules this season to speed up play to lure younger fans. No more forty-five seconds between pitches for batters to readjust their jock strap or pitchers to circle the mound two times. That’s just enough time to tempt fans to reconnect with friends, co-workers and social media outlets on their devices. Or just time to get bored, and the stadium goes quiet again.

Anyone who thinks crowd noise isn’t crucial to the excitement of sports is wrong. The NFL’s Atlanta Falcons were recently fined for pumping crowd noise into their stadium during games the past three seasons. Anyone who thinks the attention span issue isn’t crucial to sports is also wrong. The NFL has had to implement rules and fines for players and coaches from texting during games. It’s a different world today.

Major League Baseball’s official Opening Day game is April 5 in Chicago’s old Wrigley Field, ironically a night game. In 1988, Wrigley was the last MLB franchise to install stadium lights for night games.

I worry what MLB stadiums will look like in another twenty-seven years.

P.s.  The solution here in northern New Mexico: Go to our Triple A Albuquerque Isotopes games. Bring all your kids. Leave all devices behind. Baseball is too beautiful a game to miss.