Fenway fan ejected for throwing back home run ball
This sounded good until I read that John Henry wants to apologize to the guy. I feel sorry for the fan for caving in to pressure and doing something he wasn't originally inclined to do. And I feel sorry for him for giving up a souvenir I'll bet he wishes he had today. But for being ejected? Nope, sorry.

This is something that started at "loveable loser" Wrigley Field in Chicago, and now it's spreading like a virus. Can we please not do that at Fenway? And don't give me the BS that a visitor HR is tainted because it somehow represents a Red Sox failure. If that's the case, do you throw back your own foul balls because your batter failed to get on base? Do you keep the visitors' fouls because your pitcher was successful? Those are just a few of the staggering, brain-warping implications if you follow that "logic".

The ballclub owner wants to trump his security staff (who acted correctly) and reward people who throw potentially dangerous objects onto the field of play. If a ball is hit out of the park, though, do everyone a favor and turn it in at the ticket window. I don't think the average fan has the arm to clear the Monster.

If you really don't want the ball, why not give it to a kid in the crowd? You'll make their day. And the smiling that kid will do will drown out all the drunkards trying to coax you into doing something stupid. 11:27:49 AM    comment []trackback []  

Lies, lii-iies, a-breaking my heart
It was big news while Al Franken's new book, with a chapter for a title, was boosted onto the bestseller lists with the help of Rupert Murdoch's lawyers. I bought into the hype and bought the book. I've gotten through about a quarter of it thru the Labor Day weekend. No real surprises so far... Franken panders to the left-wingers by smacking up the Fox stable of pundits, who pander to right-wingers. It's funny, it's partisan, but I expected as much from Stuart Smalley. I'll keep reading.

Meanwhile, I'll muse. Fox tried so hard to keep Al from impugning the value of their not-quite proprietary buzzphrase, yet two years after FAIR savaged 'the most biased name in news', one still wonders what "fair and balanced" means to Fox. Is it mission objective or marketing slogan? Are they making a sincere effort to objectively cover the Iraq war, or even the California recall? If so, they must do it between 3 and 5 in the morning. Is the balance supposed to come from competing networks? From reading newspapers, magazines or the Internet? Is Fox supposed to be the objective one, or are you? Hm.

If the consumer drives the marketplace, then the nets are telling us people watching their products don't want it fair and balanced... they want sensationalism, blood, embarassment and negativity. So the catchphrase is confusing on many levels.

But let's not bash Fox alone on this... they got in line right behind CNN, MSNBC, and the "low-priced three" with their tacit acknowledgment of the fickleness of their demographic. These networks present "news" that reaffirms the worldview of its audience. They present positions that their viewers find agreeable, and take pot shots at the opposition view. This can be informative, it's sometimes entertaining, but calling it "news" strikes me as somehow more egregious than calling it "fair and balanced." But alas, "news" is a term in the public domain.

In my own effort to be fair and balanced, I'll make a point in favor of Fox News; it is assumed they pay their research assistants. Franken, on the other hand, sought the help of his alma mater Harvard, and its billion-dollar endowment, to get his book written. A fellowship grant to Franken gave him the use of fourteen grad students to help shovel up the dirt on O'Reilly, Hannity and Coulter. While I don't necessarily think that's deceitful (because it seems Harvard will make its money back off this book), it does pose an interesting question. Who wields more insider establishment clout... a cable news network that garners less than 6% of a workingclass audience on its best nights... or Harvard University? 11:18:44 AM    comment []trackback []