All posts by Matthew Callan

Baseball

Bud Selig Knows Drama

I am seriously thinking about expanding the playoffs for next season and adding a wild card play-in game. Because when you have two teams battling for the last postseason berth, that makes for drama, and drama makes for big ratings. That’s why all of TV’s top rated shows are dramas. House. Gray’s Anatomy. The other one. You know, the one with the lawyer? Or lawyers? I dunno, the wife seems to like it.

But I’m not restricting these moves to the postseason. The regular season will have more drama as well. Once a week, we’ll pick a random superstar and mail him a letter taped together from newspaper clippings that says unless he has an absolutely monster game, he’ll never see his family alive again. Think the players will assume we’re bluffing? Would you want to take that chance?

Of course, we expect the same type of threat would lose its effectiveness when used repeatedly. So we’ll have other ones up our sleeve as well. Maybe dangle a player’s first born child over a cliff in an old Buick, just inches away from teetering over the edge. Maybe we’ll set his house ablaze, with the fire department just waiting to put it out as soon as he hits for the cycle. Maybe we’ll hire ninjas. Maybe we already have. Maybe there’s one in Adrian Gonzalez’s apartment right now. Not saying there is, not saying there isn’t.

We plan to roll this program out slowly, in stages, to acclimate players to this new environment. In spring training of 2012, we’ll start by threatening players’ possessions, like their cars and award trophies. Then we’ll work up to more severe things like sending threatening notes to their parents and hacking into their email accounts. By season’s end, each player will think he’s starring in his own personal version of The Game, which is easily the best Michael Douglas movie he ever made.

However, I want reassure everyone that just because we’re going to severely alter the way baseball in played by constantly threatening all that its players hold most dear, that does not mean we have any plans to make any truly drastic adjustments like instituting wider replay. I feel this would irreparably harm one of baseball’s most treasured features, the human factor. We must leave the sport’s most basic decisions up to humans, flawed though they may be. Like, does a player want to see his children eaten by fire ants? If not, maybe he’ll throw a complete game one-hitter.

Sports

Make This Show, America

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America has no shortage of TV shows based on British templates. American Idol is the biggest example, and virtually every The Next Top Fill-in-the-Blank program has been stamped from this mold. However, I think we have room for another one. In fact, I can’t believe this show has not yet been adapted for Stateside viewing.

It originates from Sky Sports, the English satellite station that broadcasts a wide array of athletic endeavors to the British public. (The last time I was in England, I took in their thrilling coverage of Premier League Darts.) But soccer–excuse me, football–is obviously the biggest draw. Among their many football-centric programs is Fan Zone, a show that demonstrates that Slob Culture is not only alive in the UK, but thriving. It consists of footage of two fans (one from each team) watching a match, talking smack to one another and commenting on the action.

That’s it? you ask. Yes, that’s it, but watch this clip from a Liverpool-Arsenal match and tell me if you need any more than this. (And before you ask, no, the Arsenal fan is not Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil.)

Or how about this collection of insanity from an Arsenal-Tottenham match?

Amazing. The entire array of human emotions in under three minutes. Heartbreak. Sorrow. Joy. Taunting. Shirtlessness. This is drama, people.

The show is occasionally broadcast here on Fox Soccer Channel as Premier League Fan Zone. But can you imagine if this show was adapted for American sports? Just picture the delicious, hilarious taunting that could go on between fans of rival (American) football teams. And not that this rivalry needs any more exposure, but imagine a Yankees fan and a Red Sox fan locked in a room and forced to yell at each other. It’s the only thing that could make a four-hour-plus AL East game in April tolerable.

Truth be told, I don’t know if American sports like baseball and football could work as well in this format as soccer. Our games are very stop-start, whereas soccer has sustained tension, since the clock never stops and scoring is at a premium. Also, I have a feeling that an American version would inevitably have more violence. And weapons. And fire.

Still, that’s no reason why we can’t try. And if European soccer–a sport that results in actual fan deaths with disturbing regularity–can abide a show like this, surely American sports can. Get on the stick, Hollywood development types. Lift your noses from a mound of coke and hammer out a deal memo on this concept pronto. You can thank me with a producer’s credit later.

This Wacky World!

Royal Wedding Facts!

  • Beamed across the globe via satellite to over 2 billion people, the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton will be the most watched thing nobody really gives a shit about in television history.
  • Using over 700 precious stones, such as rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, Kate’s gilded cage will be the most extravagant ever built.
  • The bride-to-be will be attended to by six hairdressers, which is easily the least ridiculous item of this whole affair.
  • The royal family assures the British public that Kate will be wearing white on her wedding day. In other news, it’s the 21st century and some people are still concerned about this.
  • Queen Elizabeth’s gift to the young couple will be her unspoken but stern and crushing disapproval of everything they do.
  • The royal wedding could cost the British government close to £100 million. To put that in perspective, holy fuck.
  • Per tradition, the Middleton family will be expected to pick up the tab on certain items, such as the wedding cake, Kate’s dress, and funeral costs for any commoners trampled by overzealous royal guards.
  • Though he has publicly insisted he will not take advantage of this right, Prince William is still permitted by British law to behead his new bride if his wedding night proves displeasing.
  • A contingent of former colonies will attend the royal wedding, each bearing a representative blight the British Empire’s rule bequeathed to them.
  • Among the performers at this lavish event will be the Soot-Covered Dickensian Street Urchins, who will stomp around in charming squalor while singing “Consider Yourself,” and Benita Hill, England’s premier Benny Hill/female impersonator.
  • Luminaries invited to the wedding but who disapprove of the lavish spending in this economy will be seated in a special sneering section.
  • Once married, Kate will become the Princess of Skye or the Duchess of Cardiff or the Lord Mayor of Burwick-on-Tweed or some other fucking thing, I don’t know.