Yankee Stadium deconstruction update, UConn football, and pervasive ads during Yankees radio broadcasts

H/T to Tom Kaminski of Chopper 880 for these aerial photos of the obviously-behind-schedule deconstruction of Yankee Stadium. Judging by the growth of moss and weeds, and the overgrowth of existing vegetation, the deconstruction process is going slowly, and probably more slowly than it should.

Honestly, watching construction crews tear apart our beloved Yankee Stadium is hard enough. Nobody (outside of New England) wants to see it crumble piece by piece. Watching it become overgrown with weeds like some vacant parking lot, and then destroyed, is even more excruciating. Thanks, Hank and Hal, for managing to screw this up, thereby making a depressing process even more depressing.






In other news, a preseason Big East poll ranked UConn football 6th in the Big East. Only Louisville and Syracuse trail the Huskies. Syracuse, a shell of the program it once was, is no surprise. Louisville is just sad. One or two years ago, Brian Brohm made the Cardinals a national title contender. Or at least the cream of the crop in the Big East, alongside WestVa. Now they're scraping the bottom of the conference. Too bad their recruiting slipped a few notches.

As for UConn, I am trying to not to take offense to this ranking. But it's hard not to be frustrated. UConn has been ranked in the national Top-25 in each of the last two seasons, peaking at No. 13 in the BCS rankings. Last season, UConn finished 8-5 and beat up on Buffalo, 38-20, to win the International Bowl. UConn also pumped a lot of players into the first 2 rounds of the 2009 NFL draft, including Donald Brown in the first round (to the Colts) and Darius Butler in the second round with the 41st pick. In fact, since 4 UConn players were selected in the first 2 rounds, after the first day of the draft only USC sent more players to the NFL than UConn.

Thus, despite the increased talent coming from UConn, the Huskies still get no respect. Maybe that will change in the near future. This season, UConn will travel to South Bend to play Notre Dame (!) and will start the 2010 season by playing Michigan at the Big House (!!), with Michigan making the return trip to play UConn at Rentschler Field in 2013 (!!!). Critics will say that ND and UMich are lining up UConn as early-season cupcake wins, but I don't buy it. Early-season cupcakes are usually Rhode Island, Kent State, and Appalachian State (whoops). Michigan coming to play UConn in East Hartford means that UConn is being taken seriously (can you imagine Michigan making the return trip to App State?).

With all of this apparent respect for UConn, why are they ranked 6th in the conference? Have Rutgers, South Florida, and West Virginia just gotten that much better? Or maybe the media believe that UConn graduated too many of its playmakers (i.e., Donald Brown, DJ Hernandez, Cody Brown, Darius Butler). Regardless, the Huskies will be playing with a giant chip on their shoulder this season. Randy Edsall, be prepared to earn those games at ND and Michigan.

One last link for you. A month ago, I wrote about how in-game radio ads during baseball broadcasts are overwhelming and bothersome. Andrew commented that he is more bothered by the in-game ads (such as the PC Richard "whistle" after every K) than the radio ads. But wouldn't you know, the Hartford Courant decided to print an article examining just how pervasive these radio ads have become. In fact, one baseball historian (Curt Smith) declared that radio ads during a baseball game is "...hawking, vending, prostitution. It doesn't fit. It's terribly forced. ... To me, it's just obscene."

I couldn't agree more. Granted, WCBS needs to generate a lot of ad revenue, as the article notes that the station paid $70 million to broadcast Yankees games for five years (through 2011). But perhaps the best comment is the last line of the article, again by Curt Smith:

"...while Smith is irked by the prevalence of commercials on radio broadcasts throughout the country, he is particularly disgusted by the Yankees. Smith argues that broadcasters dropping ads amid the flow of the game sends one message to listeners.

"Everything is for sale," Smith said. "It is reminiscent to Heidi Fleiss. ...The New York Yankees, arguably the most marquee team in the world, resorts to this? It's a shame."

So much in the game of baseball has become a business decision. It's all about P&L and opportunities to extract an ever-expanding marginal revenue from things that never used to be about generating profits (such as radio broadcasts). There are certainly some realities that didn't exist before and are important now (such as how to finance a $200 million payroll or afford a $1.5 billion stadium) but I just miss the days of listening to a baseball game and hearing little else but the description of the players and the game. Don't you also wish you could listen to John Sterling's baritone play-by-play and Suzyn Waldman's shrill, often-nonsensical comments without hearing about Geico (15th pitch of the game), RoadRunner high-speed internet (speed of the pitch), and the Land Rover "Drive of the Game"? I sure do.