Money Derby

Leave it to Major League baseball to take batting practice and turn it into a sporting event. Not only a sporting event, but one that they make people pay to see and one that they put on ESPN, featuring frogmouth Chris Berman, who demonstrates why the people in charge of The Masters golf tournament don't want him in the same county.

Tickets to this prime event were $150 each. There were still dozens of tickets available on Ebay an hour after the event. It's hard to believe that people weren't willing to pay a premium to attend batting practice. It was on TV for a lot less than 150 bucks.

It isn't that it's not entertaining, because in a strange way it is. It's that it is a spectacle with tickets and a big premium cable channel involved. The other thing that's odd is that they call it "Home Run Derby," but it's more like T-ball for grown up's. Batting practice pitchers lay in fat straight balls and hitters swing from their heels. Berman screams, "Back, back, back ..." as though it was an actual game. In the outfield, children run after the balls, and that's all fun and games until one of them is knocked unconscious by one. Then the rules will change. Wait for that to happen.

Then there are the fights in the stands over the baseballs. I suppose they fight so hard so that they can sell them on Ebay to pay for their tickets to batting practice. I'll look for those tomorrow.

What a country.