In the midst of a thrilling World Series last week, I heard an all-sports radio network host prattle on about how it’s time to play the Series at a neutral site. What an absolutely horrible idea.
I get it that football’s Super Bowl is maybe the biggest TV event of the year, but baseball isn’t football. The NFL has worked hard to achieve an elite status: Pricey tickets, even for meaningless preseason games featuring players who won’t be there when the bell rings on opening day. Convincing the populace that everything the league does is important, even training camp workouts in shorts and T-shirts with no one playing defense. I understand all that, and give the NFL full credit for the greatest marketing scheme on the planet.
Pro football in person, however, is not intended for the masses. Families can’t plan to go to the stadium any random Sunday afternoon and watch the local gridiron gang go through their paces. It’s basically a TV show for most people.
Baseball is something else entirely. It’s every day for six months. It’s the opportunity to go the ballpark, sometimes on a whim, take the kids and pay 10 bucks or less (at Nationals Park, anyway) to see future Hall of Famers do their thing outdoors on a nice day. The idea of transporting two teams to some sunny climate in late October to play the best-of-seven event in front of fans that have no rooting interest in either ballclub is just insanity.
A huge part of baseball’s allure is the roar of the crowd. A neutral-site World Series would obviously require fans to buy tickets and make travel and hotel arrangements well before the season was over and likely before the participants were known. Logic would tell you that the team you hoped would be there might be eliminated by the time the championship series were over. With tickets priced at a face value of $150 and up each (this year), you’re asking fans to fork over more than a grand each for a strip of seven games. I can guarantee you they wouldn’t sell the games individually.
Consider the travel and lodging nightmare a neutral site would bring: You make airline reservations for a specific arrival day, but what about going home? If the Series is over in four, five, six or seven games, you’ve got to keep changing your flight — with a fee involved, probably — and extending your hotel stay. What a monumental pain.
Other than the prospect of better weather, there’s nothing to recommend a neutral site World Series. It’s a bad idea, poorly thought out, and a slap in the face to fans everywhere. I can’t image Nationals fans relish the thought of spending a fortune flying across the country to watch their team possibly win a championship after a season of stellar support at home.
A neutral site? Forget about it.
Examiner columnist Phil Wood is a baseball historian and contributor to MASN’s Nats Xtra. Contact him at [email protected].
