It's great to see Tommy Lasorda every spring for all the wrong reasons




Baseball: Ten Reasons to Love, Hate and Wonder

Baseball is no longer America’s pastime. The internet, where you found this blog, is America’s past time. The internet is what we do to waste our time, find how to fix things and to learn from Wikipedia, not Encyclopedia Britannica.

Baseball was our nation’s pastime, but today, for a myriad or reasons it may rank just above pitiful hockey in the hierarchy of sports relevance. This is quite sad, no actually it is borderline distressing. The game is amazing, like a strange combination of a living chess match, track and field, golf and much more. It does not return dividends quickly. Baseball requires raw athleticism and rewards refined skill. Baseball is a sport that is at least as much quirky as it is athletic. These are the beautiful elements of baseball.

Baseball’s biggest strength and weakness is Major League Baseball. (MLB) carries the standard and sometimes the plunger for the game. It is the engine and the breaks. We also know the game of baseball would not survive without the presence of MLB.

The following ten elements of the game, more or less exclusive to the Major Leagues, make baseball great in an interesting and at the same time laughable and amusing and annoying way. Some idiosyncrasies that “purists” often label traditions keep it worthy of our interest at worst and fascinating at best. Some idiosyncrasies make the sport unappealing and out of our current context, others make baseball the sport that so many of us love.


Managers, Coaches and Hangers-on in Uniforms

Managers wearing uniforms is very funny. These guys are usually fat. They are often old. Their skin is not worthy of the cover of “Cosmopolitan,” see Jim Leland –rode hard put up wet with cigarette firmly planted in his face. These guys are not going to need those uniforms. As a lot, they do nothing athletic. Hell, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see Bobby Cox go out on the field to change pitchers or argue with an umpire. Also, the Dodger home white uniform, my favorite uni of all, on Tommy Lasorda is a train wreck classic. Yet as fans, we know Spring is on the way when we see the post-Slim Fast Lasorda “instructing” young players every February. This is uniquely baseball. Think about this, how great would it be to see Don Nelson on the sideline in basketball shorts at an arena near you? It makes you wonder, would he wear shorts from the late sixties/ early seventies or today?

The All-Star Game (Part 1) aka the Good

To a young fan, the All-Star game was the perfect end to a summer day: baseball at the park in the morning, waffle ball and the pool in the afternoon and the game at night. It is still cool to see all the different uniforms at pregame introductions. Every year we argue which player is worthy to be selected. Is it the flash in the pan having a monster season, or is it the veteran whose performance is trending from respectable to mediocrity quickly? The mid-summer classic gets our undivided attention because the sports world is at standstill in mid July. Do the other sports have other all-star moments, rarely? Baseball has Rose and Fosse, Ripken’s home run, Reggie Jackson’s monster home run in Detroit and John Kruk trying to avoid getting killed by Randy Johnson.


The All-Star game (part 2) aka the Bad

This is the maddening part of MLB. Thanks to Bud Selig and his 7-7 tie game in 2002. Now games will not end in a tie, and the league that wins will have home field advantage for their respective World Series representative. To say this is a good idea is like saying the White Sox should bring back the black uniforms with lapels and shorts from 1977. Do we want the annual Pirates All-Star representative, be it Freddy Sanchez, Nate McClouth or Jack Wilson coming to the plate or the mound with World Series implications? No. This is truly the type of thing that makes baseball maddening.


The Forever Season

The MLB season is long. For some reason the season’s length does not get ridiculed like the NBA’s. This is because the NBA’s playoffs could be timed in trimesters. MLB starts spring training at around Valentine’s Day and this year the World Series ran into November. However, baseball also produces 162 games in a regular season to basketball and hockey’s 82, and the MLB teams usually play six days a week. This is a good thing, like a sunset. There is something comfortable in baseball’s steady, consistent route from April thru October. The box score of your team is there daily. Every morning you can check on how many hits Ichiro had the night before. On Sportscenter you can wait for Vladimir Guerrero’s furious swing at pitches no where near the strike zone that somehow turn into doubles. Baseball’s consistency is healthy summer routine. This is good.

Unbalanced Divisions and Leagues

The American league has 14 teams. The National League has 16 teams. The American League West has only four teams while the National League Central has six teams. This creates an unbalanced schedule and skews the playing field in the divisions. Do the Pirates really need the challenge of being better than five teams to win a division pennant? Do the big market, big spending Almost Los Angeles Angels need the advantage of only having to be better than three teams? This is another instance of baseball not making sense. Some will argue that the length of season and the wild card negate any advantages. This argument doesn’t hold water. There are always division champions that have worse record than the wild card entrant. Therefore, it is commonly easier to win the division than a wildcard slot. As an example, this year the Twins (American League Central champions) would have finished 9 games behind the Red Sox in the wildcard standings.

Also, in 2009 the Rockies played only 15 interleague games, while many teams played 18. Since the American league is recognized as the stronger league, it can be said the Rockies had an undue advantage.

Arbitration: Like Reality TV only much, much Better.

The arbitration process is everything reality TV is supposed to be. Reality TV is supposed to be about real people facing each other in uncomfortable, challenging situations. To bad reality TV has evolved beyond that. (Where have you gone Eric Nies)? Back on topic, this is arbitration my friends. A player, or usually his agent requests a salary and provides a supporting argument. A member of team management provides a salary, usually on the low side, and a supporting argument. The best part is the player is also in the room, while his team talks about why they feel he is not worth his asking price. In early 2003, Greg Maddux and the Braves were scheduled to meet in the arbitration room. Boy, it would have been great to hear the Braves exec explain why Greg Maddux was not worthy. The Braves representative must have been working on some strong statements such as, “Greg is really not worthy of his asking price. I mean, he has only won 3 Cy Young awards with us, he has only averaged 18 wins in his ten year’s here. Sure, he had his lowest era in four years last season, but he only pitched 199 and one third innings.” Unfortunately much like in reality TV, this moment never got to occur. Maddux and the Braves settled days before the arbitration hearing.


Please check back for part two very soon.

Send me your comments good or ignorant. Is there more of the bizarre baseball world you would like to read about? Let me know.