New in PJ Media:
Alone among the major sports, baseball has the misfortune of being controlled by people who don’t really like baseball. Over the last few years, they’ve made a large number of changes to the rules that reflect their conviction that the sport they’re trying to sell is slow and boring, and that they need to jazz it up with all sorts of new rules that cut down on the time the game takes. But the rules cut deeply into the game’s lyricism, romanticism, and timeless, unhurried pace. And now the chief hatchet man, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, is touting the most radical change of all: elimination of the American and National Leagues.
Manfred tried to sell this idea as connected to MLB’s expansion from 30 to 32 teams, saying, “In my mind, I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign. I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. And I think our postseason format would be more appealing for entities like ESPN because you’d be playing up out of the East, out of the West. And that 10 o’clock time slot, where we sometimes get lost in Anaheim, would be two West Coast teams. That 10 o’clock slot that’s a problem for us sometimes becomes a real opportunity for our West Coast audience.”
What Manfred is saying is that there would be one big league instead of two, a la the NBA and NFL. Teams would be grouped into divisions by geography. Manfred explained that in this league, there would be two conferences, “consisting of four geographically-aligned divisions apiece. Four teams per division, 16 teams per conference.”
This would mean that the New York Mets and New York Yankees, instead of being rivals in competing leagues, would end up in the same division, along with the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies. Yeah, that’s over 100 years of baseball tradition, drama, and history out the window in one fell swoop, and for Manfred, that’s just the icing on the cake.
Rob Manfred is the fellow who has changed the rule so that pitchers no longer have to throw four intentional balls to walk a batter. Yeah, the game is sped up, but we are forever robbed of moments such as the one in the 1972 World Series, when Oakland A’s manager Dick Williams showily ordered pitcher Rollie Fingers to throw an intentional ball four, fooling everyone in the ballpark, including the Cincinnati Reds’ Johnny Bench, who stood at the plate with the bat on his shoulder as strike three sailed past. It was a great moment, and it is no more.
There is more. Read the rest here.
jerry glenn says
Baseball IS tradition.
mike says
Sports events are being destroyed
glad we no longer watch or attend any of them
࿗Infidel࿘ says
It’s a pity. Sports is one of the few aspects of American life to which I haven’t assimilated, and the BLM demonstrations in 2017 starting w/ Colin Kaepernack was a big reason why I simply didn’t bother you
mgoldberg says
My word… these corporate types only see from the money side, which is important, but when they muck up the whole history of the traditions, the rivalries, they destroy what is the substance of baseballs allure.
ME Infidel says
Professional team sports have been off my radar for years. I do watch pro golf but it is very uninspiring since the Saudis financed the LIV Tour which siphoned off players from the PGA Tour. They’re getting guaranteed $millions without really competing against the world’s best. Plus, more importantly, it may not be in their best interest to get in bed with insanely wealthy Sharia-compliant Muslims. Yah, never know what could happen if you crossed them. Right, Jamal Khashoggi?!
James Lincoln says
As alluded to in the feature article:
“10/18/72: Manager Dick Williams and pitcher Rollie Fingers decide to fake an intentional walk, resulting in a strikeout of Johnny Bench”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0jGrfQCu4
Heather says
I haven’t watched baseball since they implemented all these stupid “time-saving” rules. Can’t even watch minor league baseball because that’s where all these things start.
OLD GUY says
I used to watch a lot of professional sports, now I don’t watch any. It used to be about playing the game, Now It is all about MONEY.
College sports is headed in the same direction, MONEY. I think some schools put more emphasis on sports than they do on EDUCATION also true at the high school level.
Troybeam says
Make changes and lose the people, along with money. Cannot make it without the money & Americans love baseball but also will quit the game if it gets too political.
John Pepple says
Not only will they lose people, but I doubt they will gain any with the changes. I think baseball is slow and boring, and these changes are too minor to change my mind.
Plus, baseball doesn’t have what soccer has: open-cup tournaments and World Cups.