It’s a matter of perspective, one’s sight-line to the game. The one I’m most used to now, of course, is the television’s panopticon: a carefully curated series of angles and cuts, close-ups and B-roll, a variety of points of view that no single fan could experience in the same near-simultaneous way that the televised game…
The price of our national pastime, it turns out, is $40-$50 million, which is how much MasterCard is spending on their ‘MasterCard Presents Major League Baseball Memorable Moments’ campaign. I can’t believe it’s that low, considering they’ve shown those commercials so frequently that I get nauseous looking at that shot of Jackie Robinson. Keep in mind, Robinson is one of my favorite baseball players, one whose autobiography I wore down reading repeatedly.
Last week in this space, I talked about how baseball teams should knock it off with the Obey-o-Tron and build their fan base with the kind of cheer clubs you see in soccer. Here’s the cool part: it’s already happening. I got e-mail from readers all week long.