The slow death of baseball or how to save it

Let’s face it professional baseball is on a slow death march to oblivion. Baseball hasn’t been relevant since before the ‘80’s. It is obvious the NFL has been the preeminent sport in America for a long time. Even the NBA and NHL are more interesting then baseball, but both also need some “fixing up”.

Baseball owners don’t care, they are laughing all the way to the bank even though they love to cry poor. Eight work stoppages since 1972 and every time it is all about the money and the owners telling us they are losing money hand over fist every year. Bullshit. If you don’t believe me, go to Forbes website and due the research. Trust me; every team is making tons of money for the owners.

So the owners have no motivation to fix baseball. They will let this go on until it’s too late. Once they stop making money they will just let it die. They won’t care about fixing what is wrong with the game. These are businessmen who only care about profits. When there is no more profit they will sell and move on leaving empty ball parks and disheartened fans behind.

Fact 1: 1970 All-Star game posted a 28.5 TV rating. In 2013 the TV rating was an abysmal 6.9.
Fact 2: 1980 World Series posted a 32.8 TV rating. In 2012 the TV rating was 7.6; the lowest rating ever. Even the NBA in 2013 posted a 10.4 rating for the “nobody cares outside of Miami and San Antonio” Heat/Spurs matchup.

People would rather watch a bad Monday Night Football (Jaguars/Titans) game then a great baseball playoff game. Just look at 2010: ALCS game 3 pulled in a 6.5 rating and MNF pulled in a 7.2. America would rather watch bad football then good baseball.

So how do you fix baseball: does anyone even care? If I were the commissioner of Major League Baseball I would:

1. Eliminate the designated hitter rule forever. A real baseball player should play the field and try to hit the ball. No more coddling the American League pitchers. Make them go to bat.
2. Shorten the game. In 1970 the average MLB game took 2 hours and 30 minutes. Since 2007 the average game now takes 2 hours and 50 minutes. Enforce a pitch clock of 15 seconds. In 2010 the average time a pitcher took to throw a pitch was 21 seconds; that is ridiculous.
3. Shorten the game part 2. Limit warm-up pitches to 5. Everyone knows the new pitcher has already warmed up in the bullpen. Why waste more time.
4. Shorten the game part 3. Keep the batter in the batter’s box once he steps in. No more stepping out after every pitch to adjust your hitting glove or read the same signs from the 3^rd base coach over and over again.
5. Shorten the game part 4. And the most difficult change to implement…fewer commercials between innings. Shorten the time between innings so TV networks are forced to show fewer commercials.
6.  Shorten the season. 162 regular season games, makes most games meaningless. Make the regular season games mean something.  Here is a 120 regular season formula:
   - play 4 (2 home; 2 away) – 3 game series against your division rivals. That is 12 games x 4 division opponents equaling 48 games.
   - play 2 (1 home; 1 away) – 3 game series against the other division opponents in your own league. That is 6 games x 10 opponents equaling 60 games.
   - play every team in just 1 opposing league division in 1 3-game series. That is 12 more games for a grand total of 120 regular season games.
7. Start the season after April 15^th and end before Labor Day. Early April/November games can be dicey weather wise in northern cities. Plus baseball players don’t like to play in the rain and cold. End before Labor Day so you can take advantage of no NFL games to compete against.  The NFL does not start until after Labor Day. The first baseball playoff games should begin Labor Day weekend.
8. Eliminate the winning League of the All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series. This is a monumentally bad idea. The team with the best regular season record should have home field advantage. A tie breaker can be the best winning percentage in the playoffs. And a third tie breaker is a flip of a coin.

Well that is my opinion and I’m sticking to it. I can’t wait for football season to start!

Do Not Save Detroit

From the immortal words of Dr. Klahn, “Take him to…Detroit!”

For thirty-six years those words held true. Nobody wanted to live in Detroit. Nobody would ever want to visit Detroit. And this week the city of Detroit finally gave in and filed for federal bankruptcy protection.

Emperor Hirohito, from his grave, has a little smile on his face today. Japan may have never successfully taken down the US in World War II but today they officially destroyed an entire US city.

Please do not save Detroit. Build a giant wall around the city and turn it into the world’s largest prison. It is already 80% of the way there; they just need the wall to complete it.

It is nobody’s fault but their own (corruption in the city government is rampant) and the big 3 auto makers: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

I don’t know if the Big 3 were ignorant, stubborn or just bad businessmen but they never recovered from the 1970’s gas crisis and the Japanese. By the time the US automakers realized the Japanese were building better cars it was too late and the end of Detroit was a foregone conclusion. The only reason it took 36 years to become official is because Americans love to buy on credit and live on debt.

Who do you think will ultimately pay for the $5.3 billion dollar debt Detroit owes? It will be you and I, the tax payer.  I don’t want to pay a single cent toward saving a city nobody wants to live in. The people who are there are simply stuck and unable to move because they have no money. I would pay to relocate them. Abandon the city.

Give each of the 700,000 remaining residents (excluding government employees and auto industry executives) $5,000 to either relocate or become residents of the new Detroit Penitentiary City. That will only cost us $3.5 billion dollars.

