What I miss about baseball

Recently I went to a Mariner’s game in Seattle against the “dreaded” Yankees. (Spoiler alert, we won). I love the game, grew up with it in Chicago and of course there is always the thrill of actually seeing the game played live. But there have been numerous changes lately to the experience and wanted to share my likes and dislikes about what has happened to baseball. This isn’t intended as a bitch session, but simply to highlight what we have lost as well as found. 

The Ticket Experience. 

The Mariners as other teams have done, have gone to all online tickets. Gone are printing tickets at home, or the feel of a real ticket that you could sell to a friend easily and cheaply. My tickets were bought at a charity auction and the owners of the seats needed to electronically give them to me. I needed to load three separate apps on my phone, first MLB, the overall app of major league baseball, which required me to create an account, being subject to a slew of advertising to eventually find out that to get my tickets I needed to login to a second app, called Ballpark. This app apparently is the app to get your actual tickets to the game, which after creating that account and password, told me that if I wasn’t seeing my tickets I could check the “Ticket Tab” or add emails to my MLB account, which I needed to do by going back to the MLB app and adding my email. Now I saw my four tickets. After all this, I found out that the only way to actually get the tickets in my electronic “wallet” was by going through Ticketmaster, and I needed to load that app and create an account there as well! So I finally got that done. But two of my friends were going to meet me at the ballpark. I needed to transfer the tickets to each of them. Turns out they needed to load all three of these apps on their phones, create the accounts, and finally, when that was all done, I could transfer the tickets to each of them by email. One of my friends is not a super computer literate person. But after about three hours and numerous phone calls, both people had their tickets. At one point, one of the tickets showed the person had accepted them, but the other person showed not yet accepted as game hour drew near. When I called the friend he told me that the he *had* accepted the ticket and it was in his Google Wallet. Finally I tried logging out and back in and then it showed he had accepted it. The day after the game, I deleted all three apps on my phone. Sigh. 

The Parking Experience

So on the ferry ride in to Seattle, we talked about parking. Given our travel agenda, we were going to the airport after the game, so we couldn’t walk on the ferry and just walk to the ballpark. I knew there was a lot at the north end of Lumen field and was able to find it and reserve a spot on an app called SpotHero. This cost me $48.42 after tax. While outrageous, given my sore knees I suffer with, I thought it would be worth it. Imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the parking lot and found that I could have simply paid $30 without a reservation. Sigh. So much for SpotHero. Never again. 

The Entry Experience

While going through a metal detector is something I never could have imagined when I was 12, it was  a non issue, but the long list of what I could not bring into the ballpark was a law degree lesson in legalese in how to cover ones ass. Essentially, there is nothing other than a lap blanket, sign that requires them to read it to approve it, seat cushion, cell phone, and either empty water container or full sealed one that you can bring in. You can’t bring a backpack unless it is clear plastic (!). My cousin, in his NY Yankees jersey, when confronted by the security guard about his nearly empty but not clear plastic backpack, simply said he had his meds in it and was from New York and didn’t know. They waved him in.

The BallPark Experience

There’s a lot to like about T-Mobile Park or whatever it’s called this week. Situated right on Puget Sound there are incredible views of the Olympic Mountains to the west from the upper deck viewing areas as the sun is setting. If it rains they can close the roof.

But once in our seats we were treated to a number of earsplitting screeches on the loudspeakers which apparently are done to chase away the seagulls. My Apple watch warned me that there was a loudness problem of over 100 decibels. The surround sound system for the non human PA is capable of intense loudness and the four of us felt we needed earplugs. I had left my earbuds in the car but would have gone and got them except that once inside the ball park you cannot leave and come back in, even though you have a legitimate ticket.

Throughout the game, at moments that the management deems necessary, we are subjected to a roaring recorded voice and video game special effects asking us to “Make NOISE”. In the last few innings this happens after almost every pitch. The visual effects on the ball park giant screen and surrounding lighting system are a bit overwhelming, as if we were inside a video game rather than a baseball game. Overall, I felt more like a participant to be manipulated by management than someone simply wanting to watch a game in peace and cheer when it warranted cheering.

