[net.sport.baseball] Lights at Wrigley Field

stu3@mhuxh.UUCP (Mark Modig) (10/05/84)

OK, since it now seems, even to the most hardnosed Padres fan, that
the Cubs have a chance to get in to the World Series,  what do
people think about the proposals to switch the World Series and give
Chicago only three games rather than four?

Business may be business, and baseball is, first and foremost, a
business whether or not we like to admit it.  Nevertheless, I think
it is a rotten idea and extremely unfair, especially since the AL
team will have four games at home plus the DH.  Should the Cubs take
the Padres and this proposal actually go through, I, for one, am
planning to refuse to watch the Series on TV, and I have a letter
all set to go off to NBC (or whoever has the Series this year) and
the Comissioner's office telling them so.  Not that it will make one
iota of difference, but how would you feel if YOUR team got in to
the World Series and you couldn't get tickets to go see them,
partially because the demand for tickets was increased by the fact
that your team had one home game chnged in to an away game?
I dunno, if the Cubs get in they will have won fair and square. 
They and their fans deserve to be treated the same as everyone else.

Comments?

(Sigh...if the Cubs get in, ANYBODY can get in.  Even the Angels,
if they ever get their act together)

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Mark Modig
..ihnp4!btlunix!mom

P.S.  I am new, so if this discussion has already been and gone,
accept my apologies.

rossiter@cornell.UUCP (David Rossiter) (10/05/84)

Sad to say, baseball is first and foremost a MONOPOLY business.  The owners
have agreed that the Commissioner can do ANYTHING in the best interests of
baseball AS A WHOLE, including voiding trades (remember Vida Blue and the
Yankees?), dictating compensation terms, etc.  Therefore he was well within
his mandate to try to make the most $$$ for the sport as a whole, by making
the change in schedule.  A Cubs season ticket holder sued Organized
Baseball with the argument that he was being deprived of property (namely,
the fourth home date); the federal judge threw the case out immediately,
on the (valid) basis that the Commissioner could do anything to the fan,
e.g. move all Cubs games to Comiskey (!!) if he had so desired.

It's a fine line -- the health of the sport as a whole, the pleasure of
many millions (like myself) who can watch at night but not in the day,
versus the tradition of Wrigley.  Let's at least be thankful it's on
grass.

Consider future series: Montreal vs. Toronto in 1996 -- when a premature
blizzard settles over Ontario and Quebec on October 10, and they decide
to relocate the series to the New Orleans Superdome... then we're getting
too commercial for my taste!