Bassin’ Back In the Saddle Again?

Have you heard – you would have already if you were a BassBlaster subscriber (sign up here) – that our own Mark Zona will be throwing out the first pitch at a White Sox game? Yep, I was surprised too: the White Sox are still around!

No seriously, how cool is that? And does it indicate that we – led by B.A.S.S. – are headed into a new phase of bassin’?

By way of example, here’s what I mean, in timeline order:

> Denny Brauer gets on the Wheaties box (’98) and the Letterman show.

> ESPN buys B.A.S.S. (Whatever you think about what happened next, this raised awareness of bass fishing big-time. And the fact that ESPN didn’t exactly do well with it made it possible for Jerry and Don to own it now.)

> The Classic and the BassFan World Rankings are on SportsCenter.

That last one was in 2001. What’s happened since then to increase national awareness of bassin’? I’m goose-egging but may be forgetting something. Let me know if so.

If I’m not forgetting something, that would mean that for about the last decade, bassin’ has flown under the radar. Not a big surprise, partly because nearly half that time every biz was trying not to implode thanks to the geniuses on Wally Street and their D.C. cronies.

But still, that’s a long time.

Lately things have been looking up in bassin’, with the occasional sort of reach-out into the wider world. I’m thinking of Dave Mercer doing stuff for Subway, KVD having a tournament with an alleged NFL team known as the Lions, and now Z getting to throw out the first pitch at a televised MLB game.

Has anyone in bassin’ ever done that before?

(And Z, are you goin’ Zany like playing the National Anthem on a Loomis rod or walking out to the mound with a Core-NRX combo, and casting a bait with pinpoint accuracy 60′ 6″?)

Anyhow, it’s cool, and I guess whether these things are pointing to a bassin’ renaissance or whatever, we’ll see. But I got a feelin’….