Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Several teams contemplate a franchise shift


Now, the title is a joke. There is absolutely no evidence or proof that the Pirates, A's, or Nationals want to shift their franchise out of their current location. The ficitional destination would be Japan, as the Japanese really seem to be into their baseball. They have just completed the 81st High School Invitational Tournament:
Seiho of Nagasaki Prefecture won the 81st Japan's High School Invitational Championship by defeating Miyagi's Rifu 1-0 at the Hanshin Koshien Stadium on
April 2.
It seems that high school ball in Japan is pretty popular:
32 high school teams throughout Japan joined the 12 day tournament, which attracted total 430,000 fans, averaging 36,000 per day.
The attendance at high school games has led to the fictional premise that one of the above listed franchises might want to locate to Japan, in order to increase attendance at major league games.

Of course, sadly, the Japanese will also require that those franchises actually play major league baseball.

Sure, that's just a lame joke aimed at some franchises who aren't pulling in that many fans. But the same major league fans who complained about the Classic are the same ones failing to support major league teams. Meanwhile, the Japanese, 2-time winners of the classic, can draw over 36,000 for high school games. Is there any wonder the United States just doesn't take it's own product seriously anymore.

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