They Look Smaller On TV

When I was growing up, one of my favorite baseball books was Summer of '49 by David Halberstam, which chronicled the thrilling pennant race between the Yankees and the Red Sox. It bestowed mythic status upon players like Dom and Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Yogi Berra, even Birdie Tebbetts. Without baseball, and the larger-than-life status it bestowed upon heroes, how many kids growing up in Montana during the '80s and '90s would have any clue who Mel Parnell was?

These days, I don't find the same fascination when it comes to Boston-New York baseball games. I wish I could still care about the rivalry. I've tried. But . . . no. It doesn't help that Sunday Night Baseball seems to broadcast Yankees-Red Sox approximately 160 times a year, which they really have to try for, since there are only 162 games in a season.

Overexposure makes the whole thing less interesting.

The NFL should have learned this lesson. I heard a rumor in Peter King's column for cnnsi.com that the NFL planned to announce the schedule for 2012 as part of a prime-time TV special. Sadly, this was not just a rumor. They actually did it this week.

This sort of non-event event gives events a bad name. It's like LeBron James' "Announcement" special; we really didn't need an hour-long TV special to tell us where LeBron was going to play basketball. And much like that killed off a lot of my interest in the NBA, the NFL televising the schedule makes me question my interest in football.

Of course, I'm also still bitter about the coverage of the NFL draft. I used to enjoy getting up early on a Saturday morning to watch the draft with Vaughn. We would get coffee and breakfast and make our own mock drafts. Now, though, the NFL shows the first round on a Friday evening, east coast time, when I'm still at work. Boo.

I understand why the NFL needs to market every last drop of potential advertising dollars; now that we are no longer able to pretend as a culture that concussions are a sign of manliness and virtue, the lawsuits are going to pile up, especially after Gregg Williams expressly stated the motive of unmitigated violence against opponents.

That's fine for a business to try to protect its interests, but the consequence of their methods risks losing me as a fan even before the 49ers move to Santa Clara.