Paul Meyer mailbag

Paul Meyer is back this week with another mailbag.

Two threads I'd recommend. First, on the quality of the play-by-play and color commentary Pirate fans get. What do you want? Second, on the curse of playing so many games in the Central time zone. (Don't get me started on the night games on the West Coast.) As Bob Dvorchak writes up in another article, the games are getting longer. More and more I find that I can only catch the first few innings of a game. More and more the idea that I'll listen to or watch a whole game, start to finish, is not coming into my head with the first pitch. That's not right.

The league could especially pay more attention to the east coast fans who easily lose track or forget about their team when it goes on a nine-game west coast road-trip. If the Pirates have to play a lot in San Diego, let them start half the games at noon pacific time. Baseball became the national pastime by coming on the radio every day. And baseball is most satisfying when it's part of a daily routine. It's hard to get interested in the team if you can only see or hear one Sunday game per week. This isn't football. Only catching one game a week is like reading every sixth chapter in a novel. No one does that.

If more games were ending while people were coming home from work in the evening rush hour, teams like the Pirates would have more fans who were excited to buy tickets. If the game is going to be three or four hours long, it can't start at 10pm if the league expects to build or hold a following among children, parents, and people who go to work pretty early every morning.