I am not 25 any longer

Last week my wife and I spent a wonderful vacation in Cancun, Mexico despite a minor setback; me getting sick and not able to do anything for 2 days. And despite what you might be thinking, “Hey it’s Mexico don’t drink the water”, that was not the cause of my downfall.

My belief that I can still eat, drink and be as active as I was 20 years ago was the real culprit here. My ego is a bit out of whack when it comes to being realistic of what I can and cannot do. Frankly the whole thing sucks; getting older sucks. Having to watch what I eat and drink sucks. Having to be more realistic about what I physically can and cannot do sucks.

I told my wife I should buy a t-shirt that says “I am not 25 any longer” before our next vacation and wear it for the first few days.  Her reply was:  “I will buy a t-shirt for myself that says ‘You are not 25 any longer’”.  She has always been very supportive of my decisions, even the bad ones.

So no more day long drinking fests of Captain Morgan and Coke and Long Island Ice Tea’s. Now it’s a Peña Colada after dinner and done. And dinner is now a piece of plain chicken. I remember Grandma Ruth always ordered plain chicken no matter what restaurant we went to.  We were all just a little bit embarrassed and all of us tried to convince her it was OK to splurge a little and eat something that tasted better then plain chicken. Now I know what she was up to. She knew better than we did: Wise beyond her years.

So, 4 bags of I.V. fluid with medicine (Ranitidine, Butilhioscina, Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin, Metoclopramide) later and I was back on my feet, mostly. The doctor at the resort, Dr. Manuel de Jesus Cruz Toledo, who was fantastic and very nice, recommended I take it easy the next couple of days and of course I still had to take medicine, ciprofloxacin, twice a day for the next 7 days.

Lesson learned? Only time will tell. J

Driving Me Crazy

This is a true story that actually happened to me several years ago. I used to commute on the Massachusetts turnpike (the Pike) every day. I am the true definition of a Masshole driver. Just get out of my way.

Scene Setup: Westbound on the Pike, 2 miles before the Cambridge Street / Storrow Drive – Allston, Brighton, Cambridge toll plaza.

I’m fairly happy traveling in the far left lane behind the guy in the Camry. He is driving fast.  At the 2 mile mark before the toll plaza we pass under the first sign: a bright yellow warning about the toll plaza ahead and Fast Lane customers should stay to the left. In fact the sign says “Fast Lane” only. This story pre-dates the conversion to E-Z Pass.

Fast Lane: An interesting naming choice since we are only allowed to travel at 15 MPH through the “Fast Lane” lane. Of course I disregard this every day. I can usually get through it between 30 and 40 MPH. That is of course until I get behind a non-commuter who insists on following the law to the letter. I usually start screaming at them when I realize our speed has dropped below 30 and my oh so descriptive words of the slow poke in front of me get closer and closer to “the line” you are not supposed to cross with each drop in speed. If he/she gets to 15 the words coming out of my mouth are far too vulgar to print. But I digress.

One mile before the toll plaza and there is that same bright yellow sign about the toll plaza coming up and “Fast Lane” only customers should stay to the left.

One half mile before the toll plaza and … that’s right you guessed it, that same bright yellow sign about the toll plaza coming up and “Fast Lane” only customers should stay to the left.

Any idea what is going to happen when the Camry and I get to the toll plaza?

A quarter mile and the same warning sign. No problem for me. The speedy Camry and I going to zoom right through it.

Getting closer, almost there and … ssssssssccreeeeeeeeeeeeecccch and STOPPED.

The Camry has stopped in the toll plaza, directly underneath the “Fast Lane” sign and I have come to a grinding halt just inches from his rear bumper. There is no way for me to get around him or backup since the line of cars behind me is piling up quickly. This is after all a weekday afternoon at the start of commuting time. If someone sneezes wrong while driving on the Pike you get backed up for at least 2 miles.

I count to myself: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three..oh fuck it. Are you fucking kidding me? Now I am screaming out loud. Did you not see the signs? They were bright yellow. They had the word “only” on them. If you didn’t know what “Fast Lane” meant then you shouldn’t have been in this lane. What the hell are you looking for? Just go. Go forward and pull over. You are already screwed. My hand gestures and potty mouth went on and on and on for a full minute of this until something even worse happened.

He got out of his car. He got out and walked around the back of his car without making any eye contact with me and walked across two more toll plaza lanes to a person manning a booth. Holy fucking hell it’s a god damn good thing my car isn’t armed with missiles. As he walks back to his car the look on my face would kill Medusa herself. Come on jackass just look up at me once and poof you’re dead meat.

As he squirms his way back into his car, fastens his seat belt and puts his car in gear the most terrified look falls upon my face. I just looked up at my windshield and noticed my Fast Lane transponder is not where it should be. In fact, I know where it is. It is in my coat pocket, which is hanging over the back of my chair in my office. Oh fuck me.

I pulled up, stopped in the toll plaza and made the walk of shame with my head held down over to the man in the booth to get a ticket.