Good grief. The wussification of another of America’s great institutions advances, or at least threatens to.
This is the week the Boys of Summer break out of their winter exile. They ease out onto fields in Florida and Arizona, loosen up the old hoses with some easy games of catch and get ready for seven or eight months of Americana.
Yep, it’s spring training.
It’s about this time that the high school teams have their tryouts, when nervous freshmen (and even more nervous parents) go through the agony and ecstasy of trying out for teams for the first time when not everyone makes it, not everyone gets a set amount of playing time and moms aren’t there to hold their hands when they get a boo-boo.
In other words, kids, this is a small introduction to how the world works, where there are no participation trophies and competition is real. Yes, you will be judged on your talent, effort and attitude. Get used to it.
Age 14 or 15 is an appropriate time to introduce that reality to our sports-playing youth. So why in the name of Abner Doubleday are we going backward at the other end of the sports spectrum, with even more coddling for the pros?
I refer to the disheartening proposal to rock one of the foundational rules of the National Pastime – that the game is played until a winner is determined on the field.
In its wisdom, Major League Baseball has decided to test-drive in the lower minors a rule change (atrocity) to protect its precious darlings on the field from “working” too long on a given day.
The proposal is, if a game is tied after regulation time, the first team to bat in extra innings be given a runner on second base and none out. This greatly increases the chance of scoring and, in theory, will shorten the game. Presumably the home team would be given the same opportunity in the bottom of the inning, though I couldn’t read the details without starting to gag.
Major League Baseball, in trying to make its product “relevant” to younger fans, already has morphed itself into a fireworks-oriented, music-heavy, kiss-camming, whiz-bang visual carnival for the attention-challenged.
It has juiced up the baseball and shortened the fences (more fireworks!); reduced the strike zone to the size of a salad plate; looked the other way as freakoid drugs were passed around the locker room like Chiclets; institutionalized pitch counts as a way of “protecting” their jillion-dollar arms, most of which wind up having reconstructive surgery anyway; eliminated doubleheaders to spare their darlings (and to make sure the owners collect at the gate 81 times per season); and made bunting and base-stealing illegal (or so it seems).
All of these are irritating but pale next to the Original Sin perpetrated in 1973 – the abomination known as the Designated Hitter. Adopted by the American League and forever screwing up any confrontation between the two leagues, it has been embraced by high school and colleges and is only resisted now by the National League, though with annual predictions – so far, false – that it’s about to infect that last holdout, too.
The shortcomings of the DH – old, slow players who can only hit, brain-dead managing that doesn’t require thought on pitching changes or pinch-hitting, four-hour games, to name a few – are too numerous to list here. They’d require a separate column.
Apparently, the goal of this man-on-second brain freeze is to do away with any possibility of an epic 19-inning game that finishes up with infielder Jose Oquendo pitching the last four innings, as happened on May 14, 1988.
People still remember that game, which they wouldn’t have if a runner had been sent out to second base to start the 10th inning and later scored. Big whoop.
Joe Torre, former catcher, manager, broadcaster and now Major League Baseball’s chief baseball officer (whatever that is), was quoted as saying, basically, hey, let’s give it a chance.
“It’s not fun to go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing in a utility infielder to pitch,” Torre said. “As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time.”
Maybe Joe is still tired from the 25-inning game – second-longest ever – that he played at Shea Stadium on Sept. 11, 1974, as a member of the Cardinals. Maybe he recalls going 2 for 9. I’m sure he remembers the Cardinals won 4 to 3 when Bake McBride, the Fulton Flash, scored all the way from first base on a wild pickoff throw – 270 feet! – and didn’t demand oxygen or the next three days off.
The point is, those freakish events are memorable, and fun for the fans. MLB is in the entertainment business. You’d think memorable and fun would be goals to shoot for.
Apparently not, now that agents and the players’ union work together to make the game as easy as possible for the lads and to heck with tradition and the fans.
So stretch out, boys, but carefully. We wouldn’t want you to break a nail.
