Open Letter to Bud Selig
Dear Bud:
My friend Jim came over to watch Game 5 of the World Series last night. We were both hoping for a Rays' win. We were both hoping for at least six games. We haven't seen that in a while.
The game started at 5:30 p.m. for us, 8:30 p.m. on the east coast, standard fare under your watch. Bad enough the 162-game schedule and three tiers of post-season play have pushed the most important games of the year into late October, when cold weather becomes more and more of a factor; but, for the sake of TV revenue, which is to say MLB revenue, you make them play at night, when there's no hope an autumn sun will warm things up a bit. Hell, because of Saturday night's rain delay, you made them play into the darkest part of the morning. The nine-inning game ended at 1:47 a.m. No wonder you got your lowest ratings ever. You warp the game to get it into prime time and then Mother Nature pushes you into a timeslot reserved for infomercials for the lonely and pathetic. Nice irony.
Jim and I talked about this last night. We talked about the weather -- even before the rains came. Gametime temps were in the low 40s, and there was a fierce wind blowing in from left field, and I said, for the thousandth time: "This isn't baseball. This isn't fun. It's not fun to watch guys freezing their asses off in the most important games of the year."
Then the heavens opened up. In the regular season the game would've been called, or postponed, by the 5th inning if not sooner. But these guys, playing the most important game of the year, were forced to keep playing. You could see them wondering about it. Looking up, shaking their heads, getting drenched. It was a joke.
The Fox broadcasters seemed oblivious, or muzzled, for a time. While Jim and I were yelling at the TV set, they blathered on about everything but the need to suspend the game.
When they did talk about it, they, or at least Joe Buck, implied that the power to call or suspend a game belonged to the umps during the regular season but to someone else during the World Series. Is that right? Does it belong to you, Bud? If so, what took you so long? Why did you wait for the infield to become a swamp? Did B.J. Upton really need to tie the game, as many have implied, before you acted? And if he hadn't, would you have kept playing? In that cold swamp? It seems unimaginable.
You want to know what else Jim and I were talking about before the rains came? How long it's been since we've seen a decent World Series. Sweeps in three of the last four years, no sixth game since '03, no seventh game since '02.
If this Series doesn't go to Game 7, that'll be a record. Since the Series became a best-of-seven affair in 1922, the longest Game 7-drought has been five years, 1935 through 1939, and we've already tied that.
We've already had four years without a Game 6. That's a record. The previous record was three years, set several times.
In a way, we're spoiled. In the 21 years from 1955 through 1975, the World Series went to seven games 14 times. Glory years. Amoros' catch, Mazeroski's homer, Gibson and Brock, Fisk waving the ball fair, "Why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?"
In the last 20 years? We've watched a Game 7 four times: '91, '97, '01 and '02.
In the last 10 years, we've had five sweeps.
I know. This is beyond your control, beyond anyone's control. But it seems indicative that something is wrong with the game.
Baseball is a sport where, during the regular season, the worst team wins and the best team loses a third of their games. For the World Series that would mean, in general, a Game 6. October happenstance occasionally takes you to Game 7. So where is it? Why aren't we getting it? At all?
Is it the extra tier of playoffs? Are teams getting too many off-days? Is the problem playing until late October, and often past midnight, in weather conditions meant for football?
Is this fun?
In the past I always thought it out of the question to ask you guys to give up short-term revenue to think of the long-term interests (and revenue) of the game, but that's what I'm doing now.
Start off, yes, by taking us back to a 154-game schedule. Then end the season sooner. The last week of September should be the first week of the post-season. The Series should be over by October 20, not beginning on October 22. Late October turns nasty. By scheduling the most important (and potentially most-watched) games of the year during this stretch, you're just inviting the disasters of Monday night.
Then, at some point, whenever you work out your next contract with the next network to cover the post-season, schedule some World Series games during the day. Let's see the boys of summer play in the sun. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe a day game will be postponed right into prime time on the east coast. Maybe some kids will be able to watch it. Maybe they'll become fans. Nothing's impossible.
Do this soon. Please.
Next season, I see you have Game 7 (if we ever make it there again) scheduled for late night on Nov. 5. November!
This isn't baseball. This isn't fun.
Best,
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I've seen games played in worse conditions than what we saw in the first part of game five (one game during the 1968 World Series comes particularly to mind). I was kind of rooting for Tampa Bay just because they were the story of baseball during the regular season, but I wasn't THAT invested in it. Plus they play in the worst ballpark in MLB, an old lady's garage of a stadium. There are storage rooms with more atmosphere.
Bud Selig has mostly been a curse on baseball for a whole host of reasons and I will be glad to see him finally depart.
That is most assuredly Devil Ray dancing. I want to see some Yankee dancing.
Go, Phils !
Let's see Bud Selig & W said that they were deciders. W has Cheney to tell him what to decide; Selig has the lords of MLB to tell him what & when to decide. Neither W nor Bud have been making good decesions. There is no hope for W. As for Bud, the lords of MLB need to tell him to decide that next season, all series games get played in domed stadiums on neutral ground. Give teams who don't play in domes 5 years to build a dome or move to a domed site. Baseball is a summer game, not a winter sport. Football players wear winter underwar & play in snow storms. When it's cold, windy, raining, snowing it's difficult to catch the ball to see it to hit it. Next year, the series goes to a dome. That will free from having to wait till the owners tell him what to decide. OK, you can replace Bud but the series must be played in domed parks only. Baseball is a summer game.
