Sunday Morning Post (V.2, #38) – The End of the Season
Today marks the end of the COVID-19 shortened baseball season. Regular play did not even start until mid-summer, which meant that the teams had to double their efforts to make the play offs. Sadly, my home team (Philadelphia Phillies) will not have to worry about a post-season play. Thank you, bullpen.
This is also normally the day when most clubs have a fan appreciation day where they thank the loyal baseball aficionados for coming out week after week, rain or shine, fabulous or mediocre or worse, to cheer on the home team. Only this year the teams were forced to close the stadiums to actual flesh and blood fans. No cheering, no boos, no hot dogs and peanuts sold and consumed.
Fan Appreciation Day celebrations will be very awkward this year.
The teams have tried their best to boost player morale and give some semblance of normalcy on televised games by filling the stands with cardboard cutouts in each seat. This was an okay compromise, I suppose, but there were some drawbacks. For one thing, there was apparently no consensus on scale from one seat to the next. One seat would show a human sized to fit the seat perfectly while the cutout next to it would be a head shot which filled the entire seat and no hint of a body attached to it.
Also, the cutouts in the seats did not have to be human. I may have imagined this, but I thought I saw the cutout of a thoroughbred racehorse in one of the seats during a Phillies/Tampa Bay Rays game televised this weekend. So apparently even animals were permitted in the stands this season. This should be some consolation to the descendants of William Sianis, who was thrown out from the 1945 World Series at Wrigley Field because his pet goat was bothering the other fans. This season a billy goat cutout should have been propped up in a seat for the Chicago Cubs.
Today also marks what would have been my father’s 86th birthday. He only made it to 71. Thank you, cigarettes.
I am remembering him today and the times he was able to take me to Connie Mack Stadium for a Phillies game. They are wonderful memories and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
(Thank you for reading. Hopefully, sometime soon, we can all play ball again.)
posted by todd gunther | 10:11 AM
7 Comments:
I'm not much of a baseball fan (hockey is my game), but I understand the Toronto Blue Jays have made it to the post-season, so YAY JAYS!
Interestingly enough ... today marks what would have been my mother's 83st birthday, but she passed away at 70...also thanks to cigarettes.
We have something truly in common, my Dad took me to a baseball game at Connie Mack, that was probably around 60 years ago. I can[t remember the game, what a do remember is lots of green wood, and street parking
i was not aware there even was a baseball season this year.
Good for the Blue Jays, Debra. Otherwise they are a sore subject with Phillies fans. Warrior Queen still has not forgiven Mitch Williams.
Hi Bob. I suppose those nasty things are still killing people.
I remember the first game my father took me, Dave R. The Mets beat us 3-0, we sat along the third base side, and Dad bought me a Phillies pennant which is now framed and mounted in my living room. Many of the older male fans smoked cigars at the game. True, the smell is a stench any other time, but it always evokes pleasant memories for me.
Hi Spo. Apparently the Phillies weren't aware that there was a baseball season either.
Hopefully the boys of summer, knew how to put on a good show, even if it was only for the fans at home. I was waiting for 60 minutes to start last night, the last 2-minutes of a football game was on for 20-minutes. The roar of the crowd, compete with cheer and boos was the soundtrack, and an absolutely empty stadium. The producers are using a canned soundtrack. Talk about fake.
Hi Travel. I have heard that teams were using canned crowd noises, but I'm not surprised that they have resorted to this fakery.
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