Behind the baseball box scores in today’s Los Angeles Times, there was the outline of a bat — I mean the mammal, not the baseball implement. In particular, it was a certain trademarked bat shape that I guess is supposed to remind us of a movie that opened today (no, not “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” which has been open for a couple weeks now). Actually, there was a separate ad for that movie at the bottom of the page, if you missed the point. There was also a little disclaimer: “The shadowed image is an advertisement.”
Are we to assume that the L.A. Times sees the baseball box scores as so unimportant that they’re eligible to have advertising sold within them, or would they be willing to give the same treatment to any editorial matter for the right price? Perhaps I’ll see if they’ll accept advertising for baseballrelated.com within “Mallard Fillmore,” which could only improve that particular comic strip.