Baseball is baseball. It's either your life or it's not. It is mine. But I am old, grew up when the box scores were the gospel, and going to a game live was the most relaxing 2-3 hours of my life. It still is. But baseball has a demographic problem. The young really aint into it. It's too slow, it's too boring, and they have endless other forms of entertainment that aren't.
Baseball has always survived in various forms. There were barnstorming teams like the House of David and the Indianapolis Clowns. There was Max Patkin. There were the Negro Leagues and Bill Veeck. Baseball survives racism and free spirits. But as much as the billionaires and hedge fund creeps wanna squeeze every cent out of the sport and screw over average people by charging ridiculous amounts for a single freakin ballgame. Add on overpriced concessions and parking and a family is screwed. The days of me sitting in the bleachers at Turnpike Stadium for $4 and watching the shitty Texas Rangers every night is over. I once paid $10 for a season pass, yes, a season pass, for Omaha Royals games. It was a glorious childhood.
Cosmic Baseball came to town last night. The place was full of kids in glow in the dark t shirts and jerseys and enormous energy. What's Cosmic baseball you ask? Well, the two pictures above sum it up. One hour of crazy baseball in the light, an intermission, and then even crazier baseball in the dark with everybody in neon, including the bat and ball. It was the best I've seen a baseball in play maybe ever. They run the bases backwards, they have a 45 second Home Run Derby between innings, and they have an armed cop pitching. But it's still baseball and the purists be damned. It's fun. Yeah, baseball can be fun.
What goes on off the field is the true appeal. The players are interactive with fans, tossing hundreds of baseballs to the crowd, coming into the stands to sign autographs and interact, they juggle with fluorescent bowling pins , they play catch with the crowd with a football, they send a cow into "space"
and they play 3 minutes of "chaos baseball" where 3rd base becomes first base and any foul balls into the stands are still in play and loud ass music plays the entire game.
and they play 3 minutes of "chaos baseball" where 3rd base becomes first base and any foul balls into the stands are still in play and loud ass music plays the entire game.
Now as Max said, it's so intense its almost sensory overload. It really is. There's so much going on it is hard to know what to concentrate on. The baseballs constantly being tossed into the stands can take attention away from the 22-12 game going on because who wants to get hit on the noggin with a yellow baseball? The little girl in front of us got a ball and after that what else is left. The family took off. Mission Accomplished!
Cosmic baseball is fun. It's the Savannah Bananas for people who like glow in the dark stuff like me. Next month we will experience the Banana Ball. If that's half as fun as this was, it will be a success. But in the meantime, I will suffer through the 2026 San Francisco Giants.
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