This is not about politics, although it's understandable why some might think that. No, I'm just a hardcore fan who is weary of all the tinkering that Major League Baseball (MLB) is doing and considering. Weary, I tell you.
I love baseball above all other sports, and am one of those old school fans who doesn't care that other people aren't as into it as I am. The powers that be in MLB, however, are constantly looking for ways to make the game more "appealing" to those people. If they can't simply enjoy watching Shohei Ohtani hit a home run, I'm not sure that they can be helped.
The feature image for this column was taken at a Detroit Tigers game that I went to with my brother-in-law earlier in the week. It was a real pitchers' duel, with the Tigers finally beating the cheating Houston Astros (I'm a Dodgers fan) 1-0 on a tenth inning walk-off walk. Yeah, it's fun watching a lot of homeruns, but old-school fans like me love to see exceptional pitching as well.
The end of that game was aided by a newer rule in the big leagues: each extra inning begins with a runner on second base. As far as the new rules go, this is the one I'm the most agnostic about. I still love extra innings, though, and have never met a baseball fan who doesn't.
As a lifelong National League fan, I was resistant to the introduction of the fulltime designated hitter. It was forced upon the league by COVID, and we knew it wasn't going anywhere after that. The fulltime DH enabled the Dodgers to put Ohtani in the lineup every day during a season when he was rehabbing his throwing arm. After they won the World Series last year, I may have lightened up a bit regarding the DH. If it went away again, I wouldn't shed any tears. I'd still like to see it nuked in all of baseball.
I absolutely despise the rule that allows the manager to make a simple gesture to indicate an intentional walk. Intentional walks used to be a risky proposition because the pitcher was forced to deliberately throw four bad pitches in a row. There was always a chance that it would take him out of his rhythm and put a man on base.
The television gods keep demanding quicker games, though.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred recently proposed something that makes me want to give him a swirly until he agrees to resign: getting rid of the National and American leagues to turn the majors into one big, regionally grouped blob. It's yet another sop to television, of course. This from a column that Robert wrote on Monday:
Manfred tried to sell this idea as connected to MLB’s expansion from 30 to 32 teams, saying, "In my mind, I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign. I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. And I think our postseason format would be more appealing for entities like ESPN because you’d be playing up out of the East, out of the West. And that 10 o’clock time slot, where we sometimes get lost in Anaheim, would be two West Coast teams. That 10 o’clock slot that’s a problem for us sometimes becomes a real opportunity for our West Coast audience."
There is a lot of talk about this making MLB more like the NFL and the NBA, both of which are thriving and making a pile on television. That still isn't a strong argument for people like me.
Baseball is steeped in a lot more tradition than any other sport in this country. The first professional baseball game was played 20 years before basketball was even invented. Overhauling so much of the game to make it TV-friendly for potential new fans tosses the whole "dance with the one that brung ya" idea out the window. A recent ESPN article about the proposed realignment asked, "To what extent is MLB willing to alienate traditionalists when it comes to longtime league affiliations?"
Evidently, quite a bit.
Change is inevitable in sports, and it's all about the TV bucks. NCAA football is now NFL Lite thanks to the influence of television money. As an irrepressible sports fan, there are times when I swear that all of the people running the sports I love most are actively trying to ruin them. In Manfred's case, I know that he has no respect for the rich history of baseball whenever there is money being waved in his face.
This is a rant of mine that could go on for days, but I'll finish with this: I would be more open to realignment if MLB agreed to move the Colorado Rockies franchise out of the video game home run derby abomination that is Coors Field and never allow a professional baseball game to be played at that altitude again.
I'm off to dread a future where tackling is outlawed in the NFL and MLB switches to a tee-ball format because that's what the kids like watching.
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