The Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners opened the 2012 Major League Baseball season with a two game series at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. The teams split a pair of games that featured strong pitching and some solid offense from great young players like Yoenis Cespedes and Dustin Ackley.
The two teams are now traveling back to the United States, where they will immediately return to their regular exhibition schedules. This means the A's will travel to their minor league affiliate in Sacramento on Saturday, followed by their annual three-game exhibition series next week against the Giants. The Mariners will actually head back to Arizona for five more games before heading to Oakland to re-start the season.
It is safe to say, MLB has ruined Opening Day.
Dan Rubenstein and Matt Ufford took some time on "The Floor" to chat about MLB's rather embarrassing execution of Opening Day. The first game was was aired via tape delay on MLB Network, and for those looking to watch on MLB.TV, the game was blacked out in the Bay Area. So, if you were an Oakland A's fan who stayed up until 3:10am to catch the first A's game of the year, you were S.O.L.
MLB wised up and got the second game on MLB Network everywhere, but the damage had already been done. Opening Day is arguably the most anticipated day of the baseball season. Add in an early morning start for the fans and it is that much bigger of a problem.
The A's will return to Oakland a week from Friday for their American home opener, so there is always that for fans. But that does not make up for the piss-poor execution by MLB thus far. Add in the continually ridiculous blackout rules MLB employees and it remains somewhat amazing they haven't figured out a way to go out of business.
