Brooks & Crowley - October 2021

Brooks & Crowley - October 2021

Review Brooks & Crowley

October 2021

781-251-0555

www.brooksandcrowley.com

439 Washington Street Dedham, MA 02026

*Services Throughout Massachusetts

IS IT REALLY FALL ALREADY? Reflecting on the Fall Season as a Parent

I really love fall — it’s my second favorite season. The only problem is that it arrives way too early and cuts off my first favorite season, summer. I mean, really? Stop bringing back pumpkin spice lattes before Labor Day! We get it, fall: You’re beautiful with a great personality, but let summer have its moment. We were just starting to get to know her. Especially with that rainy July. As a parent, although I still love fall, I’ll admit that the “harvest” season isn’t what it used to be. With a senior in high school and another in college, it could be me and the beagle getting dressed up to give candy to trick-or- treaters, but there won’t be any kids to run around with. It’s been a while since the kids allowed me to go trick-or-treating with them, but we do have a new crop of young neighborhood kids to see enjoying Halloween. There’s no better time for a “rite of passage” than fall, I suppose. It’s the start of a new school year, and as the air and leaves turn crisp, the foliage starts to turn gold and red, ready to greet the winter. When we’re young, however, we don’t really appreciate the beautiful turn of season we get in New England. When my wife was a freshman in college in a small New Hampshire town, she went outside one day in fall and saw bumper-to-bumper traffic on a side street. She was puzzled; the license plates of the cars were from all over the country. Why? As it turns out, they were tourists and just wanted to see and take pictures of a tree. That made her even more puzzled! When I say “tree,” I really mean a single tree — which we saw recently as a family when we took one of our girls on a college trip. I’ll admit, it’s a pretty impressive tree. I wouldn’t drive across the country to see it, but we don’t have to, we see great foliage everywhere we turn. Even if I don’t go trick-or-treating, Halloween is pretty fun as an adult, too. I like to see the street fill up with families and kids, and we get plenty of large groups dropped off in our dense neighborhood. I used to enjoy rummaging through Goodwill or other thrift stores for great Halloween costumes. I highly recommend checking those out if you want an awesome deal for your costume ideas, which will hopefully

differ from mine. I’m pretty sure it isn’t their intention, but the thrift stores are crowded in the days leading up to Halloween. Many years, I walked in without an idea for a costume and walked out with a costume party contender. I often thought it was funny that we wore other people’s clothes as costumes. Nowadays, I’m not sure if I should be insulted when partygoers dress from eras I’ve lived through (and probably still have the clothes for). It’s not fun to think to yourself, I used to wear that. Or even worse, I still have that in my closet. Or still worse, I wore that last week! I’m happy to report that my kids have never raided my closet for Halloween costumes (yet). But if they ever do, no matter how true it is, I will never say, “Hey, don’t dirty that, I was planning on wearing it next week”. Anyway, I hope you all have fall activities you’re looking forward to this month, whether it’s Halloween, apple picking, or watching football games. Take every opportunity to enjoy it however you can — even though I might miss summer, fall will be great.

–Neil Crowley

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THANKS, BUD! Baseball’s Former Commissioner and Streaming TV

other popular sports leagues like WorldWrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the National Hockey League (NHL). (It even assisted HBO!)

You don’t become America’s national pastime without learning how to adapt — and Major League Baseball (MLB) made the ultimate pivot.

In 2017, one of the biggest players in movies, Disney, invested in BAMTech, claiming a majority stake, and began its transition into streaming services. Soon after, as The Hustle reported in July 2021, Disney announced a streaming platform whose features were similar to that of Netflix and BAM. In March 2021, Disney+ hit more than 100 million users, making it a powerhouse in streaming — all created because of BAMTech. Today, BAM and BAMTech are credited with being on the forefront of streaming services and continue to hold a power position over streaming and within entertainment companies. “Media companies are not good at tech and really struggle with large scale,” says investment analyst Rich Greenfield in The Verge. “They don’t trust companies like Google or Amazon, who want to displace them. BAM is seen as friendly.”

This October, MLB’s biggest stars and teams with the most wins all-time will take the field for the 2021 playoffs. The winners will be crowned champions of the world, but the league these champs call home already owns an equally prestigious title: the founders of streaming services. Their legendary reign started back in the early 2000s, when former MLB commissioner Bud Selig asked every team in the league to contribute $4 million for the creation of Baseball Advanced Media (BAM). At that time, the dot-com bubble had yet to burst, and Selig wanted America’s once favorite sport to “keep up with the times,” so to speak. BAM created a website for each team, but it soon took on other qualities that gave it an edge. The Hustle reports that BAM offered online video, multidevice watching services, and a large >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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