Everything was set. The bus quickly sold out, all 52 seats, a full deck.
“It wasn’t going to be a guy trip,” said Jim McDermott, the Yankees fan from Scranton who organized it, Scranton to Baltimore. “We had kids going, fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, wives, girlfriends.
“We were bringing sandwiches, soda, beer for a tailgate picnic. I bought some T-shirts for a contest on the way down. It’s mostly Scranton-area Yankee fans. We were going early, so people could tour the Inner Harbor.”
But 10 days ago came word that Sunday, June 30’s Yankees-Orioles game had been “flexed” from a 1 p.m. start to 8 p.m., as per MLB’s deal with ESPN. The trip was cancelled on account of neo-classical, go-to-hell greed.
“Eight o’clock? Are they crazy?” McDermott said. “We’d have been home by 8 o’clock!” Scranton and Baltimore are 200 miles apart, thus, after a three-hour game, they wouldn’t arrive home until about 3 a.m.
The trip, $87 a head, everything included — Camden Yards excursions are far less expensive than those to Yankee Stadium — fell apart.
The Orioles have offered to swap the tickets for a Sunday game in August against the A’s. But the June 30 trip was designed by a Yankees fan for Yankees fans, so right now McDermott is stuck holding everyone’s checks. He is the victim of a stick-up approved and perpetrated by MLB for MLB.
Sure, there were attractive, far more logical non-Eastern Zone Sunday games for MLB to have assigned ESPN on June 30: Reds at Rangers, Giants at Rockies, Cardinals at A’s. But making sense as opposed to making TV money is what now drives all schedules — MLB, NFL and NBA.
They all adhere to the drug-addicted prostitute postulate: Do as you wish with me, Mister, just as long as you pay me.
Meantime, as evidenced by empty expensive seats, MLB, led by “Bottom Line” Bud Selig and grab-every-dime and bait-and-switch marketing strategies of big town teams such as the Yankees and Mets, continues to toy with the fire of its own making. It continues to teach its best customers to live without.
Emrick all aces deep into overtime
Funny, Wednesday night into yesterday morning, as the Bruins and Blackhawks played deep into a third overtime, that Doc Emrick, on NBC, asked us to consider the fatigue and fading focus of the players.
At the same time — not that we’re surprised — Emrick, now 66, remained fresh, alert, engaging. With play on, he even knew exactly what time it was, making quick mention that Wednesday night’s game had just become Thursday morning’s, in the East. He updated the AHL finals, too.
Perhaps most worth knowing about Emrick is that he’s as good a person off the air as he is when on.
* Don’t believe your lying eyes! According to Yankees GM Brian Cashman, as spoken on ESPN, he has no idea why people think Robinson Cano doesn’t hustle. He doesn’t see that, at all. He sees Cano playing hard, winning baseball.
Of course, unlike us, Cashman has a deal with Cano to negotiate, so either that causes temporary or selective blindness, or we’ve been hallucinating the last few years.
Wednesday from Oakland, YES showed isolated tape of 39-year-old Ichiro Suzuki busting it out of the box, going hard the entire way, nearly beating out a grounder to second. Ken Singleton marveled at Ichiro’s 588 career infield hits.
Such tapes, if shown, of Cano after hitting a ground ball would show Cashman, what? Much the same? Or a guy jogging, further slowing before the ball even reached the first baseman? But we’re imagining things.
* Nothing throws ESPN into gleeful overdrive than a baseball brawl. Shoot, for three days ESPN’s networks paid more attention to the Diamondbacks-Dodgers hassle than to its NFL mock draft!
But now that ESPN was shamed into pulling its merry “He Got Jacked Up!” NFL segments, and the mirthful “Bobby Knight Goes Nuts Reel” has mysteriously disappeared, it’s short on action footage.
Best not enough for LeBron
What a pity that at this stage in his career LeBron James still feels compelled to pose and preen after blocking a shot, as if being the best still isn’t enough. But maybe that’s part of his Nike deal.
* It took until the Stanley Cup finals, but NBC has fixed in-game analyst Ed Olczyk’s microphone so we actually can hear him. And NBC, during Game 1, went light on needlessly distracting graphics, maximizing the live view.
* Dialogue of the Week: Sunday, after Brett Gardner singled in Seattle, Ken Singleton, on YES, said, “He’s now 7-for-14 in this series.” Partner Bob Lorenz followed with, “Gardner hitting close to .500 in this four-game series.” And George Washington was one of our first presidents.
* So what’s the worst that could happen? Jason Kidd encourages the Nets to play as he did? If that means setting some screens, moving without the ball, occasional layups off fast-breaks and blind-side steals on defense, the senses will be shaken and stirred.
* Say, how did that plan to make Jay Z the face, voice and presence of the Nets turn out? He tweeted them in the back? Tsk, tsk.
* Is there a worse fit on telecasts of our national golf championship than clownish, here-I-am hambone Chris Berman? Leave it to ESPN to serve garlic ice cream.
* From reader Ron Goydic: Is it true that Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson will be auditioning for an ESPN gig when he is released from jail? A: No, not as long as TV — not just ESPN — continues to search for, promote and celebrate the next Chad Johnson!
* Clairvoyant Open coverage from ESPN/NBC yesterday. Seemed every great shot was uncannily captured, live, including a long birdie putt holed by Matteo Manassero — who was 3-over at the time and previously hadn’t been seen! You don’t suppose … ?
* This Phil Mickelson flying in after attending his daughter’s eighth-grade graduation angle seems kinda weird. Has eighth grade become that hard?
* Say, how did all those “Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones has turned his life around” stories turn out?
* Reader Bill Fleming on that 20-inning Marlins-Mets game: “It’s a shame someone had to win it.”