The Unwatchable National Pastime

Shank does his best to put a positive spin on 'Opening Day':

The Red Sox annihilated the moribund Baltimore Orioles, 13-2, at empty Fenway Park on Friday. It was the Red Sox’ 120th Opening Day, and by any measure it goes down as the most unusual sporting event in our city’s history.

It was the first real game involving a Boston team since March 10, when the Bruins blanked the Flyers, 2-0, in Philadelphia and the Celtics beat the Pacers in Indianapolis. Since then, we’ve consumed grainy rebroadcasts of the Larry Bird Celtics, the Tom Brady Patriots, and the Curse-busting Red Sox of 2004.

I hope that last one hurt, bucko...

For the sake of television, the Red Sox and Orioles went though all the traditional pre-game rituals. There was red, white, and blue bunting on the upper deck facade, and four rows of cardboard-cutout fans filled the Monster Seats — it looked a little like the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album — but the official attendance was 00,000 when Nathan Eovaldi threw a 100 mile-per-hour first pitch to Baltimore center fielder Austin Hays at 7:33 p.m.

Worse than reading this pedantic column was watching the game last night; I could do it for about a minute, then I changed over to The Bourne Ultimatum. No fans and fake crowd noise - baseball in its current form is unwatchable and I still maintain the corporate suits calling the shots here are doing irreparable harm to the game.