These are sports that have two modes: you can settle in and have the full experience, or you can watch highlights. I learned years ago that soccer is wonderful to watch at ground level, as when my sons were in highschool. But in those days, watching a match on TV was unendurable. It is easier now, the few times I have watched longer stretches in the last ten years, so they must have made improvements in angles, announcing, and graphics. But I only watch highlights now. What ESPN does for the World Cup, reducing each game to a 3-4 minute clip is just about perfect. I don't need to see only the 30 seconds of goals and saves, but I don't need the two hours either.
I should go down to Fenway again, because it is an historical experience at this point, like visiting the Robert Frost Farm or where the Old Man of the Mountains used to be, useful for boring the children while insisting this is an important part of their education. I have not sat through a baseball game in 5? maybe 10 years, nor watched one start to finish on TV since...maybe never. When I followed baseball, I liked to have it on the radio while I did something else. Highlights used to be okay as recently as fifteen years ago. But the change in swings - which is absolutely correct because it wins ballgames and that's the players' jobs - results in a Home Run, Base on Balls, Strikeout game. Even the stellar fielding plays are usually outfield only, at the warning track taking away a home run. But the fielding majesty is in the infield, just not appreciated. I can't really do highlights or full experience with baseball at this point.
Golf highlights are fun. Impossibly long chips or putts, or rescues from a bad lie. That is the fun stuff. I would never volunteer to watch golf on TV at any length. Yet when I happen upon a TV showing golf - such as at a restaurant or other public venue, I am mesmerised. Once I am in, I can watch for a couple of hours. there is something about the pace of the game on TV that just works for my eyes and attention span. I have no explanation.
Boxing is similar. I don't look for it, I mostly just want the highlights, but if I get started watching I can stay with it through the whole match.
Basketball highlights tend to be only dunks (only randomly important to the outcome of the game. I think it's younger people who fancy this) or 3-pointers, which are only slightly better. When they show great assists, transition basketball, or a sequence of great plays by a team or even a single player I can get interested. But mostly, I just want to read about it tomorrow or listen to Zach Lowe explain it the day after. Football the same. I want to know how my fantasy players did. The highlights are more varied than other sports, but not a lot. If I went to someone's house and they were watching (I think this only means the Super Bowl) I can watch the whole game. I see no point in going to Foxboro unless I am going with one of my sons.
3 comments:
My wife was one of those Cubs fans Royko called "90% scar tissue", but none of the places we've lived after marriage was convenient to MLB games. Watching games on TV doesn't work well with small fry needing attention, while radio allows you more freedom.
So for her taking the subway to attend a game turned into a couple-times-a-year visit to the Brewers. The radio experience has gotten worse and worse, with more and more commercials. The past two years have seen no attendance at games, and no listening to the radio either.
Will, not Royko.
The last time I was at Fenway was in the Spring of 2004. I was accompanied by a friend who had never attended a major league game. We watched them play, and my friend turned to me and said "The Red Sox look pretty good. I think they are going to win the World Series." I said "You don't know anything about baseball, or about the Red Sox. They'll tank at the last minute." Well, they won the World Series that October, for the first time in a hundred years. He's never stopped crowing about it.
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