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Peanuts, Popcorn, and Earmuffs
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10587 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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2 / 1986 |
1,219 Words |
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Rick Wolff
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Good afternoon, baseball fans, and a toasty warm welcome to all of our television viewers from coast-to-coast. It's a beautiful winter's day here in New York--temperature hovering around thirteen degrees, eight inches of fresh new snow on the ground, and a gusty windchill factor of minus twenty degrees. It's 'picture postcard' weather for a typical Saturday afternoon in January and, that's right, just perfect for the Opening Day festivities of the United States Baseball League!
Playing Big League baseball in the snowy off-season? Oh sure, you've heard all the skeptics and all the cynics and all the cold-hearted baseball purists who said it couldn't be done. They all claimed it would be too cold; that fans wouldn't turn out; that even the game itself would be dramatically changed by the freezing cold. But, remember, the so-called experts used to scoff at the idea of playing pro football out of season, too, when the United States Football League was born. Playing in the heat and humidity of the summertime certainly didn't seem to slow down Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, or any other of the USFL'ers. Then, just last year, the United States Basketball League was formed--and they play in the off-seasons as well.
It was really just a matter of time before the Major League baseball owners got together and realized the lucrative potential of playing baseball all year round. The idea first came from the Commissioner, Peter V. Ueberroth, who outlined the USBL to the owners in a secret "closed doors" meeting only a few months ago.
Mr. Ueberroth was the gentleman who originally made his mark by getting all those thousand of Californians to volunteer their efforts on behalf of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Using the same power of persuasion, the Commissioner has made a very strong pitch about the positive financial aspects of winter ball.
Let's be honest here and give the man some credit. He was the first to point out that the Major League ballparks are virtually empty from October to April, and that not one paying customer goes through any ballpark's turnstiles for six months. What he says has plenty of merit--what kind of business can be closed for half the year and still show a profit?
The USBL got it's biggest boost, however, when the New York Yankees joined the league. That's right, the Bronx Bombers were the first to come forward and declare that they felt they owed it to their loyal fans to try to be the champions in both the summer and winter leagues. They assured us that doubling their television revenue was only a minor, secondary consideration. Even Mr. Steinbrenner admitted that it was "merely pure coincidence" that Opening Day of the United States Baseball League happens to fall on the very same day and time as that of the Super Bowl.
Following the graciousness of the Yankees, several corporate sponsors have also felt the need to keep baseball going throughout the year. After all, there's whole new group of supporters out there who normally don't have the opportunity to appear on summertime baseball broadcasts: sponsors like the people who make hot thermos bottles, or soup, or portable heaters, or all the oil and gas companies, or even the manufacturers of snow tires and antifreeze. Why, it's been reported that sales for Mr. Coffee have never been hotter, so to
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