I sat in the stands at Comerica Park last Saturday with a very dear friend watching our beloved Tigers get trounced by the Evil Empire (also known as the Twinkies of Minnesota).\u00c2\u00a0 After a pounding rain all day and the promise of stifling hot weather to come, we enjoyed sitting in the park and chatting before the game, catching up on the things we had missed since seeing each other a few days earlier.\u00c2\u00a0 We chatted about life, our college days, her beautiful new daughter (who is a future short stop if her Aunt Shelly any say in the process), the wonderful breeze blowing out of right field, my scorecard \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then out of the blue she lays this bomb on me.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how people watch baseball on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 I would so much rather listen to it on the radio, or be here at the park.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching baseball on TV is like watching paint dry.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so boring.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I almost dropped my score card and my Pepsi\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 for a moment; I found it hard to breathe.<\/p>\n
I love baseball in just about any form that I can get it.\u00c2\u00a0 I like it on internet, I like it on the replay shows, I like it on the radio but I love watching it on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 I will even tune in and watch the replay at midnight when I miss the first couple innings but already know the outcome of the game (thank you local cable provider for that new feature!).\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m one of those diehards who watch the Venezuelan and Dominican winter league games in the off season. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0My TV has preset favorites for MLB Network, Fox Sports and ESPN (1, 2, Classics and Deportes).\u00c2\u00a0 I can get a game at any time of the day or night if I try hard enough. And I find that solace on TV.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be honest; I always thought that listening to baseball on the radio was something that old people did.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember my grandfather listening to Tigers baseball on a little grey radio with a huge silver antenna in the kitchen when we came to visit.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say much but when the Tigers were up, Grandpa would look up from his solitaire game and say things like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it aint over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wow, he actually caught that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 In a way, it was his way of letting us know that just because he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say much, he was listening not just to the game, but Grandpa was listening to everything going on around him.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mother and I have had this conversation more than once.\u00c2\u00a0 She lives where I grew up \u00e2\u20ac\u201c up in the boonies and farm country of northern Michigan.\u00c2\u00a0 Up there, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get every Tigers game (let alone midnight replay) on TV without a sports package.\u00c2\u00a0 Occasionally they play on national TV and that is when you watch your Tigers play on TV in the North Country. \u00c2\u00a0My mother listens to nearly every game on the radio, and that is the way she prefers to get her baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the way I grew up \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with Ernie Harwell filling me in on what was going on down at Michigan and Trumbull in Tiger Stadium.\u00c2\u00a0 This was pretty much all I knew growing up.\u00c2\u00a0 Ignorance was bliss\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Now that I have grown up and migrated towards the Motor City (where every game is televised), I love watching my Tigers on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 I love to watch my boys hit bombs.\u00c2\u00a0 I like to see the swings and misses.\u00c2\u00a0 I like to see the strikeouts and stolen bases.\u00c2\u00a0 At times, it feels like you are watching your family members on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Our boys of summer become our summer family and that 7:05 game time is a mini reunion almost every night.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching my boys on TV is my way of connecting with them and letting them know that I am there for them, win or lose.<\/p>\n
Apparently I am alone in this feeling.<\/p>\n
Baseball on the radio was always something I resorted to when I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a TV accessible to me or the game was not on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just another way to get my daily fix.\u00c2\u00a0 I like baseball on the radio, but at times I find it hard to listen to the game without doing something.\u00c2\u00a0 Then my attention is drawn elsewhere and not on the game.\u00c2\u00a0 I lose track of the batting order, I forget counts, and last at bats become a blur. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think about the sink of dirty dishes I should be doing or the laundry that still needs to be folded.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball on the radio is highly unproductive for me.<\/p>\n
But to sit there in the ball park and hear one of my peers, whose opinion I highly respect and admire, tell me that baseball on TV was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153boring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d completely threw me for a loop.\u00c2\u00a0 Here was living proof that my previously conceived notions of radio baseball were completely false.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously my opinions were not felt by my peers.\u00c2\u00a0 Was I wrong all along?\u00c2\u00a0 Was I alone in this boat?\u00c2\u00a0 How could she think that?\u00c2\u00a0 Was she not a human of the technological age? For at least three days I thought she was completely crazy and out of her mind.\u00c2\u00a0 The girl has obviously lost her marbles and the lack of sleep was going to her head \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she was delusional and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what she was saying.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the only justification in my mind. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
After having a week to think it over and let it rack my brain to the point of throbbing pain, I came to the conclusion that there really is no answer to the question of whether TV or radio is better for baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 My dear friend was not wrong or crazy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she was simply opinionated and I was ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that we have both options that suit our needs really is the beauty of the sport.\u00c2\u00a0 As a fan we can choose to pick whichever media we prefer.\u00c2\u00a0 We have the option of reliving our past on crackly AM or get our fix on hi-def plasma big screens.\u00c2\u00a0 It all boils down to the fact that as fans we connect with the game in our own way.\u00c2\u00a0 The individuality of how we do it is completely up to us.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as you follow along and root for your boys, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter how you do it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
To get even with my dear friend for making my brain hurt for a week, her young daughter is getting a Louisville Slugger for her first Christmas so we can start training next spring when she is actually walking.\u00c2\u00a0 A little gesture of love from Aunt Shelly \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and a way to return the headache my dear friend gave me for a week.\u00c2\u00a0 I win.<\/p>\n
~Shelly<\/p>\n
PS \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Tigers lost 11-0\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we stayed till the end of the game\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dedication, and I had to finish filling out my scorecard\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I sat in the stands at Comerica Park last Saturday with a very dear friend watching our beloved Tigers get trounced by the Evil Empire (also known as the Twinkies of Minnesota).\u00c2\u00a0 After a pounding rain all day and the promise of stifling hot weather to come, we enjoyed sitting in the park and chatting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}