The game is okay. You don't end up with two Quad-A rosters in a single regular season game if teams are "flexed" into it during the season. Having two teams that have chosen to be dog ass to increase profits is the best way to show baseball in 2022.
It's a cool visual, and this year seemed to get a little farther away from the movie itself and more to celebrate what the movie was supposed to really accentuate. Baseball is ingrained in the culture as well as any other sport. Having the Griffeys out there is a step up from Kevin Costner wandering aimlessly around the field trying to remember if he was in this movie or not.
Baseball needs to do a better job of embracing how not cool it is, how it will always stick out from what is popular, and how it is the antithesis of our short attention span culture. Baseball isn't cool and it probably will never be, despite the fact that there are some cool things within the game. That is fine. The Field of Dreams game feels like them leaning into it. I don't think the movie is good. Being a dork is worth something.
Even though it didn't look like Harry at all, the whole hologram thing is a cheap grab and everyone will talk about it. Are you talking about nostalgia? Ian Malcolm once said, "You were so focused on whether or not you could if you could, you didn't stop to think if you should." The Cubs have been playing a video of Harry leading the stretch for a long time, and it was more effective than anything else.
Cubs fans will tell you that Harry doesn't sing the entire thing in a loud blazer. He's in a short-sleeve shirt, sweating profusely, and usually sweating out whatever he was imbibing until 5 a.m., swinging his mic from side to side to conduct. It would happen. We should put a hologram of Harry on Rush St. when he gets let in and everyone else is kicked out.
I will leave with my favorite Harry tale. My father worked in advertising for a long time here in town, and once recorded a radio spot with Harry, who was broadcasting the White Sox. It was pouring through the morning into the afternoon when they were supposed to record his voice over. The game wouldn't be played. As soon as he was done with this spot, Harry could go to the bars.
Being a pro, Harry gave my father and the producers a more than acceptable read, maybe even twice, and as soon as he was done, he turned to my father and said, "Hey George was that good enough I can't do it again." As Harry bolted out of the booth and out to his car, there was a Caray-shaped cloud in the booth.
I would love to see a hologram of Harry.
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