Mid-June: the best time of the sports year?

June 12, 2010 By 8 Comments
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Maybe here in 2010, it is.

While many such as myself have always fancied October the best month of the sports year (baseball playoffs, football, hockey, hoops about to begin, crisp weather, etc), let’s take a look at right now and what is making mid-June such a great time to be a sports fan:

Hockey

Just finished another exciting playoffs, and for the second consecutive year, a stellar final between two AMERICAN teams from cities who love their hockey. Not bad at all for a sport trying to regain interest after a rough past decade.

lakers-celtrics-fisher-rondoHoops

Though it has honestly been a subpar playoffs, we do have the two most storied franchises playing for the title — as ESPN reminds us every 150 seconds. And so despite the NBA’s abysmal and inexcusable lack of parity (far worse than baseball), this is the best finals possible.

And with David Stern and the networks teaming up to ensure this series goes six or seven games (being facetious here, but who really knows?), we’re in for a fun last few days of a long, long season that began eight months ago.

College baseball

Still undoubtedly lacking the luster of amateur football and basketball, the sport is as popular as ever. Even the MLB Draft – due to so many good players now choosing college to polish their skills — is on television and gets publicity.

As for the games themselves, ESPN used to just broadcast the College World Series, but now every super regional game is on this weekend and crowds are huge. The CWS in Omaha — where I’ve attended twice – is one of the best sporting events in America in every respect. Enjoy it.

MLB

If the 2010 debuts of young stars like Stephen Strasburg, Mike Stanton, Jason Heyward, Mike Leake, Buster Posey, Jaime Garcia, Starlin Castro, Ike Davis, Jose Tabata and Neil Walker, sophomore season for phenoms David Price , Ricky Romero , Tommy Hanson , Andrew McCutchen and big Jeff Niemann, plus eventually Pedro Alvarez and Aroldis Chapman, are not enough for you’all, then how about the fact that Major League Baseball is as competitive as ever?

Right now five of the six divisions see nothing more than one and a half games separating first and second place — to say nothing of the fact that FOUR small market clubs like Tampa, Texas, Cincinnati and San Diego, are in first place. (Minnesota, with the biggest division lead in baseball, was also considered small market until this season.)

Bash Bud Selig all you want, but I maintain we are indeed in something of a “golden era” of baseball again: young stars, great races, but more importantly, attendance and fan interest are as high as they’ve been in years.

That inner-city populations (who are actually playing more than they have in decades thanks to the successful RBI program) and some small town folks in the south and plains may ignore baseball — and instead watch football and NASCAR —  is more than offset by the intense interest of the older generations and a preponderance of every demographic of people in places like Chicago, Saint Louis, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, southern California and the Bay Area. As someone who travels incessantly, I can confirm that in those locales it is essentially all baseball, all the time, from now through the fall.

clint-dempsey-usaWorld Cup

OK, so most of us find “football” dull, but, like the Olympics, it’s only once every four years.

I don’t care that “the world loves it” or enjoy the theatrical flamboyance of the players, but I do want to see the USA do very well. And though I won’t be able to watch most of these “matches,” I am interested in following how certain nations do and how it all turns out.

I will try to avoid ESPN’s hideously annoying commercials and their endless hype for a sport they’ll ignore again from mid-July 2010 until late May 2014.

Golf

If an individual sport is more your cup of tea, you cannot do much better than arguably the world’s biggest golf tournament (the U.S. Open) played on one of the most historic, picturesque and difficult courses in America (Pebble Beach), June 17-20.

College conference realignment

See, there is something for everyone this summer. If you’re really bored of all the above, watch the dissolving of the venerable Big 12 conference over the next few weeks. It is surely, in sports terms, redolent of the breakup of the Soviet Union about 20 years ago.

