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The current whiz-kids who occupy the braintrust of MLB would be perfectly happy to have 8 division winners and 8 WC winners. Then, they’ll claim that all of their ideas and efforts are formulated and set in place because they feel it’s in the best interest of their most loyal fans…Sound familiar?
Quite right, the idea of a pennant race is long gone.
The solution is less, not more.
Money is killing baseball. In more ways than one.
Is it the fans who are demanding more teams, more playoffs, more wild cards? Perhaps so, but I don’t see any evidence of it.
It is the fans. MLB can’t not survive without a younger fan base. They will do whatever it takes to keep them interested. Speeding up the game, more offense and more teams with shot at at title are all dictated by the younger fans. I am not one of them but I am with them embracing the changes. Time to bring baseball to the new millennium.
This millennium is anything but new. It exists with the same old gimmicks and schemes as the prior one. Just as the shill remains as entirely effective as it ever was.
How many people really get that interested in the NBA regular season? I know I don’t. Why? Several reasons but one of them is because over half of the league make the playoffs. MLB is heading in that direction.
Oliver: I don’t believe these young fans are “dictating” anything and I don’t believe MLB can’t survive without all this expansion of teams and playoffs. Don’t kid yourself, baseball money people don’t give a damn about fans, they just want to make more money, which is of course a legitimate pursuit. But I don’t think survival is in question, only the raking in of more and more cash. I think saturating MLB with more teams and playoffs, in the end, will have the opposite effect and will not increase fandom or, ultimately, help grow the money tree.
Trying to speed up the game and increase safety is fine and even an old fart like me agrees with some of that, but I fear diluting the game with too much of it is a far greater danger than foundering.
Years ago I advocated dividing each League into Divisions based upon market size. Say, four Divisions in each League, four biggest market teams in a division , the next 4, etc.
Post season generates more revenue per game, so we will see more post season teams, not less. Baseball is actually behind the curve on that. Football, basketball and hockey have done it that way for years.
In fact as a kid when I was just getting into the NBA, they had 9 teams and played about 80 games a season, and 8 of the 9 made the playoffs. The season just seeded the teams.
I am okay with expanded playoffs. You get the ups and downs of the regular season, and a chance to atone for what might be a disappointing season by squeaking in to the post season and winning some games.
I guess the MLB doesn’t need fans. The old school baseball fans are on the way out. The season is too long. Expanding to where? They are so many floundering franchises. The talent is so diluted having more teams is asinine. Playoffs = $$$ So many bad teams makes the season boring. The only fun part now is watching the mighty fall during the playoffs. I don’t have the answers but I doubt that a few more teams making the playoffs is the problem.
Oliver…There have always been markets that flounder. Even ballclubs that were successful relocated due to simple greed way back in the 1950’s. Baseball has plenty of fans and generates more revenue and profits than it ever has. It’s no accident that team owners won’t publicly reveal profit margins. If they did, they couldn’t continue to complain that they have to do this that or the other thing to produce more revenue.
I disagree with…baseball has plenty of fans. Maybe until the baby boomers are gone. It is an older generation sport. They need to replenish the fan base.
They play 162 regular season games and average over 25,000 fans per game which comes to about an average of 65M fans per year. That far outpaces any other sport in this country. How much better do you want it?
Just for kicks, tonight I watched game 3 of the Phillies/Astros’80 NLCS on YouTube complete with that eras commercial breaks. Hank Aaron in a KFC commercial, James Garner pitching for Polaroid cameras and a brand new Chevy Monte Carlo for about $6000…Haha! The ballgame was nothing other than raw exciting baseball played at a crisp pace that featured hitters like Gary Maddux and Pete Rose who knew the importance of putting the baseball into play and reaching base. Guys who hit for power who actually choked up on the bat and cut down on their swing when down in the count with 2 strikes. Outstanding defense and I saw two pitchouts that made me think of how long it’s been since I’ve even seen a catcher or manager call for a pitchout. I also saw an intentional BB in which the baseball came real close to being thrown for a WP which would have allowed a baserunner to score from 3B…Haha! What’s with this automatic take your base nonsense? The game was also called by Keith Jackson, Don Drysdale and Howard Cosell. All 3 of them actually called the action of the baseball game and didn’t bombard the viewer with the endless stream of meaningless stats that are available to today’s announcers. I need a time machine…Haha!
