Sunday, October 18, 2009

What's Wrong with Baseball

I'm sure that the story line from Major League Baseball's communications department today is the wild finish early this morning in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Angels, with the Yankees pulling off yet another of their comeback victories. (Who ever thought that Jerry Hairston, Jr. would score the winning run in the 13th inning?) But the storyline they want everyone to ignore and to keep ignoring is the weather. The weather in Yankee Stadium was 45 degrees Fahrenheit at game time with rain and wind, and with the championship series in both leagues yet to be completed, we stand a very good chance of playing the World Series in November which, I'll just state the obvious, is just a plain stupid idea: If you like playing baseball in the winter, go to the Caribbean.

We've reached this point because Major League Baseball is trying to generate as much revenue as possible by lengthening the season, and they have to generate revenue because, for one, player salaries have been on a rocket ship for 34 years. In 1975 when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally won their landmark arbitration case, the average major leaguer made $45,238 for the season - this season, the average Yankee made over $7,748,000 on the highest-paid club in the majors. Even with record attendance and high TV and merchandising revenues, Major League Baseball is desperate for cash and will do anything, even extend the season past Halloween, to make more, even though this generates something else the owners would rather do without: Scorn.

Baseball is a summer sport. For 65 years, the World Series was played the first week of October when the weather was as near-perfect as possible and fan interest was high. Then, in 1969, baseball decided to add a best-of-five League Championship Series which the calendar could still support, and which helped extend the season of two more teams. This scheme was changed to a best-of-seven format in 1985 and then, in 1995, a best-of-five Division Series was added in both leagues, meaning that eight teams made it to the postseason rather than the original two. In 1903 when the first World Series was played between the Boston Pilgrims and the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pilgrims managed to beat the Pirates five games to three but yet the season was over by 13 October and neither team played more than 148 games total. The following year, because of the interest the Series generated, the regular season was lengthened from 140 to 154 games which was acceptable since the playoffs were still limited to the Series, and in 1961 when the regular season was lengthened yet again to 162 games, it was still OK: The regular season was over by the end of September with the World Series concluded the same time it always was.

But beyond simply lengthening the season, baseball has changed the way most games are played. In decades past, teams traveled by train from city to city and needed more time in the schedule to accomodate it, and thus played more doubleheaders. Now the clubs fly, need less time for travel and play more three- and four-game series. In the old days, most games were played during the day. Now, most games are played at night to allow more fans to watch the game in person (preferably) or on cable TV (not as preferred but still OK since baseball gets a cut). We are therefore left with a baseball season that has been stretched at least three weeks past its normal limits and which is played at a leisurely pace, all to generate as much revenue as possible, a ludicrously long season that unnaturally overlaps football, hockey and even basketball and instead of creating more fan buzz, playoffs that create more material for late-night comedians, e.g., "C.C. Sabathia tried to master a new pitch the other night but just can't get the hang of the split-finger snowball."

What to do about this ridiculous situation? I have a few ideas. First, the regular season exists to eliminate those teams that just can't compete at a high level, and an extra eight games don't make much difference where that is concerned. Thus I would start by returning to the old 154-game schedule with Opening Day no later than 02 April. Second, I would schedule at least seven more doubleheaders during the regular season for each team, since travel time isn't the factor it was 75 years ago and every day saved in May and June would then be available in September and October. Third, scale the Division Series and League Championship Series back to best-of-five games each - eight teams could still make the playoffs but would have to prove very quickly who deserved to play in the World Series. And last, I would dictate with absolute certainty that the seventh and deciding game of the World Series would be played not later than the fifteenth of October, network rights or marketing schemes or anything else notwithstanding. Baseball has survived scandals and wars and integration and strikes, but baseball cannot survive the image of playing in the snow and has to find a way out of this mess, and quickly.









Friday, October 9, 2009

The Body, The Body, The Body!