Living in central Indiana, where basketball and football are king, many talk radio callers and hosts bemoan that we’re in the doldrums of the sports year, “just waiting for the Colts to open training camp in late July” or something. As someone who does not list the NFL as his favorite sport, I disagree wholeheartedly. But moreover, as you can see from the list above, I can back that up with a laundry list of all the excellent events going on — at least for another four to six weeks.

Filed Under: CFB, Golf, MLB, NBA, NHL Tagged With: best time of sports year, lakers-celtics, World Cup
About AJ Kaufman

AJ Kaufman is the co-editor of Midwest Sports Fans, where he has been a columnist since March 2009. AJ, a former Los Angeles schoolteacher and Indiana military historian, is now a corporate journalist, compiling publications for organizations across the country. He is a supporter of anything baseball-related -- especially minor league ball -- and mid-major college hoops. The author of three books, AJ is married to Maria and currently lives in Lincoln, Neb.

Follow him on Twitter (@ajkauf7) for ruminations on sports, politics, history and travel.

  • ron

    i agree, good article

  • tim

    Ditto. Fine piece.

  • Greg

    Good article, but I can't stand baseball (the old 'its a cerebral game' has eventually got to die because 'Joe-six-pack' can figure out the supposedly 'cerebral' part of the game in a few games. Its not cerebral, just boring, an excuse for the rich to go sit outside for a few hours. The rules change each game as the strike zone is determined by the whims of the home plate umpire. Parity exists because almost all the teams are vastly different each year. And, although soccer is a big sport outside the USA resulting in riots and deaths, soccer is more boring than baseball and golf combined. Did you see the second half between the USA and England? The biggest suspense was when time would actually expire.

  • AJ Kaufman

    "Its not cerebral, just boring, an excuse for the rich to go sit outside for a few hours"

    Um, NBA and especially NFL tickets cost 5 times a baseball seat. And yes, I know there are few fewer games in those sports, but the baseball crowd is NOT rich. There are also more thugs in theose sports, which I do not like. Baseball is far from boring if you appreciate the game. I never think of the 'cerebral side' of baseball; it is just a better, purer game. There is never a bad day at the ballpark. I would not take my children to most NFL stadia.

  • AJ Kaufman

    Allow me to follow up again on the hilarious and overused "baseball is boring" cliche by pointing out the fact that a typical NFL game has maybe 10 minutes of "action." Yes, in simplest terms, there about 100 plays in an NFL game, which last an average of six seconds each for a total of 600 second (or 10 minutes). The rest of the time is in between plays, commercials, or dead time with endless reviews, etc. Especially if you're at the game, I feel sorry for you. Aside from all the drunks ands crazies who don't actually care about the outcome but rather how much money and energy they can save up all week to spend on tickets and alcohol for Sunday's nonstop party, the NFL does little, if anything, to entertain its fans during ther five or 6 five minute stoppages per quarter. Facts are facts.

    As for baseball, see next comment:

  • AJ Kaufman

    … this from a friend last year, replying to the same inane anti-baseball rationale:____"Let's look at the recently completed Cubs game as an example. In that game, which lasted two hours and 35 minutes, a total of 271 pitches were thrown. In other words, there were 271 plays. That equates to a play every 34 seconds. There were 20 base runners during the course of the game and eight of them reached home to score. Much of the action you describe, the "glaring at the runner," "flinging the ball to first base," the pitch calling by the catcher ,is exactly what provides the tension. ____"Each movement by the pitcher, while a runner is on base is purposeful, calculated to throw off the runner's timing, the batter's timing, or to deceive the batter as to which pitch he is about to throw. The runner, at the same time, is trying to get into the pitcher's head, to make him think he's going to run or not to run, to try to force an error, or to cause the pitcher to rush or compromise his delivery. The batter, meanwhile, is just praying like hell that he doesn't strike out in front of his girlfriend."

  • bijon

    great article. I love sports and especially with baseball, golf and World Cup on all simultaneously!

  • NS7

    How can you not mention WIMBLEDON!!!