THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mallpark

To some, baseball speaks to us immediately.  To most others, it’s an acquired taste.  And hence, the idea of a mallpark.

Here’s what TCM realized. Visiting Bernie’s Clubhouse, and all the other distractions the mallpark offers, and missing a little bit of baseball now is a long-term investment in the game. The Boy doesn’t really get the game, and while he’s quick to tell others that “Joe Mauer is my friend,” he’s only in it because his dad likes it so much. If The Common Man ripped him away from the jungle gym, or forced him to sit still for all nine innings, The Boy would hate to go to the ballpark. He’d come to see going there as a chore. And TCM would have no luck enticing him to go when he’s 8, 10, 13, or 17 years old. This is a long-term strategy, getting The Boy to love baseball while thinking that it’s actually his own idea. Someday he will be able to sit through a whole game, and by then he will want to. Because going to the ballpark, any ballpark, with dad is fun in and of itself.

This is where a park like Wrigley fails. With no distractions for the kids, and no roof to keep out the elements, Wrigley simply is not a place where The Boy, or any other small child, would have fun. Don’t get TCM wrong, Wrigley’s still a great park, but it’s great for different reasons, and a different audience than Miller Park is.  The Common Man would never, ever bring his son there until he was much, much older.

By the time the 9th inning rolled around, TCM was sold. All three of us left our seats in the top of the inning and made our way downstairs so The Boy could wait in the massive line to run the bases. The actual bases. On the field. We could barely see what was going on in the game, but after John Axford struck out Carlos Lee to end it, and The Boy got one more dose of fireworks/Bernie Brewer sliding, he got to the best part of his day. He got to go down on the field and run around with a bunch of other kids. He got to touch each base, and was careful to make sure he stepped on home (Larry, out of habit, timed him at 47 seconds from home to home). He got to pretend he was Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks. And he got to see where they stood in the on deck circle and where they sat in the dugout. He was ecstatic.

I do something.... underhanded, I guess at my home.  We have a time limit on TV, but it doesn’t apply to “family time”, and that basically means hockey and baseball.  So, my kid has a choice: go to bed, or watch the 2nd period of the NHL playoffs with dad.  He does not choose the bed.  My kid did not take to hockey (or baseball) the way I did as a kid.  Which is fine of course.  But, I figure just keeping him exposed, and doing it based on his decision to do so, is the best way to get him hooked.  Same as with the above clip, where the kid is choosing to go to the park, not to watch baseball necessarily, but to have fun.

Fun above inertia.

UPDATE:  And here’s another mallpark idea, though it seemed to be one-time only:

Glove-slap: Carl.