TV blackouts frustrating for baseball fans
To the editor:
I read with great interest the Sunday Review-Journal article headlined, “Decades-old blackout rules leave MLB fans in the dark.” Like many other long-time pro baseball fans and transplants to Las Vegas, I find it extremely frustrating that I cannot watch many of my favorite team’s games on television.
I tried contacting Cox Cable, I tried contacting DirecTV, I tried contacting MLB TV, and finally I even contacted the MLB commissioner’s office. Of course, I got the typical responses, including the condescending response from the commissioner’s office that they share my concern and are making every effort to rectify this situation. That was way back in 2002.
Obviously, MLB has no intention of fixing this.
Furthermore, I have come to conclude that MLB officials do not understand their sport. Watching baseball is like reading a novel. The season is long, with lots of games, but much like a great novel making little sense if you skipped all the even-numbered chapters, baseball is best if you can watch your favorite team’s season unfold game by game. Unfortunately, MLB won’t allow this due to all the games blacked out in Las Vegas.
Instead, what does baseball give us? A steady diet of big-market, hated Yankee and Red Sox games.
MLB gears the sport for the casual fan — those who watch one game a week or just tune in for the postseason. No wonder the NFL is now the national pastime!
Mike Sullivan
Henderson
Police heroes?
To the editor:
The latest incident involving a Las Vegas police officer abusing his authority by assaulting a citizen with a video camera is just another example of cops gone wild in Las Vegas. (Saturday Review-Journal). We have grown to expect the usual suspended-with-pay “punishment” for any offense while it is investigated, but what does it take for the district attorney to file charges against any police officer?
We expect no action from Sheriff Doug Gillespie, but is District Attorney David Roger deaf and blind to the illegal police conduct occurring every week?
An off-duty cop shoots up an intersection while killing a suspect. A cop assaults a citizen in his own driveway.
I expect both of them to be “honored” for heroism.
Tom Lane
Las Vegas
Language class
To the editor:
Lynnette Curtis’ Sunday article, “Learning Curve,” was thought provoking. How, indeed, do we teach all these children, mostly Spanish speakers, to speak English? In rolling that around in my mind I asked myself: How did all the millions of immigrants who came here over the years learn to speak English? How did the Italian, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Russian, Croat, Slovenian, etc., immigrants learn to speak English? I don’t recall ever hearing about a class for any of these groups.
Did I miss something?
Is it possible there is a new feeling of “entitlement” that runs through these new immigrants that was missing in the millions who came before?
I say there is. And there shouldn’t be.
What does this country owe these new immigrants? If they are legal, we owe them the opportunity to succeed. If they are illegal, we owe them nothing. If they want the benefits of being American, let them come here legally or not at all.
It is to the shame of our government, for the past 50 years at least, that it has not controlled our borders.
Am I bitter? Yes, a little. Why? Because I see our once-great country soon to be overwhelmed by foreigners, who will force their beliefs on us once they become the majority, in just three short Senate election cycles.
Most immigrants of the past had these same problems with the language. But lacking special treatment, they sucked it up and learned what they needed to in order to be called Americans.
Bill Wilderman
Las Vegas
Social Darwinism
To the editor:
In response to Vin Suprynowicz’s April 10 column, “What a real shutdown would do”: The real government hater is at it again with his hysterical diatribe.
Having regularly read Mr. Suprynowicz’s columns, I have learned what he leaves out is more important than what he puts in. He advocates privatizing the U.S. Postal Service. However, the strict constructionist of the U.S. Constitution leaves out that the existence of the post office is authorized in that document.
Mr. Suprynowicz repeatedly laments that under “ObamaCare” private health insurers may go out of business. He does not tell you currently we pay twice as much for health care as the rest of the industrialized world. Yet we rank 37th in quality. We have some 50 million uninsured, and 45,000 people die each year because of lack of coverage. I guess that doesn’t matter to Mr. Suprynowicz.
Under his Social Darwinism philosophy, if you are sick and can’t afford care, that is too bad. Just die.
Ray A. Cohn
Las Vegas
