Local Rules in Baseball Broadcasting

Baseball is at its best when brought to you by local broadcasters — a fact that always seems to elude MLB's "brain trust."

My parents separated when I was very young. I had few memories of my father until I went and found him in my early twenties. I was not close to my grandfather, either. In fact, I had no male role model in my life at all. It was left to me to decide which sports teams I would root for, although the limitations of broadcast television played a significant role. In those days, entertainment still came into houses over an antenna.

Solutions in Search of a Problem

No, not that
Double Hook

As I await the start of the New York Mets scheduled doubleheader vs. the Colorado Rockies, I feel a strong urge to write about something besides the horrible weather and the pathetic boy's club the Mets organization was in dying years of the Wilpon regime. I'm confident the weather will do whatever it wants regardless of my feelings on the matter, and The Athletic will surely have more follow-ups on their story while they continue to ignore the culture of 29 other MLB franchises.

Early in the week, while I was preoccupied with Lisa being in the hospital again, there was reporting on a pair of gimmicks that MLB would try out in the independent Atlantic League this summer. Both of them are pitching-related.