Since it’s quiet I thought I’d repost this one from June.
First we have to start with the premise that the record book is completely broken. While once 755 and 61 and a 300 win career meant something, all that is meaningless now. I’m not even 100% sure what the Bonds numbers are…but I also don’t know how many TD’s Emmitt Smith had or how many points Michael Jordan scores….so who cares.
So let’s take the record book and divide it up.
5000 B.C. – 1918. The Prehistoric Age. We had guys in knickerbockers and a 9 game World Series and the Federal League and Big Ed Walsh won 40 games. This has nothing to do with anything.
1918-1945. The Diamond Age. The Sultan of Swat destroyed Home Run Baker’s record by hitting 29 in 1918 and 54 the next year. White guys played white guys and traveled by train and played day games. Lots of good things happened in 8 team leagues.
1946-1968. The Golden Age. This is the baseball everyone waxes poetic about. Everyone is back from the war. Baseball lets black players play. Subway Series and Willie, Mickey and the Duke, Joltin Joe and West Coast teams and Ted Williams and Roger Maris and all that. We can argue about 154 vs 162 some other time.
1969-1994. The Silver Age. This is the baseball I grew up with. Guys won 300 games and struck out 300 batters. You won MVPs by hitting 300 with 30 HRs. Leagues played by different rules but since they only played each other in the World Series it was almost OK.
Then everything breaks.
1995-2020. The Bronze Age. To borrow from Bob Costas, all the great hitters of all time decided to play all at the same time. Wild Cards and Interleague and some suspect workouts led to all kinds of crazy statistics that have nothing to do with the Golden and Silver Ages which are more alike than the Golden Age is to the Prehistoric Age. So let’s Put It In The Books and enjoy these 25 years as their own thing and appreciate the great numbers put up by Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Clemens and even Rafael Palmeiro.
And now on to the future. We will drag baseball into the 21st Century of short attention spans and more competition and kids who don’t care about the game.
2020-2100. The Modern Age.
Games shall be 7 innings long. Before you freak out, this is already a thing in the second game of doubleheaders in the minor leagues. Ron Darling tells me on TV that he considers a 7 inning start to be a “complete game” in the modern era.
So let’s get rid of the stupid pitching changes and Bullpen LaRussaism and shorten the game. 7 innings. People usually start leaving after the 7th anyway.
The 7th inning stretch is an unfortunate casualty and will have to move to after the 5th inning.
I understand the revenue aspects – so since there would be a removal of commercial breaks in the middle of the 7th and two in the 8th, I have to redistribute those six minutes of commercials. I will add 30 seconds to each remaining commercial break – so TV Executives you now have MORE inventory to sell so shut up, and breaks will be 2:30 between innings, but hopefully this will be offset by the starting pitcher going 6 and the closer one.
The Designated Hitter is adopted in the NL. I’m giving in. Every other league from your local school to Japan to the minors to the AL uses it, so let’s just give in. Plus, the union is gonna bitch that I eliminated relief pitcher jobs, so I need to keep guys that can’t field employed.
28 Man rosters, with scratches. Hey look baseball union, I am trying to help here. There will be 28 guys on the ML Roster, 25 of which will be active for each game, with some sort of TBD declaration for your pool of say 6 guys who are allowed to be your starting pitchers for the week or something so we don’t get into nonsense where yesterday’s pitcher is on the taxi squad. But if you want to burn out Blevins tonight or your catch is tired from the 29 inning game, you can make them a Scratch tomorrow. Anyway Mr. Union Rep, yeah maybe I got rid of some borderline relievers but I just created there more Major League salaries, so sign off on my plan.
No trips to the mound ever ever ever ever ever never ever. It’s the year 2020. Surely we can add a tiny bluetooth speaker to a baseball cap so Terry can tell his pitcher to throw more strikes to this guy. Why does Warthen need to go to the mound? Pitching changes from the dugout. Tell the guy to come in and take the mound using amazing technology. One of the players in the game can hold the baseball until the reliever gets there. Speed this up.
Hard-line no mercy enforcement of batters box and pitch count. Stop with the walkup music. Nobody is going to the game to hear 15 seconds of a song. Joltin’ Joe didn’t walk up to the Charleston. Get in the box and tell the pitcher he has 20 seconds to pitch. You cannot leave the batters box.
Human Umpires. Baseball shall station a referee near every base. Those officials will decide on all plays and their ruling is final. The play will not be reviewed, you cannot argue the point. Sometimes mistakes will happen.
Balks are stupid. This has nothing to do with pace of play, but balks are stupid. While I’m changing things lets get rid of this.
My plan goes into effect with the start of the 2020 season, so you can play your long term contracts wisely, your TV sales team knows what they are in for, and you can start to develop strong 6 inning pitchers in the minors.