If baseball is a summer game, what's the point of forcing teams (and their host cities) to pony up for domed stadiums? Either you're a summer game, and you play in any weather (since summer rains are not as cold and windy as October rains), or you're a winter or annual game and you play in domes. A much simplier (and infinitely lest costly) solution would be to fix the schedule so that the season ends before October. If that means less games, so be it. I don't see why cities that host teams, many struggling as all Americans and many states are in these tough economic times, should be encouraged to waste precious public funds catering to less-than-thought-out ideas like forcing the construction of domed stadiums.
You have forgotten the lords of MLB. They are into extortion. Check how many stadiums they have forced cities, counties & states to build to retain or get a MLB franchise. As for shortening the season, if the lords of MLB get enough domed stadiums, we''ll get winter MLB. The lords of MLB will get domed stadiums by pulling the MLB franchise(s) from a city(ies) that don't build domed stadiums. There are cities in Japan who will build domed stadiums to get an MLB franchise. Pittsburgh, Cincynasty, KC, Seattle, Twin Cities & any other city where attendance is low & TV rights aren't paying enormous bucks will get bids from & move to Japan or any other city in other countries who will build domed stadiums & pay mega-$ to get an MLB team. How about the Tokayo Nomads, the Yokahoma Vagabonds, etc? The lords of MLB didn't invent or discover greed but they are willing & able to raise the state of the art of greed. Try them; they'll give you a run for some sucker's money. The Emirates Oilers or Sheiks will be in a series after they get a franchise-in 5 years or less.
I'm sorry, but aren't these multimillionaires supposed to be "professional" athletes? When you get paid that much money, you shouldn't get to whine about conditions. Unless you're saying that postal carriers deserve to make so much less than these baseball players despite working in worse conditions all year round. Is that it? Are the babies in MLB that much more delicate than postal carriers? If so, I say let's swap their salaries so that the puling whiners in baseball get paid what they deserve to get paid for complaining about playing in conditions.
NFL players don't whine about playing in snow, when it happens.
NHL players don't cry about playing in the cold.
Only basketball players are worse than baseball players; they stay inside the whole time.
These boys (because they certainly aren't men) need to grow up, and the fans that are getting so outraged at their "treatment" need to grow up to. Last I checked, these guys were still Americans, and could still walk away from their jobs if they were too demanding.
See Erik Lundegaard's Profile
Your argument isn’t my argument.
You are talking about what is or isn’t sufficiently macho. To you, baseball isn’t sufficiently macho because it isn’t played under extreme elements — except, of course, extreme heat.
I am talking about what baseball is. Baseball is played under certain conditions. My argument is that you shouldn’t play the most important games of the year under completely different conditions.
Playing baseball in early November is like playing outdoor hockey in early April. It goes against what the sport is.
"Baseball is played under certain conditions. "
Only seven teams currently have domed fields, while the rest are open. Of the two planned domed stadiums, one is a replacement field for the Rays, who are included in that initial seven. That's hardly a consensus among the teams themselves that they will only play in "certain" conditions. An open field means that you are exposed to the elements, whatever they might be.
And "certain conditions" itself is an overly broad term, since no weatherman would say that a bright, windless, warm day and a bright, windless, frigid day are the same, yet baseball could be played in either one.
Speaking of "certain conditions", why aren't all the fields the same size? Have the same distance from home plate to center field? Wouldn't placement near a body of water in one city result in a higher humidity in the air within a field than in someplace in the Midwest, which might affect conditions around the players?
Adverse conditions do suck, but when to play is controlled by the Commissioner. Until the rules are changed, the players should play by the rules as they stand. That is what they are paid to do after all, right?
Nice assumption about my perception of baseball's level of "macho", btw. Is it my turn to make baseless judgements about you now?
Game 5 was a slap in the face to every baseball fan who ever lived. Thanks to Bud, we got to see both teams waste their aces, and got a good look at what playing baseball in a monsoon is like.
Some of my favorite memories of high school ('68 -'71) were ditching school to catch daytime ws games.
Baseball is still a daytime game. Too many divisions, or conferences or whatever they call them. The long playoffs ruin the series.
Selig had already destroyed baseball with his Bush-like incompetence when he couldn't avert a strike in '94. Since then radical realignment has resulted in mediocrity being rewarded with wild card play, which is okay for single game elimination tournaments like high school and the NCAA. To wit, the Florida Marlins, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals fielded less than stellar clubs in recent years to win the tournament. Since the average fan has long been relegated to watching baseball on TV, or to the crappy seats being all he can afford, or have the opportunity to reasonably purchase postseason tickets, it no longer makes sense to have the Series shuttling between home fields, rather play the Series in a temperate location and play the games every day in the best of seven format. This would make the Series an endurance test on the merits of the game and not put at the mercy of the elements. No need for the clubs to travel and waste jet fuel, the varied corporate interestests who bought tickets can afford to take their clients on a junket, and schedule the start times at a reasonable hour.
Well said, Erik. This baseball fan agrees wholeheartedly.
Imagine if Bush's daddy would have got him that commissioners job, It would have been baseball destroyed instead of the country. Of course now it seems that the plutocrats have managed to do both. Don't even get me started with the three ring circus that circumvented the Super Bowl last year, the game was secondary, a fill in between commercial space and hype. And these people can't understand why the American people are tuning out?
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