Blue-Faced World Series

It's played in rural Iowa, and that, I'm sure, is fine.
A field of dreams cut out of corn has struck some as sublime.
But was it snowing on that corn? Or was there freezing rain?
No, it was summer in that film. They would have been insane
To play the summer game in winter weather. Shoeless Joe
And all his pals would never have agreed to stage the show
And come back from the dead to freeze on benches on a day
When pitchers couldn't feel the ball. There's nothing more to say.

And yet the Series now unfolding, like a lot of others,
Finds heaters in the dugouts. You know, if I had my druthers,
I'd cut the season down so when the Series finally came
Our baseball would, in fact, be what it was: the summer game.

"Come on," you say, "get real. The game's a business. You know that.
The more they play, the more they make. The fat cats must stay fat."
And fat they'll stay, I understand, but they're not getting cold.
They're watching from the suites they've built, and though we're often told
That night time is the right time for the season's final games,
Am I the only one who sees the shivering and blames
The spectacle of blue-faced fans who do not paint their faces
On baseball's being played on colder nights in colder places?
These are the fans who stay outside, as if that were still fun...
As if the sky were blue, and as if, overhead, the sun
Were shining as it's 'sposed' to shine upon fields of green,
Where mufflers, parkas, hats, and mittens once were seldom seen.

I do not yearn for flannel uniforms or bygone teams.
The old days were absurd and they were racist, but it seems
Perhaps it would be better for the fans, the lads and lasses,
If they could watch the Series and not have to freeze ...while they're doing it.