http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/05/sports1437EDT0317.DTLIn the latest example of a sponsor's stamp on the sports world, ads for the movie "Spider-Man 2" will be placed atop bases at 15 major league ballparks during games from June 11-13.
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"I guess it's inevitable, but it's sad," said Fay Vincent, a former baseball commissioner and former president of Columbia Pictures, which is releasing "Spider-Man 2."
"I'm old-fashioned. I'm a romanticist. I think the bases should be protected from this. I feel the same way I do when I see jockeys wears ads: Maybe this is progress, but there's something in me that regrets it very much," he added.
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The ads, about 4-by-4-inches with a red background and yellow webbing, won't appear on home plate. Now I am one of those people who hates sports,
but, mores aside, wouldn't changing the color of the bases affect gameplay? My thinking is that making the base a darker color would help obscure it, especially as the game has gone on for a while and the bases start getting dirty. As for the mores of putting ads on the playing field, well, I'm sure you all can guess that I'm
not for it.