Extraneous Thoughts On The Draft

Some leftover opinions on the draft that I didn't want to bury at the bottom of the Culver post:

• Wow, those five minute intervals were way, way too long. I understand that the whole reason for putting this thing in prime time was to make money off of it and the longer you stretch it out, the more commercials you can sell. But if you pace it too slow, no one is going to be around to watch those ads. I DVR'd this joint and I tried to watch it at regular speed at first, but ended up fast-forwarding between the breaks and ultimately just turning it off until the Yankees were up.
  
  
• Mysteriously, every fucking team took their allotted five minutes, right down to the second. Yes, that probably made the broadcast flow much smoother since the hosts knew right when to kick it back to Bud Selig. However, in other sports, they might need to use that time since they can trade away their pick, and if the team is ready with the selection, they just go sooner and save everyone the time.
  
  
• After the first round was said and done, I somehow despised Bud Selig even more than I did at the beginning. I hated the fact that he had to go through the same protracted spiel before every pick:

  With the seventeenth pick in the Two Thousand and Ten (that's M-M-X in Roman numerals) Major League Baseball First Year Players Draft, the Tampa Bay Rays of Tampa, Florida select Josh Sale, and outfielder from Seattle High School In Seattle, Washington, down the street from the Mobil station on the right, about a block and a half west of the hospital.
  
  The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have the next pick in the 2010 Major League Baseball First Year Players Draft and will have five minutes, which translates to 300 seconds, and are on the clock - metaphorically speaking, not literally on top of a clock - starting now.

  AAAAAAAHHHHHH! We know what draft we are watching and don't care what town the college or high school the kid goes to is in. I hate hearing you speak. Less is more. Shut the fuck up.
  
  
• Judging by his suit, if Selig wasn't announcing the picks last night, he might have been trying to sell you a 2002 Nissan Maxima with 140,000 miles on it. "All highway. You can drive one of these to 250,000, easy!"
  
  
• By the time they got to the supplemental round, the pacing was much better and it was far more interesting, even though the players were ostensibly less heralded. Even the guys at the desk thought it was better and said so on air (oops!). This thing didn't need to be drawn out for three and a half hours and by pick number #35 or so, it was painfully obvious.
  
  
• It was also pretty cool to see the team's representative announce the pick (and mispronounce the name) during the supplemental round. Jeff Bagwell got stuck with "Mike Kvasnicka" and Roberto Alomar had to try to say "Noah Syndergaard" and "Asher Wojciechowski". As someone with a last name that everyone butchers, I found that amusing.

That's all I got. If they don't ditch the contrived intervals and cut this thing down to about an hour and a half next year, I promise I won't turn it on until the Yanks are on the clock.