Controversy swirls around claims that the Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets last night to win the World Series. Despite repeated reports from Major League Baseball, many internationally recognized celebrities either claimed no knowledge of the game or said that the game was not an actual world series.
23 year old international Bolshoi ballet prodigy, Olga Smirnova, currently in New York while starring in George Balanchine's "Jewels", when asked by reporters about the game replied "sorry, I know nothing of World Series" before getting into a car outside her hotel. Several of her fans also expressed complete disinterest. 16 year old Evangeline Michaud, visiting from Quebec, said "I love Olga and ballet, and I hate baseball".
27 year old Miss Universe 2013, Gabriela Isler, also a popular local TV host, explained that in her native Venezuela football is more popular than baseball. Reached early in the morning by phone in Maracay, she said, "I like baseball, but I thought the World Classic was won by the Dominican Republic back in March. Are you really still playing baseball in the US?"
When confronted with these reports of dismissal and disbelief of the World Series from extremely attractive, popular and world renowned women, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made the following statement.
MLB has great respect for both these talented women, but the truth is that after a long and exciting season the Kansas City Royals did win in overtime against the New York Mets by 7-2 last night at Citi Field in front of 45,000 fans and that the game was broadcast live across the country.
In order to get independent confirmation of the commissioner's claims, we conducted a quick survey of Californians at 3 am last night, but
we failed to find any people who had actually seen the game. 60% refused to answer any questions at all, 20% claimed not to have heard anything about it, and the other person didn't answer.
Asked to respond to our survey results, Mr Manfred said, "I don't know where you are getting your information that the game didn't happen, but I'm telling you that it did. It's ridiculous to suggest that it didn't happen and that we just made it up."
Later, at a MLB news conference, our reporter pressed the commissioner to explain reports that Takaaki Kajita, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Physics and long time Yomiuri Giants fan, had actually been to game 5 last Thursday between the SoftBank Hawks and the Yakult Swallows. I asked the commissioner "are you saying that Dr Kajita is wrong and that you are smarter than he is?"
Evidently frustrated, Mr Manfred responded.
"I can't believe you are even asking these questions. Look, there are many different leagues around the world, but MLB has been hosting the World Series in the US and Canada for over 100 years. All our schedules and results are published and available online at MLB.com. Millions of fans watch our games regularly. We have several of the players here today. How can you deny that the game was real?"
But his explanation did not convince everyone. Even die-hard baseball fans complained that game 1 did not begin as scheduled. MLB repeated earlier claims that there were "technical difficulties with the broadcast".
New York Mets fan and Brooklyn resident, Nathan Coney, expressed complete disbelief that the season was over. "How can this have happened? I just don't believe it. It can't be. I don't care what anybody says, there's no way." Asked whether they should replay the disputed game, Mr Coney said he would support that absolutely. "That's the only way to be sure" he said.
Jiro Rashomon, assistant groundskeeper at Citi Field, said that he was there before and after the game but did not actually see the game. "You can observe a lot just by watching, and what you see at a game depends on where you sit."
NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, said that he also did not watch the game and that more and more people watch basketball now than baseball. Mr Manfred countered that Mr Silver was simply interested in growing his fan base. In a heated argument with this reporter, Mr Manfred became quite animated in expressing his view that the game did in fact take place.
You can't just deny that baseball is still very popular and that millions watched the game. That's a fact. People like Mr Silver make more money when people don't know the basic facts about our sport, so of course they're going to tell you they didn't see it. But just because everyone doesn't follow it carefully, doesn't mean that baseball isn't real. You're creating confusion and spreading false controversy about facts instead of doing your job and telling people about what happened at the game."
Mr Manfred's views aside, it's clear that it would require effort to describe what happened at this and other sporting events and that not everyone is interested. So we will continue to cover the controversy about whether or not the World Series or any other sporting events actually occur.