Baseball 2021 Season in Review

That didn’t take long.

 

The baseball season has already ended.  I hope you enjoyed the new “One Day” season format of Major League Baseball.  The league decided to end their season on Day 2 rather than continue on with their boring sport that no one cares about.  Let me give a recap of my fondest memories of this 2021 baseball season.  (Cue Elvis singing Memories.)

 

Opening Day was a bit of bust for me.  The ESPN Radio game that was supposed to come on during the day never did.  It may have been the Mets/Nationals game that was canceled.  My Rangers’ affiliate didn’t carry their opening game.  I hope this doesn’t mean they’ve canceled their coverage altogether.  At work, I’d missed the MLB.TV free game.  Later in the evening, I did get to watch a replay of the Diamondbacks and the Padres.  I was glad for that good matchup, but I missed the middle of the game while working, which was when the DBacks hit four home runs in a row.  I did see the Padres win it.  I caught the end of the two late games live.  Finally, I watched Quick Pitch on the MLB Network to get a recap of all the day’s games. 

 

Friday, I mostly watched WWE Smackdown, even though I was really busy.  The MLB had announced the end of their season earlier, but the games continued.  I couldn’t get the free game on MLB.TV to work for me and had to change my password.  By the time I’d done that, the free game was over.  Saturday, I missed the Rangers, who may or may not have been on locally on the radio to watch Aggie Softball.  After the sun went down, I was able to pick up the Rockies and the Dodgers on KOA.  I heard the Rox make a nice comeback, but they fell short. 

 

Sunday, I was with my dad for Easter.  We had a pizza and watched a documentary movie.  The guy that took my order at Pizza Hut actually volunteered to apply a coupon to the purchase.  That was nice.  The documentary was BAM: Builders of Ancient Mysteries.  It was basically Ancient Aliens without the aliens.  It was really good, if not somewhat overwhelming. 

 

When I got back home in the afternoon, I still couldn’t find the Rangers game.  The ESPN Radio game coverage was delayed for the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, which didn’t involve Paige Bueckers, so who cares?  The baseball game featured the Angels playing the White Sox.  Shohei Ohtani was pitching and hit a home run.  I got hear about an inning when the sun went down and I lost reception.  So much for baseball this year.

 

The end.

 

Oh, very well.  Let’s discuss what happened on Friday.  At 4:00pm MST, the Baseball Season Preview I’d written on Thursday automatically posted to my blog, wherein I postulated that the Atlanta All-Star Game would be canceled over social justice concerns in the near future.  At about 4:40pm MST, I arrived at work and my co-worker, Mike, asked if I was still a baseball fan.  He informed me that the MLB had announced they were moving the ASG away from Atlanta because of Georgia’s new voting law bill.  I was close, but even I was shocked by the speed of this decision. 

 

There’s no reason to discuss the underlying political issue.  If you’re of one persuasion, you believe one thing.  If you’re of the other, you believe something else.  Debate is pointless.  The MLB pretty proved that.  There was no threat to move the ASG if the law passed.  There was no negotiation.  No pathway to reconciliation.  Given that the Atlanta Braves actually issued an unprecedented statement that expressed disappointment, rather than support of the Commissioner’s decision, I’m surprised they still have a franchise.  Perhaps teams will boycott playing in Atlanta altogether.  (I’m sorry I wrote that.  Now I know it’s going to happen.) 

 

I don’t know if this individual decision will really hurt baseball.  It feels like there’s already barely a national fanbase for the game.  There are hardcores for individual teams, who may not even be aware of this development.  Everyone else is just casual or ignores baseball altogether.  The national sports media, which only calls baseball boring, surprisingly gave MLB credit for taking immediate action and putting the pressure on other leagues.  Now I guess NASCAR will have to retroactively cancel last month’s Atlanta race to keep up.  MLB probably felt they had to do it right now to give another city time to get ready for the game, so it was a foregone conclusion.  The upcoming riots will ensure more social justice actions by the league.  That will chase fans away, especially if it’s on an NBA-level scale.

 

Reaction on the Internet was swift.  I saw five different Youtube sports commentary videos lambasting this decision that evening.  The comments on those videos were fairly unanimous in being done with baseball over this.  Given that this happened on the second day of the season, I feel bad for any now angry fans who bought the MLB.TV season pass or got season tickets (if they’re selling those).

 

Personally, all I can think about is how I’ve made four different trips to find a baseball season preview magazine and how dumb I would have felt if I’d just bought one.  I’m not boycotting baseball at the moment obviously, since I’m still trying to watch and listen to games (and mostly failing as usual).  I was already unmotivated going into this season.  It’s not going to take much more to get me to quit, but I suspect the MLB will actively run me off before I totally desert them.

 

This is how all sports are now.  They are simply a vehicle to deliver political opinions. Clearly BLM and cold propaganda (which is political) were all over the place last season.  There’s not going to be any watching sports unless you agree with their opinions.  It’ll be too grating otherwise.  The leagues don’t care about entertaining all sorts of fans.  They only care about delivering the message.  MLB lost money last year because of the lockdown; they don’t care. 

 

So, I’m still watching and listening for now.  It’s unlikely I’ll bother recapping anything.  I’ve been backing away from talking about individual baseball games for some time now, even before last year.  The El Paso Chihuahuas are scheduled to come back in May.  I can almost see wanting to write about them, but all of minor league is now run by the MLB.  (That was a curious end to MiLB and MLB’s dispute over minor league contraction.  Minor league baseball was probably basically bankrupt after losing all of 2020.)  We can assume whatever happens in the big leagues will be echoed in the minors.  I can just about sense that the end is in sight for all sports.  I’ll document it when it comes, but I won’t be happy about it.