Can you think of a worse way to start the baseball season

[Josh]

than some old racist (from Atlanta, proving Tom's Georgia-KKK connection) Andy Rooney-ing some ballgames in Japan

Baseball used to be a game played with nine men to a side, two managers, four umpires, and the major-league season always opened in Cincinnati. Come to think of it now, that would be sort of like “Gone With the Wind” opening in Valdosta. But Cincinnati had a deal, see.

The first “major league” baseball game was played in Cincinnati on June 1, 1869. The locals, the Red Stockings, eked out a 48-14 victory over Mansfield, whoever Mansfield was. So, several years ago — even the league office isn’t sure when — it became a custom that every major-league season opened in Cincinnati. Nobody played before the Red Stockings, now shortened to Reds. It was just that way. That’s how baseball is, very long on tradition. It just gets into a habit it likes and stays there.

Well, not any longer. Money can change any habit. Eight springs ago the Mets and Cubs opened the season, not in Cincinnati. Guess where? Tokyo. That Tokyo, the guys who gave us Pearl Harbor. Some people don’t like you to bring that up, trade with Japan is so hot. But I’ve got a long memory. I saw what a few bombs can do to our property.

Oh, well, ‘scuse me. It’s just tough to get away from it when you turn on your TV in the morning there are the Boston Red Sox playing the Oakland A’s in the Tokyo Dome. Not only that, but the Red Sox pitcher is Daisuke Matsuzaka, who didn’t grow up in Wampole.

Why not? A Japanese newspaper chain, Yomiuri, foots the bill for this Oriental excursion. Yomiuri is not exactly the Chicago Tribune of Japanese baseball. Yomiuri owns several teams. The Tribune owns only one team, and that team hasn’t been in a World Series since World War II. (Sorry to have to bring that up again.) Yomiuri’s team has been the Yankees of Japan, and I’m not sure, but I think they call themselves the Giants.

About Cincinnati and its dibs on opening day, that went on for years. Then the major leagues expanded from coast to coast, cramping the schedule. Television came in spreading money around like fertilizer, and things began to change. The Reds no longer had a monopoly on opening day. So they were allowed to throw the first pitch before anybody else. That privilege is gone now, but one priority remains — the Reds are always allowed to open the season at home. So much for tradition, of which about all that remains is that the baseball hides are actually sewed together by hand by ladies in some Latin American country.

They no longer play a Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown. The All-Star Game ends when the commissioner says it’s time to go home, even if the score is tied. World Series games start about my bedtime. The schedule is so jacked around that the Braves open the season with a one-game “series” in Washington, where a new ball park is being opened. There, one other tradition still prevails: Presidents still throw out first balls. George Bush gets to start the last game of his eight-year career on the mound.

It would be my guess that in Japan, emperors don’t throw out first balls, or even have any kind of presence at such a sweaty game. I saw a game in the Tokyo Dome once, but it was more dome-shaped then. It now appears to have gone oblong to oblige the new long-ball society. Managers are interchangeable, it seems. Bobby Valentine is still managing a team in Japan, and Trey Hillman, who managed five seasons in Japan, is now managing the Kansas City Royals, which, on the surface, appears to be a demotion.

So that’s where major-league baseball stands today, geographically. Not here in the USA, not in Cincinnati, not even in Kauai, but on the other side of the International Dateline. Heaven only knows where it’s headed next. They tell me they’re building a state of the Soviet stadium in Vladivostok, complete with a video screen as high as the sky, and beer sales. Oh, I forgot tell you this about Cincinnati’s sin. The Red Stockings were expelled from the league in 1880 for selling beer at the park. Think of that!

[Laurie]

Hey smarty-pants, I'm pretty sure the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have a better idea of what a few bombs can do to their property.

PS: I just skimmed through the 100+ comments, and a good deal -- I daresay the majority -- of the commenters refer to this fruitcake as a "xenophobic fossil."

This comment made me lol.

Mr. Bisher, I applaud you for your xenophobia, your mindless conservatism, and most of all your disguised racism. If only we could get rid of all of the greasebacks in this game. I’m fine with the darkies and all, but I do believe them latinos are ruining tradition.

[Andy]

lol, or lul?


seriously.  I don't know the difference.

[Laurie]

Same difference.

I learned to stop worrying and love the lol and the lulz.

[Martin]

[Laurie]

He kind of looks like Cheney, y/n?

[Stupornaut]

The moment I read this I thought "man, I hope Fire Joe Morgan goes after this." They did.

[Gilly]

That was a terrible way to express it but I agree that the baseball opener should not have been played in Japan. Do it before the all-star break or make it an exhibition game. It wasn't right that baseball fans had to celebrate an annual tradition at 5 in the morning so that Selig could figure out a way to milk the game for more money. Japanese baseball clubs weren't happy about it either because it just so happens that their season started that week and the MLB stole their thunder...add that to the Red Sox paycheck fiasco and you can add it a long list of Selig blunders.

Dude didn't have to get all racist about it though.

[masterofsparks]

He kind of looks like Cheney, y/n?

I was thinking Adolf Von Trimble.

[Chris L]

World Series games start about my bedtime.

The sad thing is that includes west coast time. 

[ben]

The phrase 'Oriental excursion' is pretty awful as well.

[chrisfoll577]

as a red sox fan, the opening day in japan didn't bother me beyond waking up early and worrying about how jet lag will affect my team.  i'm fascinated with japanese baseball, english soccer etc. and i think it was awesome to see my team play in japan.  so i really don't have a problem with it.

i thought complaining about japanese-american commerce went out with the eighties.  and yeah it's walpole, mass. not wampole.  i think furman bisher should take off his hood and go shop for a coffin.