First of all, I’d like to welcome all the new readers to the Long Game. It looks like we’ve had about a thousand (!) new souls join our community in the past 48 hours, and I’m so grateful you are giving this space a chance. We talk baseball and mental health here, and we have a good time. We nerd out every week in our Sunday Night Baseball discussions, and I think (hope!) you will find it’s one of the few places on the Internet where you can cheer for your team and have intelligent conversations with rival fans without having to wade through barrages of filth like on Twitter or Reddit.
When I started this newsletter, I hoped to create a space for civil and smart baseball discussion amongst passionate fans, and you guys have helped create a space that has exceeded my wildest expectations. So to the people who have been with me from the beginning; thank you! You have my heart. And to the newbies: We are so happy to have you join us, and I’m so excited to see what you all add to this already great community!
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Ok, now that I’ve said hi to you all, let’s get to the goods! I made the two-hour trek from Los Angeles to Anaheim to watch Shohei Ohtani’s home pitching debut this season so you didn’t have to! It continues to be hilarious that Angels owner Arte Moreno is the only person on Earth who thinks Anaheim is in Los Angeles. Here was my commute to the Big A from West Hollywood.
And for those of you who are blessed to live in cities with functional public transportation, here is what taking the bus to the Metro would have looked like:
I am showing you these maps not because I want you to feel sorry for my brutal commute, but to emphasize that the best baseball player in the world does NOT play in Los Angeles, despite the fact that he wears the city’s name across his chest.
This distinction matters because if he WERE playing in Los Angeles, for the Dodgers, he would have pitched in front of a sold-out crowd of 54,000 people in his home season debut. How do I know this? Well, I saw Ohtani pitch two days ago, on a Tuesday night. The previous Tuesday night I was at Dodger Stadium, along with 53,999 people watching the Dodgers play the lowly Rockies.
In April.
It was not Opening Day. There was a sweatshirt giveaway, but whatever. The Dodgers have so far averaged 49,163 fans through the season’s first six home games, 8,000 more than the next-highest average (St. Louis).
Shohei Ohtani is fresh off a World Baseball Classic in which he demonstrated that he is, without question, the best baseball player on the planet. But it’s deeper than that. I do not think it’s hyperbole to call Ohtani one of the most exciting baseball players who has ever lived. He is one of the game’s best pitchers and also one of its best hitters. He defies the laws of physics. He is Michael Jordan on grass.
And for now, he is stuck playing in Anaheim, which is an international emergency.
Only 27,390 people showed up to watch his 2023 season debut. That’s literally half the number of people who showed up to watch the Dodgers play the Rockies a week earlier. Half!
There were some positives to the pathetic crowd, however.
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