The first hard frost and freeze of the season colored the morning.So the Phillies will play the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series. I would have preferred the Red Sox and don't much like this match-up at all. Forget all the drivel about destiny's darlings, worst-to-first, and scrappy young team. What I don't like is that Tampa plays in a dome and has home field advantage. Dome teams almost always win at home. Pure and simple. I don't like it all. I don't like dome teams, and that includes the Twinkies. Retractable roofs, yes; domes and carpets, no.
It's hard, too, to like teams without a fan base. The Rays were 26th in baseball attendance, drawing 1,780,791. The Phillies drew just about double that number. Now that the playoffs are here, Tampa frontrunners are filling the stadium---with cowbells. I really dislike fan bases with noisemakers.
Unless it goes long, a Phillies-Rays series will not excite much of the country, especially after the ridiculous amount of time the Phillies will have had off before Game 1. Shucks, I can't get too excited about watching baseball played indoors in October or any month. For FOX it's a worst-case scenario. Screw FOX. Yes, we understand that baseball is more about business and money than anything else. TV has already dictated the postseason schedule, with its artificial off-days in the middle of the championship series. Are we at the point where TV ratings are really supposed to determine World Series opponents? It's bad enough that we're stuck with the FOX broadcasters for the series.
What is it about national TV broadcasters, by the way? Last night I watched some of the TBS coverage of the ALCS. Pregame it was Cal Ripken, Jr. (boring), Harold Reynolds (awful), and Dennis Eckersley (totally vapid). During the game it was Chip Caray (ugh), Buck Martinez (good), and Ron Darling (mediocre). Radio coverage is much better.
