Season's end at Pacific League TV

This is pretty much the same as last year's letter submitted when I cancelled my season viewing pass.  I hope I don't have to say the same again at the end of the 2018 season.

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I have been a subscriber to PA League TV for the 2016 and 2017 seasons and am writing to let you know how pleased I have been with your service. I hope to renew my subscription for the 2018 season. Please keep up the good work.

Here are a few changes I would like to suggest.

Allow controls at full screen. The present software removes all video controls when the full-screen option is engaged. This can be frustrating whenever there is need to pause, fast-forward, rewind, or adjust volume.

Add 10 second forward/reverse buttons. These would be a huge help in navigating through a game, most especially if we can use the forward and back buttons on the keyboard to navigate through the video.

Add condensed games. MLB VOD service offers games in four formats: Live Stream, VOD Full Game, VOD Condensed and VOD Highlight. The highlight film is similar to what you already offer at PA TV. The condensed film runs 10-15 minutes, depending on the level of action in any particular game. All of the relevant plays are shown, though not every pitch, nor every out. There is no commentary on the audio track. (Search [condensed game] at youtube for examples.)

Add a Facebook share button to video clips. At present, only a Twitter button is available. FB is by far a wider network, one which the Pacific League can use to promote its brand through attractive and interesting video clips.

Finally, bring us the Nippon Series! Those of us overseas have no access apart from illegal streams.

Thank you for your attention to this letter and thank you again for a wonderful service. My last wish is that the NPB offer a streaming service for both leagues.

Yours sincerely,

Book review: Morris, P. (2007). Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball.

Morris, P. (2007). Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Modern readers may take it for granted that the playing fields of professional baseball stadiums all look pretty much the same. It wasn’t always that way. Home field advantage once meant more than being in familiar surroundings supported by loyal fans. It could also mean knowing where the furrows were under the tall grass, or that you could safely bunt because the foul lines had been molded to keep balls in play. Such were the conditions of play at the turn of the 20th century. How we got from there to here, though the lives of two landscaping brothers, is the ostensible arc of Morris’ book. It sounds inviting, and offers quite a lot of detail of interest, but in the end is a history that reveals how little we actually know.

Morris is something of a prolific baseball researcher and writer, with five other books to his name, most published in the first decade of the 2000s. His directness and clarity make for easy reading. Unfortunately, his subject is not well represented in the literature and Morris is repeatedly left to speculating, both on his subjects, and on many causes of changes to landscaping practices.

Book Review: Reaves, J. (2002). Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia.

Reaves, J. (2002). Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Although a bit old by now, this is still the only English book-length treatment of the history of baseball in Asia.  A number of anthologies, such as Baseball Without Borders or Diamonds Around the Globe, cover the development of baseball within the national borders of single countries, including most of those reviewed here, but none of them cover Asia as a region.  Unfortunately, Reaves does not either.  It seems he tires, but for whatever reason – demands of the publisher, requirements of his thesis adviser, or difficulty in conceptualizing the approach – he falls back on a country-by-country review. The manuscript began life as a PhD thesis in Philosophy, a field not known for engaging with sport. Those disinterested in or averse to discussions on the nature of existence, knowledge, or ethics need not worry; there is nothing of this in Reaves’ book (suggesting the University of Hong Kong has a rather broad conception of philosophy).