The Bocker.com

Believe it or not, the 2008 Major League Baseball Season begins today, with the Boston Red Sox playing the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Supposedly, beginning the new season in Japan is good for the sports international relations, but I personally think it trivializes the start of the baseball season during a busy time in the sports calendar.

How so? Well, for example, look at the NFL opener. Generally, its a Thursday night game, shown in prime time, featuring two of the previous season’s best teams. Everyone watches it and some even turn it into a kickoff party event.

In contrast, a baseball opening day in Japan is aired at 6:30 AM EST, meaning that at best, the fan could watch a few innings while drinking his coffee and eating his danish. And thats if he remembers to alter his morning routine and not immediately put on an AM News program to get the traffic, weather and the headlines.

Equally important is the fact that an opening day that no one will watch is covered as a non-evet by the sports media, so while the NFL opener will get 15 minutes on Sportscenter, a baseball game that no one will watch (can watch?) will get 5 minutes if MLB is lucky.

Lastly, the opener in Japan kills pomp and circumstance of a proper opening day, where a dozen or more games are going on beginning early in the afternoon and stretching deep into the night.

Thus, in reaching out to the Japanese baseball fan, MLB hurts its base stateside, as Joe Sportsfan disregards these early morning contests instead to look at previews of this weekends NCAA tournaments games.