Opening Day in Japan?
Many MLB fans probably never thought they would see the day that baseball opened the season outside of Cincinnati, let alone outside North America. Well, believe it or not that day is here as the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics kicked off the MLB season in Japan this week. The decision to have opening day in Japan has drawn the ire of many baseball fans, especially in Oakland where the opening pitch of the season was thrown at 3 a.m. Pacific time.
It is understandable that baseball would want to expand its borders beyond North America and bring the MLB to the rest of the World. After all, ratings and attendance has been sagging in recent years as football has blown by baseball as the real national pastime. Perhaps this was not the way to do it, though? Forget about American fans not being able to attend the opening ceremony or Oakland fans not being able to watch the game unless they are up for an all-nighter. The real head scratcher is why is Boston playing in two other countries before they get back to Boston, a trip which includes three more exhibition games!
The idea of putting major league game outside of North America is not a novel one, the NFL placed a game in England recently and the USA Basketball team has had a prominent international reputation for some time now. Major League Baseball dropped the ball, however, with this venture. The next time they try to expand their borders it shouldn't be on opening day at a time that fans can't stay up for. Hopefully Bud Selig will learn his lesson and the next time he tries something like this it will be before the All-Star break and feature two East Coast teams to better accommodate everyone involved.
2 comments:
This is the third time the MLB has opened the regular season in Japan - a fact you seem to have entirely glossed over in your article.
Moreove, how does forcing two East Coast teams to travel to Japan make any sense? It's a much greater time change going from Boston to Japan than from Oakland to Japan.
East Coast teams would be playing at 6 a.m. in their home time zone (a reasonable hour), not 3 a.m. like a West Coast team would be.
When the Yankees played the Devil Rays (two East Coast teams) and the Cubs played the Mets in recent Japanese season openers the time difference for the home fans wasn't as hard to stomach as 3 a.m.
That being said it was still a mistake, opening day for the so called "national pastime" should be... I don't know... in our nation.
I am all for expanding the borders but as I suggested, before the All-Star break would be a more appropriate time for such a game. All of this is compounded by the ridiculous fact that the Red Sox aren't even done with their exhibition season yet.
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