I really don’t like to sound like an old crusty curmudgeon. I try to blend the history of the game with some modern changes. My main point is that the regular season should be respected because it is a gauntlet unlike in any other professional sport. If expanded playoffs and more wild card teams are in the future I think a logical decision would be to shrink the regular season back to 154 games and expand the length of the playoff series. Make the wild card round a best of 5 and every other round a best of 7. That diminishes the chance of a fluky result based on a bad bounce or getting beat by a hot starter.
gscottar…No question it would be not only a logical decision, but also a no brainer. It wouldn’t at all bother me to take it a step further and scale the regular season back to somewhere between 140 and 150 games. Then, a best of 5 first round and subsequent rounds leading to the WS a best of 7 like you mentioned. And then, why not place some special emphasis on the WS with a best of 9 for the grand prize? In any event, a best of 3 first round for post-season qualifying teams is silly. I thought the post-season was supposed to be something special? The overwhelming majority of regular season series are a 3 game format. Nothing at all unique or special about a 3 game series.
I still don’t understand why only the good teams should win. Give a me fluky result anytime. Why play the games if the division winner always wins in the wc round? Boring. A team getting hot and playing over their heads as much fun as you can expect from proper and boring deserving winner mold. Nothing better than not having to watch the Dodgers, Yankees, Astros rinse an repeat every freaking year.
Oliver…I also enjoy watching a David slay a Goliath. I also think it would lend more credence and significance to David’s victory if it was achieved in an extended series. That way, the argument that it was luck of the draw would hold less substance. Not only that, baseball fans like you and I would be afforded more post-season baseball action. What’s wrong with that? Also, I’ll be rooting for PHI over HOU in the WS not only because I enjoy seeing underdogs prevail, but also because I’m a NL guy. However, I’m pretty certain we’re going to be subjected to a rinse and repeat…Haha!
No one, and I mean no one is giving the Phillies a sliver of a chance in this WS. You know what that means…
It means a long deep recession is coming according to people that keep up with these things. When the Phillies win the economy tanks…..
Verlander’s 0-6 with a 5.68 ERA and 9 HR’s allowed in 38 IP in 7 GS’s in the WS. There’s no other way to say it…That’s horrible.
The main thing tonight, as Pugs will attest to, is the titanic struggle between the Jasper Wildcats and the Evansville Memorial Tigers tonight in Evansville. It’s the semi-final game of Sectional 24 and the winner advances to the championship game next Friday. Jasper defeated Memorial 34-10 the first game of the year but it was alot closer than the score might indicate.
Me and Whitey Herdog will be on the couch tonight, watching the Phillies pound that idiot Dusty Baker’s team. Plus we will be monitoring the Jasper/Evansville Memorial battle from time to time. And me and Whitey will probably enjoy a couple of cigars tonight also. And a trip to Lakeview, the Amish restaurant north of town that sits on the lake, is in store for this afternoon.
r/Esteemed Rat
Nothing better than not having to watch the Dodgers, Yankees, Astros rinse an repeat every freaking year.
Then maybe other teams front office should get off of their arse and build a team that can win during the regular season.
Houston has jumped out in front in Game #1. It’s 2-0 in the last of the 2nd and they have runners at the corners and still only one out.
The HPU called two Verlander letter high fastballs for strikes to Schwarber and a pitch that appeared well below the knees for a strike to Hoskins in the 1st inning that may well set the tone for Verlander to win his first WS game in 7 attempts. He’s 0-6 thus far in 7 WS GS. The Phillies are in trouble if Verlander gets to work to a K zone that’s the size of Mama Cass…
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