Baseball traditions vanishing

Sunday night, Major League Baseball will begin its earliest season.

As a sign of the times, the earliest start is dictated by television. ESPN has the rights to the opener.

Another sign of the tradition gone, the Cincinnati Reds will not be involved in the first game. Instead, two media favorites, Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas, will be in the camera’s eye.

The season will begin uninterrupted by labor stoppages. A new agreement for MLB is at hand. The owners have agreed among themselves on a revenue-sharing plan, with only the Mets voting against it.

This agreement has averted the broadcast snafu, backing small-market owners off their threat not to allow visiting teams to broadcast games.

Are the effects of last year’s strike over? Spring training attendance has been sporadic. The Yankees packed them in at their new training site in Tampa, while the Royals and Expos, and even Atlanta, have had disappointing numbers. Spring training locations are being changed as often as teams are requesting new major league parks.

The new training sites are not fan friendly. The access to players is severely reduced when compared to older sites such as the Dodgers’ Vero Beach “Dodger Town.”

Also, fans know that for the first two weeks of spring games, the starts will be seldom seen. Yet, the ticket prices are the same for week one as for week four. Tickets of $12 and $15 to watch players never heard of is too much and clearly has reduced spring attendance.

The sour flavor of last year’s shortened schedule lingers not so much as anger, but as a resignation by fans that they are being used. Winning teams draw, as will loyalist centers like Boston, but the Expos of the world will struggle even with revenue sharing.

Fox Network’s Saturday afternoon games will be an attempt to rejuvenate the old NBC drawing card. However, the circumstances are dramatically different. NBC’s telecast was one of very few broadcast games back in the 1950s and ’60s. Now, there seem to be games on every minute of every day.

There’s one direct TV package available that will provide 1,000 games.

Fox wants to attract young viewers. It will “hip hop” the broadcasts, and, as all TV producers of sports now do, they will push individual stars as their sales. Because they have exclusive rights on Saturday afternoons, beginning June 1, and will broadcast four games to different regions, they have a shot at acceptable ratings.

However, the day anyone planned to stay home on a summer Saturday afternoon to watch a game is long gone.

There will be real grass for Cardinal games, real excitement for Seattle games (see below) and real uppercuts at Fenway Park by the Boston Bashers – Kevin Mitchell and Jose Canseco. Joe Torre will get ulcers and a pink slip trying to manage the Yankees, Cal Ripken Jr. will play every game and Tony Gwynn will have the majors’ best batting average.

Ray Knight and Marge Schott will have a rip-roaring shouting match in Cincinnati; Barry Bonds will be baseball’s Dennis Rodman and Seattle’s not for real. Baltimore, California, Houston and San Diego will surprise. The White Sox, Texas, Colorado and Cincinnati will disappoint. The Red Sox: oh, well. Atlanta and Clevelend meet next fall, concluding with a parade passing the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

Should you choose to accept this season, this writer will deny any knowledge of previous predictions. This column will self-destruct 30 seconds after you set it on the table. Poof!