Pro Sports- Bang for the Buck

[BrotherCadfael]

Best bang for the buck? As in best value for the money?

Minor Leage Baseball!

For under twenty bucks, all four of us can go watch the Vermont Expos (New York-Penn Leage) at Centennial Field and have change left over for snacks. The play is, shall we say, “entertaining”, and occasionally one of ours goes on to the majors (Montreal’s Orlando Cabrara is the best-known former Vermont Expo).

The Expo’s mascot, Champ (the Lake Champlain Monster), is very popular, especially with the kids. He rides around on a four-wheeler, harrases the opposing team, gets into pie fights, and generally makes himself into a lovable royal pain.

Great afternoon, and no four-hour drive home!

[Necros]

I have to put a “bang-for-the-buck” vote in for professional lacrosse. Last time I went, tickets were $12 for great seats, the action is basically non-stop for the entire game, and the amount of scoring is crazy. Score in the 20 point range are not unusual. Add that to the genuine enthusiasm of the crowds (since normal people who care about the sport can get into see the game and get good seats, unlike most pro sports), and I think you have a winning combination.

[Neurotik]

@adam yax

I never understood the “hockey is low scoring” argument. Granted, it isn’t basketball (generally speaking and the Pacers-Pistons series not withstanding) but it isn’t as low scoring as soccer (again generally). Why would a football game that is 21-14 be considered higher scoring than a 3-2 hockey game?

To expand on this a bit further, it shouldn’t even be scoring in hockey - it should be shots on goal. Even if the score is 0-1, if each time has 50 shots on goal in a period, that would make for an extremely exhilarating game.

On the other hand, the game could be 4-4 and if there have only been 5 shots on goal for each time the entire game, then that’s probably the result of New Jersey being involved. Very boring.

[zamboniracer]

@BrotherCadfael

Best bang for the buck? As in best value for the money?

Minor Leage Baseball!

For under twenty bucks, all four of us can go watch the Vermont Expos (New York-Penn Leage) at Centennial Field and have change left over for snacks. The play is, shall we say, “entertaining”, and occasionally one of ours goes on to the majors (Montreal’s Orlando Cabrara is the best-known former Vermont Expo).

The Expo’s mascot, Champ (the Lake Champlain Monster), is very popular, especially with the kids. He rides around on a four-wheeler, harrases the opposing team, gets into pie fights, and generally makes himself into a lovable royal pain.

Great afternoon, and no four-hour drive home!

Oh, you’re right, you’re right! I want to change my answer. I said baseball before, but minor league baseball is an excellant value for the money. The tickets are cheap and right next to the field and the players aren’t prima donnas and so they happily sign autographs for all the little kids who want them.

[amarinth]

Apparently, I need to get try an Aqua Sox game (seems they’re 7.50 - single A… you can, however, host a player at your house for the season…)

[Hal_Briston]

Interesting timing…today’s Wall Street Journal has a book review of The Meaning Of Sports by Michael Manelbaum, which has some bearing on this discussion:

@Fred Barnes' Wall Street Journal Book Review

As for the idea of sports mirroring society, Mr. Mandelbaum fills out the thesis in interesting ways. Baseball, he notes, is a leisurely relic of the late 19th century. It has no time clock. “Baseball belongs to the kind of world in which people did not say, `I haven’t got all day.’” It’s like hunting and fishing, requiring patience and good reflexes. Soccer, he adds, requires even more patience, for fans anyway. It’s like birdwatching, with long waits for rare, sudden flutters of meaningful action.

Football is different. It is “the sport of the machine age because football teams are like machines, with specialized moving parts that must function simultaneously.” Football has a time clock because, in the industrial world, “time has considerable value.” Baseball “accommodates nature,” but football, “in the spirit of the industrial age,” aims “to master the natural world. Football games are played nonstop in rain, sleet, hail and even snow.”

The rise of football coincides with the World War II generation. Its lingo is martial (the bomb, the blitz). Just as rural life was a fresh memory when baseball’s popularity soared, football’s golden era occurred as war was a national concern. Mr. Mandelbaum argues that when the draft ended and fewer Americans actually served in the military, football “lost one of the sources of its appeal.” Well, maybe. The game still seems to invade and capture a lot of Saturday and Sunday afternoons.