The Inside Slider

I have an idea. Lets take a sport, that loses fans to the NFL every year, over to Japan for the start of the season. Yeah, you heard me right. Think of all of the benefits. First, no one in the United States of America will watch (exactly what we want). Second, the "national pastime" will be held in another nation. What could be cooler than that?!

But seriously, if you happened to miss it (which you did), the MLB season kicked off with the Seattle Mariners beating the Oakland Athletics 3-1 in 11 innings on Wednesday afternoon (or very early morning if you are in the United States) in Tokyo, Japan. From what people have said it was a pretty good game. I wouldn't know. I was asleep. What exactly is the purpose of having opening day in Japan? What was being accomplished? Some could argue that it allows Japanese fans the ability to become more excited about American baseball, but that argument would be wrong. The MLB is already huge in Japan! Remember when Dice-K had his debut? There were more Asian photo/journalists at the game then any other. The same is going to happen for Yu Darvish this year. Asian baseball players playing in the MLB are basically rock stars.

I get it. They are trying to expand the game into a global market, but not opening day. That is not the time to do it. We have a hard enough time trying to get our own fans to watch.

I just needed to vent. Thanks.