Baseball, the weather, fashion, whatever crosses my mind, that will be what I will talk about in these Open Forum posts.
Today, I do want to talk about baseball.
With Opening Night (one game) in a week and a half (Wednesday, March 25) and a full slate of games the next day, we are getting closer and closer to the Dodgers’ journey to a three-peat.
Will that actually happen? Well, it’d be disappointing if it didn’t that’s for sure, but the Dodger-haters out there would go absolutely bananas over it. You know who I’m talking about – those St Louis Cardinals fans that say the “dOdGeRs ArE rUiNiNg BaSeBaLl” by reinvesting their revenue into the on-field product when the owners of their team, worth an estimated $4 b-b-billion, are only spending $120 million in 2026.
“There needs to be a salary cap,” they cry, justifying their teams’ owners’ tight purse strings. Tell you what, my guy, why don’t we make it a salary floor instead, forcing teams to reinvest in their teams. Tell the teams that they cannot reinvest any less than 60% to 70% of their revenue into the on-field product. That would do one of two things:
- Drive the owners to lower their revenue to avoid paying more in salary, or
- make the teams competitive
A penalty system for failing to meet those requirements includes loss of CBT income, loss of draft picks, or ultimately, being forced to sell the team.
Bah, but what do I know, I’m just a fan.
Anyway, I am excited for the upcoming season. I currently have tickets in my possession for the May 2 game in St. Louis where my boys in Pantone 294 will be taking on the Cardinals. Additionally, I am hoping to take an August trip to Chicago to visit the Volo Museum in northers Chicago and take in a Dodger game at Wrigley while I am in the area.
And, perhaps I will consider a return trip to Principal Park in Des Moines to watch the Iowa Cubs a time or two.
But with the impending return of the season comes the return of baseball movies. I am pretty steadfast in my predilection for saving baseball movies for during the season. Not only that, but I divide the movies up into parts of the season, and it goes a little something like this.
- The Sandlot. Always, first on the list. It’s a feel-good coming of age story that begins with the early days of summer of ’62 and is fitting for kicking off the baseball movie season.
- As the summer ramps up, comedies and light-hearted family fare is on the menu, with movies like Major League, Rookie of the Year, and Angels in the Outfield.
- By midseason, things start to get a little more serious but still playful, with movies like A League of their Own, Bad News Bears, Moneyball, Field of Dreams, and the first showing of Bull Durham.
- As the season starts winding down and the days get shorter, that’s when things take a seriously dramatic turn and into the rotation comes movies like 42, The Natural and Eight Men Out.
- Then, the last movie that I will watch for the season will be my final viewing of Bull Durham. I always felt like the ending of that movie perfectly captures my mood come November.
In addition, I picked up the 11 disc Ken Burns documentary, Baseball so I plan on running that in the background of my day-to-day just to set the mood.
The Dodgers will end their spring as they always do, with the Freeway Series against the Angels Sunday through Tuesday, March 22-24, then open the regular season hosting the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night, a game that will be nationally televised on NBC and streaming on Peacock so with no blackout restrictions for the D-Backs, I should be able to stream it on Peacock.
Sooo. yeah, there’s my little rant about my favorite sport and some of the rites and traditions I follow surrounding the sport.
Check back in tomorrow when I talk about my progress with my body recomp. Hint: It was a rough week.
Until then!
-Phil