Someone give me a stick so I can shake it at TikToker. You damn young people with your apps that allow you to do multiple things at once and decide for yourselves what you want to watch. You have no idea what it’s like to be entertained by a single television in the den, and your father telling you to stop changing the channel during commercials because the picture flipping is bothering him.
That’s why we needed historic moments in our national pastime piped into whatever sports broadcast we were watching. We all wanted to witness history when either Sammy Sosa or Mark McGwire first made it to 61 home runs.
For a second consecutive week, the MLB, Yes Network, and ESPN decided to cut into college football broadcasts and split the screen to see Aaron Judge at the plate this past weeked, attempting to hit his 62nd home run of this season.
Fortunately, the timing of Judge failing to send a ball over the fence didn’t interrupt key moments like they did during a 51-45 double overtime thriller during an in-conference college football game involving a team with a chance at the College Football Playoffs. That still didn’t ease the ire of college football fans, with one of their 13-14 Saturdays yet again besmirched by the Northeastern elites and their pinstriped pets.
https://twitter.com/jessica_smetana/status/1576269369843163136
I imagine that the criticism of Judge would be a bit more muted if he was actually chasing a record. The MLB single-season home run record has belonged to Barry Lamar Bonds since his second at-bat on Oct. 5, 2001. Unlike Reggie Bush, Bonds’ accomplishments have not been revoked by MLB. Instead, he and a handful of other legends were shamed for saving the sport after Jerry Reinsdorf and other franchise owners attempted to kill it with the 1994 strike. The league then got self-righteous when it knew that it wasn’t testing for PEDs. Instead of “cleaning up the game,” pro baseball has largely become a regional game that hasn’t evolved with the times.
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So of course a football fan from the state of Texas, Oklahoma, MIssissippi, and Kansas might have little interest in what will ultimately amount to Judge not breaking an MLB record. It has nothing to do with them. It’s not cool to them to witness a Yankees broadcast in whatever town where they are watching the game, even if hitting 60-plus home runs is always an impressive accomplishment. The young people who tuned in to watch those college football games have all of the regional pride and school spirit of the fans who came before them, but also have time for jokes about both Judge getting pitched around, and the lamest frat fight ever caught on camera.
The best those Judge at-bats could be are one of those commercials that the screen is split with during official reviews in football and basketball. Except instead of Jake selling you State Farm with Patrick Mahomes bath bombs and Aaron Rodgers dopplegangers, it’s Aaron Judge saying “Remember these pinstripes? They used to make you feel something whether you’re a bandwagon fan who wants to feel like a winner, or a hater who is envious of our dozens of championships and thinks facial hair rules are stupid. Well, I’m built like Rob Gronkowski, and I’ve been launching baseballs to the tip of the atmosphere all year to try and convince all you sports fans to come back to baseball these playoffs. Cheer me or channel your hate for the New York Yankees through me, but for the love of God, please watch!”
Just like most commercials (somebody find me my stick again) I remember when those things couldn’t be avoided, and you were happy when on occasion you got to see frogs belch out Bud-Weis-uur. Young people, no respect for what is forced on their screens whether they asked for it or not.
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