SLACKISH REACTION: My experience with social distancing is that everyone went outside yesterday. The park was pretty crowded (went for a nice run myself), as was the Donuts Chain. This morning seems quieter. I was in and out of the Bagel Store with nice hot bagels, and I found it interesting the Donuts Chain has eliminated the napkin/straw counter and now issues those items with your order.
I played 6.5 hours of video games, mainly The Show, down from 7 the day before. Life without Major League Baseball is fine so far,
As you can imagine, there isn’t much Mets news.
Look at this ad. These crazy people at NBC think the 1986 World Series is going to have iconic moments like Fisk’s home run.
There was some discussion on twitter about me “live tweeting” the 1986 World Series in character (so me freaking out and complaining).
Would be curious on your thoughts on that. My initial reactions are –
Could be fun.
Is it 7 games of fun? Or is it fun to do once. And if so should I do Game 1? Game 6? Maybe game 7?
I’ll have to find a block of time to do it, but I guess with everything canceled I could do 7pm some weeknight this week.
One of the “nice” things about Coronavirus is that there’s not baseball. Now you guys are going to make me watch baseball???!!! Lol.
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The Newspaper has an article that is speculating….and remember at this point now everything is just speculating….that baseball could resume Memorial Day. Thats funny because baseball is officially shut down for two weeks, half of which is already over, and there was that nonsense the other day they’d play a full season into December. Yeah, right.
If I counted correctly….the Mets have 59 games through the end of May. I know the Post is making up Memorial Day but I will call it June 1.
That would give a 100 or so game schedule…maybe cancel the All Star Game and let LA get back at the top of the line….and maybe you end the season a bit…..there’s that 110 game number that’s been in my head.
I think when all is said and done, everyone is going to realize less baseball is more, and that 162 games are too many..
And 2020 is the right time to change things up, especially if they want to add more playoff teams – which I wonder if we could see here because of the shortened schedule. Remember in 1981 they did split seasons which resulted in a porto-division Series. Maybe we play a 100 game sprint but there are more playoff games, which allows TV to make some money back.
Long time readers have seen me write this before, but here’s my logic of changing the game now. Historically the game has hand in 25 year increments. The Steroids Age forever changed the record book, and clearly pitching has changed and both Seaver and JDG can be great – but JDG’s numbers will never ever look anything like Tom’s.
1895-1920 Old-time baseball. Guys like Big Ed Walsh win 40 games.
1921-1946 The Golden Age. Babe Ruth changes the game, including Home Run totals off the charts.
1947-1968 The Silver Age. Integration and expansion. A game more like what we saw in the Bronze Age that many of us grew up with.
1969-1994 The Bronze Age. 4 divisions. A game of pitching and stolen bases. You win the MVP with 30 Home Runs.
1995-2020 The Steroid Age. Baseball decides to look the other way and Mark McGwire saves baseball. Everyone makes money and then the baseball writers get all righteous and keep people out of the HOF. Meanwhile all the numbers are distorted and look nothing like the three previous ages.
2020-2045 The Modern Age. Shorter Seasons. More Playoff Teams.
You can kind of compare one age to the ones adjacent to it, but if you go two ages away the game looks very different. There’s also a big difference between Bronze Age baseball and the Steroid Age. Almost as jarring as what Ruth did in the 1920s.
So that’s my take. Use this season to see the possibilities of a better game for the future. The record books are destroyed now anyway so let’s stop worrying about that. Your life has gone along just fine knowing nobody would win 40 or 500….so now you can be fine knowing nobody will win 20 or 300. It’s fine if nobody hits 70 HRs again, because that was crap baseball anyway. Let’s move into the future with a tighter game….lest the game die….because despite what the Baseball Mafia is spinning, the 2010’s were baseball’s least interesting decade in 100 years.
