February 18, 2006
WRTA
 Brown
Shoes Diary
Baseball: The Good, The
Bad, and The Selig
We heard this week the most beautiful four word phrase in the English
language: Pitchers and catchers report. As baseball's number one
fan, I produce annually a state of the game address. The news is good,
bad, and ugly.
The good news about baseball is that it still is the best sport going.
Baseball is a team sport beyond the individual battles, so while each
player's own mettle is constantly put to the test, camaraderie and teamwork
is developed too. As an example of its beauty and appeal one need
only have watched any Little League World Series. This truly is a world
event with every continent represented except Antarctica. (Maybe Charile O's
orange baseballs would work down there.) Here we see baseball as a
great teacher of life. Even the best players fail a large majority of
the time. It is this aspect of the game where players learn that most
important lesson of dealing with failure. Every tear shed during
competition in Williamsport and elsewhere across the globe builds the
character of the next generation.
As to the bad of baseball, it is entirely related to slow play at the major
league level. In the seventh games of 1960 and 1975 World Series, the
average time per at-bat was 100 seconds. In the seventh game of the
1991 World Series, the time per at-bat had increased to 121 seconds. In
the 2004 ALCS, the time per at-bat was almost 160 seconds. That's a
full minute of time added to every at-bat. No wonder the camera keeps
catching Joe Torre napping in the dugout.
This results in games being 70 to 80 minutes longer than necessary. MLB
should see to it that the players get their butts in the batter's box and
that the pitchers pitch the damn ball. If the pace of the game were
improved, then so too would the drama that unfolds in every game. Plus,
I'd actually get to see the end of some of the World Series games that have
been finishing up after midnight.
When you consider the ugly aspects of baseball, it begins and ends with
Commissioner Bud Selig. His stewardship of
major league baseball has done untold harm to its present and its
future. We don't know yet how tainted the game has been with steroid
abuse, but we do know Selig never did anything
until Congress acted.
But even on less thorny issues, Selig has been bad
for baseball. To begin with, he schedules the playoffs for too late in
the year and too late at night. It is not uncommon these days to have
playoff games with starting time temperatures in the 40s and lower. In
one of the Boston/New York games in 2004, the temperature was 29 degrees at
the end of the game. It's too much to hope for that we go back to day
baseball for post-season play, but let's at least move the starting times up
90 minutes and schedule the playoffs to end by mid-October.
Another reason for moving the starting times up is so that people in the
eastern part of the country, especially kids, can see the end of the
games. Post-season games start after 8 PM Eastern time so that the
people on the West coast can get home from work to watch the games. But
on a school night, no good parent is going to let their kids stay up past 10 PM, so there's no way the kids in the east can get
interested in the games. In fact, even many devoted adult fans of the
game find it difficult or inconvenient to stay awake until the games conclude
around midnight, sometimes later. What's the point of
following baseball April through September if you're not going to be able to
see its exciting conclusion? Selig has made
it difficult for fans in the east to see the end of games so that fans in the
west can see the beginning. Does that sound like a good trade to
you? And these late starts are sacrificing future fans of the games for
nothing more than early inning ratings.
Related to this decline in baseball's popularity is the mission statement of
the Altoona Curve: To provide affordable family entertainment in a fun, safe
environment. Nowhere in that statement is there any reference to
baseball. Apparently, the quality of baseball is not a high priority
for the franchise. The result is that the ball park is transformed into
an amusement park and the game of baseball, at best, becomes secondary.
Just about every management decision involves providing distractions from the
game itself.
The real shame in all this is that baseball is better entertainment than
anything going on between innings and anything going on in the stands.
It is a sport full of nuance and complexity and yet strikingly simple and
pretty. It demands that spectators pay attention, but rewards its
devotees mightily. To paraphrase Mr. Keats, Beauty is baseball,
baseball beauty--that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.
Contact John D McGinnis
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