A whole flock of Mets fans should be rolling over in their recliners right about now, irate that Major League Baseball has spirited away Noah Syndergaard to the mysterious netherworld of social media.
Watching Thor and his 100-mph hammer has become all but appointment TV for Mets fans, especially now that interest in the hard-throwing right-hander has peaked in his comeback year from a torn lat muscle. But MLB, in a never-ending quest to draw newer, younger fans -- you know, the ones who have replaced talking with texting as a way of life -- while leaving their older base hanging with their landlines, has worked an exclusive deal to live-stream Syndergaard’s 1 p.m. Citi Field start against the Phillies Wednesday on Facebook.
No SNY. No local network coverage on cable or satellite. No Gary Cohen, Ron Darling or Keith Hernandez calling the game.
Just a vanilla MLB crew of Scott Braun, Cliff Floyd, John Kruk and Alexa Datt on Facebook. Some new-fangled thing called Facebook Watch, to be exact.
MORE: Schwei's Mets Notes: Pitchers Break Franchise 3-Game Strikeout Record
Not good.
Just when the old folks were growing accustomed to the intricacies of the cable and satellite systems, MLB goes and throws a curve at them. Not only has it put a game on a social media platform that so many over 35 have little interest in using, but it stuck it on one whose recent leaky history includes a mass hack of user information and an invasion of Vladimir Putin’s bots that spread manure around the presidential election.
Overlooking for the moment those unsettling flaws of Mark Zuckerberg's baby, the only truly new thing about this is the exclusivity factor. Twitter streamed a 10-game NFL Thursday night package two years ago, only to get outbid by Amazon last year. And Facebook worked a deal with cable’s Univision to stream a number of Major League Soccer games.
The difference between those deals and what’s happening Wednesday is that fans had a choice. There was always a TV network to flick on and watch. With this, if one doesn’t have a smart TV or is hesitant about potentially sharing details of on-and-off relationships and shaky financial situations with the world by opening a Facebook account even for a day, he or she will have to read about Syndergaard’s latest start.
MORE: Mets Place Anthony Swarzak On DL, Recall Hansel Robles
Admittedly, that's not the worst thing in the world. And if all this just stopped with the Mets’ game Wednesday, it could simply be viewed as an experiment with a new medium. But MLB has partnered up with Facebook for 25 of these Wednesday and Thursday afternoon games over the season. The Mets won’t be involved in any of the other upcoming games in April, and the Yanks have managed to stay out of it completely for the time being.
However, the rest of the nation’s fans will eventually suffer the same fate as our local legion. If Arizona or St. Louis or Kansas City or Toronto fans -- or whichever city comes to mind -- choose not to place themselves in front of a desktop computer, tablet or smartphone, or have no idea how to hook into a smart TV, they’re out of luck.
The hope here is that this whole gambit fails miserably.
This is not an anti-millenial bias, by the way. It goes beyond the ravings of this aging technosaurus.
It goes to preserving a fast-fading culture of togetherness.
There is something about watching a game on television. Local announcers become like family, their familiar voices and moods bringing a certain comfort level to the viewing experience. And that doesn’t account for the presence of other friends and family members who might gather around the tube for the communal experience of watching a game. In another era, the ballpark was the place for that. Pack a lunch, pile into the car and head out to the cheap seats. But admission prices being what they are, the living room TV has replaced that.
Computers? Smartphones? Tablets? We see where all that has taken us. Social isolation. The eyes of the young remain riveted on the devices, their voices replaced by the constant tap, tap, tapping of the thumbs.
Watching a game like that, in a sensory desert, well, there’s a sadness to it. Through their exclusive deal, MLB and Facebook have fed into that while leaving behind an older generation that sees the small screens not as evolved lifestyles but as necessary evils.
MLB and Facebook will make a whole segment of Mets fans wait to reconnect with Syndergaard. While a one-game deprivation may not seem a big deal, it could become one if this indeed starts a future wave.
And that just wouldn’t be fair.