Preserve Your Sanity! Watch More Baseball.

Faithful readers and old friends know that Buster has long had a sweet spot for the game of baseball. I like all the major sports, but baseball is my favorite. I will not, at this time, wax poetic on the many pleasures of the National Pastime. Maybe later. Instead, I wish to point out a hidden benefit of watching baseball on TV.

Don't need to tell anyone that this is an election year, and a big one. Morning, noon, or night, if you venture anywhere near broadcast TV or mainstream cable, you will be inundated with more gross, vile, despicable political ads than you can count. At certain times, that is literally all you will see. If the reign of campaign ad terror doesn't stop, I may soon involuntarily kick my nightly Jeopardy addiction. Just can't take it! And of course, the ads won't stop. They'll only get worse.

My solution is baseball. In this political mean season, I resolve to watch all the baseball I possibly can, because (1.) It's baseball, and (2.) There are few political ads during most baseball games. Now, on the Fox and ESPN games of the week, you'll get some political shit. But on the local cable stations for the Reds and Indians, there have been zero campaign ads so far. Add to that the fact that the Indians sit atop the A.L. Comedy Central Division, and the Reds are right in the thick of the N.L. Central race, and I'm pleased by the whole state of affairs.

Some may dive deep into a 300-channel cable lineup to escape the shrill cacophony of the election season. The genuinely smart ones just turn off the damn box and do something else. Me, I'm gonna watch baseball.

And tonight I enjoyed extra-special baseball benefits. A Reds-Braves telecast was not only free of political ads, for the last couple innings it was free of all advertising whatsoever. For some reason, FoxSportsOhio was unable to run ads in between innings, so Thom Brenneman and Chris Welch stayed on the air and just shot the shit. It was far preferable to the usual two minutes of crapola about tires, sausage, car dealers, and walk-in bathtubs.

Can we do it that way all time? No? Well, poopy-darn!!