Saving Baseball?

The Metrodome SHOULD be blown up. And every other domed football or baseball stadium should be blown up.

Baseball and football are to be played outdoors. Period. No exceptions. If its windy you deal with it, if its cold that you wear a jacket, if its raining you get wet. If its baseball and it rains too much the game gets canceled.

Mike

 

Amen and Amen.

 

1. Do away with the DH.

2. Strangle the next manager who keeps track of "pitch counts". The golden age of pitching was the late 40's through the mid sixties and pitchers who went nine innings were the rule, not the exception. Now, if a pitcher pitches a complete game, it's the top story on SportsCenter.

3. Do away with a total of six teams, three AL, three NL. (Yeah, I'm talking to you, Tampa Bay!)

4. Steroids = lifetime ban for first offense

5. Do what Larry Bowa did in Philly and institute a strict "respect the fans or die" policy.

6. Partner with more minor league teams in smaller markets.

7. Partner with Little League, Cal Ripkin League, and other youth leagues.

8. Work harder to mine European and Australian prospects. Baseball is growing rapidly in Europe, particularly in Italy and Ireland, and MLB is not keeping up.

9. A few weeks ago, I got to make the trip up to Fenway Park. Lifelong baseball fan, but first time to Fenway. The big thing that struck me was how small and intimate it is. So quit building 60,000 seat stadiums for teams that average 9,000 people per game.

10. Next person who says, "Hey, I've got an idea: let's honor Jackie Robinson" gets a beating. Maybe it's just me, but I can't take all of this Jackie Robinson worship anymore. There were two black guys in the major leagues before him and you never hear about them.

If Robinson gets all of this fanfare, then Eddie Klep out to get some, too.

And what about Branch Rickey? He was the guy who brought Robinson in in the first place.

 

I realy agree with Curtis - baseball needs true revenue sharing - and my TX rangers ought to be one of the big contributors. It also needs a true salary cap - it has done wonders for competition in the NFL - it can do the same with baseball. The argument against is that baseball is better for having the traditional powers (read east) winning it all regularly - and that America loves the dynasty. Look what happens when san antone and cle play for bb championship - they barely outdrew the NHL

 

:laugh:

Tampa Bay actually has a team???

News flash, everyone!! :laugh:

Great personality in baseball. :thumbs: Should undoubtedly rank in the top ten of all time, right alongside the likes of Bill Veeck, Leo "the Lip", Bill Klem, Babe Ruth, Frankie Frisch, Yogi Berra, Connie Mack, etc.

Ed

 

This will never happen again. Pitch counts and 6 inning starts are here to stay. There is too much money involved to risk doing any damage to their arms. The first warning sign in all this was Sandy Koufax. He threw his arm out from pitching so much. Was it worth it? He did give the Dodgers 5-6 incredibly dominant seasons, two of which resulted in World Series championships. But he left the game at age 30! What could have been? Maybe instead of 5 dominant seasons, he would have had 10-15 really good seasons.

The same thing happened to Denny McLain after his dominant seasons of '68-'69.

Fast forward a few years with the increase in salaries, and management started to treat their million-dollar investments much more gingerly.

I don't think we'll ever return to those days, for better or worse.

 

Nope.

Nonsense. One game is 1/162 [0.006] of a season. You can't just ignore the number of pitches thrown in relation to a pitcher's level of strength and effectiveness.

You want the NL to have 13 teams, and the AL to have 11?

That's like a lifetime revocation of driver's license if caught speeding. And certain types of steroids are prescribed in therapy of recovering from injuries. You could find enough doctors to furnish them under that excuse [similar to how Elvis Presley met his end].

By hanging or by firing squad?

For what? To sign a lot more marginally talented players who won't give up the idea of the major leagues for 10-15 years? in the meantime making less money than street cleaners?

In what ways?

It seems hard to believe baseball doesn't make serious efforts to get talent wherever it is found. But that doesn't mean foreign talent is automatically ready to jump on the next plane. Japanese ballplayers seem to have to star in Japan for years before they see the next level in America. But Hispanic players, particularly from the Dominican Republic, see the majors in the states as their goal right away, so that area has been mined aplenty for decades.

Do you mean build 9,000 seat stadiums for that average attendance? 12,000? 20,000? I'm sure it costs a lot to attend a game at Fenway, because if they can't get more fans in, they just continually raise rates for the fans who are going to be there anyway. But apparently that's what you want.

It's unfortunate that Jackie Robinson has become a symbol as he has, and I wonder if it would be that extreme if he were still living. The idea that no player can wear #42 any longer is silly. But there are a lot of reasons Branch Rickey will only continue to fade further as history goes along. He began the "farm system" of major league teams owning minor league teams to develop their own players, signed to contracts not with the minor league team but with the major teams, and baseball somehow still has an exemption from anti-trust laws which would forbid such an arrangement in other businesses. So he is not popular with players, and he never was popular with fellow owners or general managers, alway using whatever changes he led to his own advantage [much like Tex Schramm in the NFL]. It probably didn't help his popularity that he was a man of convictions; he never did business, including managing a game or working out players, on Sundays, because he had promised his Methodist mother 'no Sunday business' whatever he went into. And, of course, his forward thinking made him unpopular; his decision to bring a black man into the majors years before most institutions faced integration battles was largely condemned in its time.

But for other players or executives deserving of honor comparing to Robinson... Larry Doby, the first black in the American League in 1948, brought in by Bill Veeck, who was perhaps comparable to Branch Rickey. And Satchel Paige, who many believe was the best pitcher in the history of baseball, who finally pitched in the major leagues at the age of 42. Maybe none more than Moses "Fleetwood" Walker; in 1878 he was the last black in the major leagues until Robinson. Teammates shunned him, pitchers ignored his signals [he was a catcher], opponents spiked and kicked him. After such physical and mental abuse he gave up-- maybe that's why he is not honored-- and later he was killed in a Philadelphia race riot.

 

I noticed you are from Columbus. Do you ever go to the Coop to watch the Clippers play?
I am from the Indy area and go to see the Indians as much as I can.

I hear they are breaking ground on a nice new stadium in Columbus soon.

 

Baw- Haw- Haw!! :laugh: :laugh:

Ed

 

Yes, I have been to the Coop many times. It is a great stadium, but it is in an afwul neighborhood with nothing around it to support it. Yes, they are building a new park in downtown right next to Nationwide Arena. It will be called Huntington Park (after Huntington Bank). I think it will be great. Some people are lamenting the loss of Cooper Stadium, because you can still get in the game at a really low cost, and most people suspect that the ticket prices will go way up with the new park. I can sympathize with that somewhat, but I think the trade off will be worth it.