FOOTNOTES OF HISTORY DEPT.: On 30 April 1976, at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, two-time heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali defended his title against the little-known Jimmy Young of Philadelphia in a fight widely viewed as just another payday for the champ - he would make $2 million for the bout and was expected to dominate his less-experienced, less-talented opponent. However, Young, whose record stood at 17-4-2, had no intention of being yet another Ali victim. Having beaten Ron Lyle in a straight-up fight and having fought the powerful Earnie Shavers to a standstill, Young was a cagey, crafty fighter who was difficult to hit. For fifteen rounds, Young dodged, weaved and counterpunched the champion silly, avoiding most of the heavy blows while scoring repeatedly himself. Ali never seemed to get a clean shot at him and for many of the fans in the arena and watching on TV, it seemed that they were witnessing an upset. Yet in a surprise announcement, Referee Tom Kelly scored the fight 72-65; judges Larry Barrett and Terry Moore had it 70-68 and 71-64, respectively: Amid a chorus of boos and insults from the capacity crowd, Ali was declared the winner in a unanimous decision and retained his title. Ken Norton (who was calling the action ringside for NBC and who had beaten Ali and broken his jaw two years previous) thought that Young had clearly outduelled the champion. Confirming popular opinion, Ali refused a rematch with Young, unwilling to face such a cunning opponent - and further embarrassment - ever again.




Why was there such outrage over the decision? Why was there such a disconnect between the fans watching the fight and the officials who decided it? Because Young's style of boxing, designed to frustrate and confuse his opponent, to protect himself from Ali's deadly combinations while allowing him to score with jabs and straight rights, was not what makes a champion. Simply surviving didn't impress anybody - if Young really wanted to beat Muhammad Ali and take his belt, he had to be the aggressor, he had to take the fight to him and whip him on national TV. Against a legend like Ali, Jimmy Young would have to take risks, get in close and knock the champ out at point-blank range, something he was clearly unwilling to do. That being the case, the judges saw no justification for giving him Ali's title: Jabbing and counterpunching just weren't good enough.






We now have a situation in Afghanistan that bears some resemblance to my pugilistic example. LTG Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked commander in that theater, has requested 40,000 additional troops to augment his current force of 68,000, over and above the 17,000 personnel he received in the Spring. LTG McChrystal is convinced that without these reinforcements, he will be unable to counter the current Taliban offensive and may not be able to hold the country; that is, the United States might lose the war. He wants the strength to get in close, take the fight to the enemy and knock them out, yet President Obama is notably reluctant to approve LTG McChrystal's request as this contravenes his party's 45-year aversion to military action and his own liberal instincts. Having repeatedly stated that the war in Afghanistan was the one we had to win, the President now searches for a way to abandon it. (Recall that then-Senator Obama vehemently opposed President Bush's troop surge in Iraq in 2007, claiming the war was already lost. Since that surge actually worked, His Serene Loftiness is reluctant to validate conservative military strategy yet again.) He hesitates, he considers shifting away from defeating the Taliban and toward pursuing Al Qaeda, away from Afghanistan altogether and toward Pakistan, he commissions a review of LTG McChrystal's plan and floats trial balloons through his surrogates like negotiating with the Taliban rather than destroying them, he has SecDef Robert Gates rebuke LTG McChrystal and CENTCOM chief GEN Petraeus for publicly advocating for McChrystal's strategy, he rebukes LTG McChrystal on board Air Force One personally, his willing accomplices in the news media publish opinion polls and reports indicating the American public's fatigue with the eight-year war and their doubts as to whether continuing the fight is worth it, he does everything possible to avoid simply approving LTG McChrystal's request. He considers withdrawing most American combat troops and relying instead on armed Predator drones, special operations forces and airstrikes to do the job, jabbing and counterpunching from a distance like Jimmy Young did, keeping the enemy off-balance and avoiding the big knockout punch.



...instead of delivering the big knockout punch. President Obama, like Jimmy Young, instinctively chooses a defensive strategy that assures personal survival but surrenders the initiative to his opponent, thereby guaranteeing defeat. If we are not actively pursuing the Taliban and attacking them first, we are inviting them to do the same to us, and with Taliban forces gaining momentum throughout Afghanistan, we must do everything possible to stop them, regain the initiative and crush them, or else risk losing the war, which we cannot afford to do. Bill Clinton relied on cruise missiles and airstrikes for nearly three months against Serbia in 1999 but the only thing that drove the Serbs to the bargaining table was the threat of ground invasion, so Obama has that example from his immediate Democrat predecessor from which to draw inspiration. We cannot lose Afghanistan. That is a simple, undeniable fact and one which His Serene Loftiness claims to understand. If that is indeed the case, Mr. President, then answer LTG McChrystal's request, commit the troops, fight America's enemies toe-to-toe and win the war...or slink away, disgraced and defeated, to your eternal shame.