The Food Experience. 

If you enjoy the notion of paying $14 for a hot dog or hamburger, you’ll find you will love the ballpark experience. But even if you want to buy one, be prepared for lines like a TSA airport scenario. We ate before the game, but during the game it was very cold (this is late March) and between the wind and cold I was glad to be wearing long underwear. Given the temperature, you would think that a cup of coffee would be easy to buy, even at $5 or more for 8 ounces. But when I left my seat to find coffee, there was only one place anywhere on our level to buy it. The handy Food Roster map showed that there were three places that sold coffee on our level. None of them were named, only numbered by sections, called “Drip Coffee”. I could not find anything called Drip Coffee nor a service that looked like it sold them in those areas.  The espresso stand was real but  the line to be waited on was over 100 people. Every single food service stand had massive lines. I finally gave up and went back to my seat. Where is Starbucks efficiency when you need them?

My cousin bought a Philly Cheese steak that was a mound of beef covered by a mound of Velveeta cheese. I warned him about it, but he insisted. The cheese dripped all over his Yankee uniform, which I thought was a bit fitting for the situation of wearing it to a Seattle game. (Sorry Peter!)

The Umpire experience. 

After putting up with “blind” umpires for almost 200 years, computer technology finally caught up to the men in black. Those watching on TV for the last few years have seen the radar showing us the travel and location of every pitch. We have seen the bad calls. Now the umps in the stadium can too. The Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System has 5 cameras tracking the ball and filming it at 300 frames per second.  But to be clear, it is not Ai making the calls. It’s simply a sophisticated computer and radar system. Maybe there is some kind of Ai in there, but it’s not like using ChatGPT. It creates an appropriate strike zone for each player. Each team now gets two  challenges apiece to their calls, and we had one in the first inning that was a ball instead of the called strike. Sadly, we no longer can scream at the umps that they are blind. It’s now in the hands of the batters to challenge the umps with the computer making the final determination. A loss for all real fans.

The Game experience 

The game now moves much faster, because of the “game clock” timer that each forces each pitcher to get throwing. According to Wikipedia: Pitchers have 15 seconds between pitches when there are no baserunners and 20 seconds if there is at least one baserunner. Also, the batter has 7 to 12 seconds to be in the stance ready to hit, or an automatic strike will be called. The clock starts when the pitcher gets the ball and the catcher and batter are ready. My opinion is that this is a positive move on MLB’s part that has been implemented a few years ago. 

Overall

The four of us at the game all agreed that the experience is far removed from the slow moving game we grew up with, but more to the point, while moving faster, the video game like nature that has been instituted, is a fail for us. The constant bombardment of video effects urging us to be louder, to rally etc, just is overly loud and annoying. It makes conversation very difficult. It’s lost the charm of the antique organ playing stair stepping notes leading up to a weak “Charge!”. Oh well, I figured that would eventually be gone in our phone frenzied new world.  

A few years back I visited Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs. They have not yet gone over to an animated insane video game style scoreboard there, it’s a traditional looking one, and the game progresses more like a traditional game has always done, at a tempo and volume that ebbs and flows per the game and fans itself, rather than the frantic animations presented with ear deafening loud music. 

Honestly, all but my cousin from Houston agreed that the only way we are going to watch a game in the future is on TV. There, we can pause it, go get a decent meal from our kitchen, not need to park or encounter massive traffic jams and food lines. Major League baseball might be able to continue to fill the stands at outrageous prices, and good for them, but we won’t be back. I love the game, but the ballparks are just not fun or easy to deal with anymore. 

As the large beer funded billboards all over Chicago said back in the 80s when they put in the lights in Wrigley for night games, “No! I said, get me a Bud Light!” 

That’s what I want, a rollback just once a year. Maybe that’s my next reason to go Chicago.

My last trip back to Wrigley. Here’s what real baseball looks like.