Tap the Boulevard is an SMU Football Blog, A Beer Blog, A Baseball Blog, A Music Blog, basically a blog about everything that makes life worth living. So sit back, relax, crack a cold one and enjoy our incoherent ramblings and gratuitous movie quotes.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Mets-Yankees Play Last Games at Each Others Respective Stadium....Who Cares?

This weekend, as I lay on the couch recovering from the flu, I was bombarded with Baseball Tonight's treatment of various interleague series in the MLB. Amongst all the talk of the White Sox sweeping the Cubs and my beloved Astros getting some early air time for their highlights (if only because they were playing the Red Sox), was the constant reminder that the Mets and Yankees played each other this weekend and that, gasp, it may be the final time that each team plays in the other's stadium!!!

That the Northeastern United States media market is one of the biggest and most profitable in the country is by now well known. And it is equally well known that the Yankees and to a lesser degree the Mets (and the Red Sox for that matter) enjoy a widespread fan base across the country. So I will not delve into why ESPN showers us in Texas with Yankees and Mets games when neither team is playing particularly well (at least I won't do that in this particular entry). But I will ask this question, who the hell cares if the Mets never play in Yankee Stadium again or that the Yankees never play in 'fabled' Shea after this season?

This is hardly analogous to the Dodgers last game at Ebbetts or the Giants last game at the Polo Grounds (which interestingly, the Mets played in for two seasons before Shea was completed). Interleague play began in 1997. Apart from one fairly mediocre World Series in 2000 (yes the games were all decided by two or fewer runs, whoopededo) in which the only truly memorable moment was Roger Clemens trying to impale Mike Piazza with a broken bat (I can still see the priceless, confused look on Piazza's face to this day) what was so memorable that occured in all the times that the Mets and Yankees played each other?

This is another example of ESPN assuming that what's good for the largest media market in the country is good for the entire country. I don't think it's that ESPN doesn't know that they are continuously hitting us over the head with New York baseball arcana when we're sick of it as a populace, I think it's that they don't care. But why should they care? Broadcasting all New York (or all Boston as the case may be) all the time is what has helped turn the network into the monolith they are. Why kill the golden goose?

Finally, because it's funny:

Friday, June 27, 2008

We have arrived

Prepare yourself for our awesomeness......