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| (FN Photo by Mark Lawrence) |
by Mark Lawrence, Down-Under Editor
Sydney, Australia—
After a few years of
nonsense rumors and knuckle-headed local sports reporting by guys ill-equipped
to cover the topic, Major League Baseball finally made it to Australia, and
amid the initial hoopla, this correspondent began to fear that the potential
for National Embarrassment was quite real. And, of course, the Oz Media
didn’t let me down.
I’d like to apologize to
the players for our media pinheads thrusting cricket bats at them and insisting
they take a few cuts. I apologize for the pencil-neck who thought it’d be a real
hoot to have players try an Aussie accent – they’re ballplayers, not Meryl
freakin’ Streep. And I especially apologize to Vin Scully who, after a
long flight was met at the airport with a cantankerous koala bear when all he
probably wanted was a scotch straight up, and a few hours’ sleep. And I was
particularly embarrassed for my country by that miserable kid who pitched a
full-on conniption fit when he didn’t get that foul ball – the Age of
Entitlement is over, kid – get used to it.
Despite all this, though,
it looks like we got most of it right. The Sydney Cricket Ground was
transformed into a pretty fair ball park and the Ground personnel did a
terrific job dealing with the 38,000-plus fans, a lot of whom had never set
foot in the SCG before. My initial scan of the seating diagrams had me
convinced that my $200 seat (yikes) would not get me as close to the action as
$200 ought to, but I was wrong – sitting fairly high in the Bill O’Reilly Stand
(not the Fox News guy) I had a pretty fair view of the field, where the
Dodgers and Diamondbacks started Game Two on Sunday.
Anyone who’s interested
in the stats of that game – and I’m not sure many citizens of our particular
nation would be – can go look ‘em up. See, there were a few aspects of the
event that I found a lot more interesting and a little disturbing. On the
positive side, the beer taps stayed open until the end of the game – and even
better, most of my compatriots managed to behave themselves, despite the free
flowing suds. And you may have seen pictures of that notorious three-foot-long
hot dog –well, I didn’t spot any fans struggling to get their jaws around one
and I wasn’t surprised – at forty bucks a throw, you’d need to be on player
wages to afford one. But how in the Dodger Blue hell, does a sporting venue of
that size manage to run out of regular dogs – before the end of the
second inning?? That defies belief.
Commissioner Bud spoke a lot this past week
about the ‘internationalization’ of the game – his word – and MLB’s colorful
presence here in Sydney has surely gone a long way towards achieving some of
that goal. Judging by the sea of Dodger Blue – and the puddles of Arizona
Red – spread across the stands of the SCG, both franchises have at least made
themselves some new friends. But as far as regular competition here in
the Emerald City is concerned – well, that’s still quite a long way off.
We lack a significant local fan base and, more importantly, an easily
accessible infrastructure – if I want to see the Sydney Blue Sox hit in their
3,000 seat ball park, I have to travel sixty miles round trip to do it.
And that’s a tad too far for this aging sports fan. Bud and I don’t often see
eye-to-eye on things baseball, but this time we do. The Great Experiment
has been a success, everybody made a boatload of money – except the hotdog
concession – and a great time was had by all. Come visit us any time –
we’d love to see you again.