Play Ball! Two words that most of us long to hear after a balmy winter season where the only time baseball was muttered was when players were gasping for air from the lies regarding the misuse of steroids. Now, as our NCAA tournament brackets are closing, we can look towards the wonderful world of RBI’s and double plays from Santana, Utley, Jeter and Cabrera. Play Ball! Two words that most of us long to hear after a balmy winter season where the only time baseball was muttered was when players were gasping for air from the lies regarding the misuse of steroids. Now, as our NCAA tournament brackets are closing, we can look towards the wonderful world of RBI’s and double plays from Santana, Utley, Jeter and Cabrera. The thirty well-manicured fields of grass and the infamous wall at Fenway are not, however, the only things that are green about Major League Baseball these days. In a new effort to implement the “Going Green” buzz, MLB has teamed up with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to create the Team Greening Program. 
The NRDC Team Greening Advisor for Major League Baseball will work with each individual club on a host of topics, including how to address consumption issues related to air quality, chemicals, waste, water, recycling, travel and office products. AOL Living blog Green Daily, reported that “Of course, while the league is touting the "social responsibility" involved with going green, it's worth noting that it's also not bad for their bottom line,” says Frances Beinecke, NRDC President. “Their work will save energy, reduce waste, and make the organization, the teams, and the stadiums all run more efficiently." So what do all of these “earth loving” promises mean for the environment and more importantly, your baseball experience?
For starters, food and beverage company Aramark may be serving your brews in recycled or biodegradable corn starch cups as opposed to plastic. Teams may be flying on commercial airliners (sorry Jeter, no more ‘copter rides to practice) and the new Yankee and Mets stadiums will be LEED certified to catch up with west coast stadiums in Oakland, Seattle and San Francisco. According to an announcement released by the Mets, The new Citi Field that will open in 2009 is being built from approximately 95% recycled steel to reduce energy consumption, and at least 2 million pounds of recycled coal combustion products that will save more than 800 tons of carbon dioxide. The team's administration building will feature a 15,000-square-foot "green roof," which will reduce energy needs by retaining cool air in the summer and heat in the winter. The new stadium will also contain low-flow plumbing features such as hands-free faucets and waterless urinals that will save more than 4 million gallons of water per year. Water conservation will also be achieved with the installation of an on-site well to be used for irrigation, as well as a 3,700-square-foot drainage bed to control the flow of storm-water runoff. 
What can we do to help? Angry fans, stop throwing your trash on the field, recycle your garbage (that’s what the blue bin is for), and take the train instead of driving to the game. Whether it’s about social responsibility, jumping on the Green PR bandwagon or really trying to provide the Earth with extra innings, Major League Baseball has finally stepped up to the plate.
The Summer Olympics is one of the most interesting events I've ever witnessed. I actually attended the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal (Bruce Jenner, Nadia Comenici, Sugar Ray Leonard), and was filled with pride and calories during the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, consuming all of that free McDonald's after the Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet Union boycotted. 
Over the past few Olympiads I feel the games on TV have lost their luster. Or maybe it's something else. I loved ABC Sports' continuity. Jim McKay hosted 12 Olympics. I loved how ABC would sift through the 33 different sports and treat me to the best of the best competition every day, mainly because they only had several hours per day to program the Olympics. CBS actually paid $50,000 for the first televised Olympics in 1960. Several years later, ABC paid nearly $600,000 for the rights to broadcast the 1964 Innsbruck winter games. Fast forward 24 years to 1988 and you saw ABC pay $309 million for the 1988 Calgary games. More recently, NBC paid $3.5 billion for three games from 2000 to 2008. But ABC helped me enjoy the Olympics, and here's why. 
It's true, there was an 800% jump in coverage hours between 1960 and 1992 (link below) and that rise continues, but who has time to even TiVO an average of 27 hours of Olympic coverage each day during the magical two weeks? The Solution Here's what you should do, very simply: Go back to the old ABC model, focusing on only a few hours of the best coverage each day to "broad"cast. Make the rest of the content available via Pay-per-View over the Web, and make whatever you program -- both broadcasts and Web-based narrowcasts -- INTERACTIVE. I'll watch a 10 second clip of the gold-medal winning syncronized swimming team, but there's no reason to burn the ever-widening digital broadband pipe with live coverage that only 12 people (on a good day) would watch in its entirety, even if you have the pipe to do it. Use the extra bandwidth to provide me with the crazy interactive services you've been promising since the mid-1990s. Show me the best competitions again, like you did during my youth, but modernize my experience. Add in interactive stats that I can pull down in a separate window on my TV screen. Let me order a pizza automatically while watching the Pizza Hut ad. And PLEASE let me connect with other freaks that enjoy the Steeplechase as much as I do. 
Please 
More than three out of four corporate advertisers – 78% to be exact – said they have less confidence today in the effectiveness of TV advertising than they did two years ago, according to a survey released at the 
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