Fortunately and unfortunately, it is becoming trendy and in vogue to dis the modern game. And no doubt I like to come here with my controversial, conficting verbiage and stir up a good beef. But it is because I care. Because I grew up worshipping a team that is more loved than lucky, and more famous for losing than most teams are for winning -- my Bostonian Red Hose. And because although the sweet science can still boast thrill ride E ticket excitement in the post season, it is still growing in all the wrong places.
People wonder why baseball fails in a city like Montreal when there are no homegrown Canadians on the roster or in the farm system. The opposite extreme is Latin America's disproportionate contribution of talent without the representative honor of a MLB team. An invasion of Latin players is a drop in the bucket without expanding the league to the Southern Hemisphere to help the economy of our continental neighbors. Their poor come here, become superstars and send money home to give something back.
Why doesn't MLB give something back by allowing for the establishment of franchises south of the border? I daresay if the Sammy Sosas and Pedro Martinezes played for one mighty Dominican team, New York Yankee domination would be a faded memory and the World Series would be far more worldly. Like World Cup soccer.
On the home front, our beloved national pastime need not grow to mime the WWF and appeal to Generation X. Yet as it stands, the long list of Andro Age baseball heroes who suspiciously weigh 40 to 60 lbs. more than they did when they were rookies is not growth. It's metamorphasis straight out of a comic book ... or video game.
Hank Aaron hardly weighed more than a buck eighty for most of his career. And Carl Yastrzemski too. So why is it that old footage of the new breed reveals Bambis coming up and Incredible Hulks breaking records?
Hammerin' Hank bypassed the great Ruth with wrists of Thor and not juice of lore. Yaz won his Triple Crown playing through constant injury because he had the lean body of a swimmer and not a slugger. Indeed, the only needle injections he endured were for pain and not the stat column.
But enough already. I'm done repeating myself for purist emphasis. Here's a laundry list of critical and/or tongue-in-cheek, anti-diplomatic layman tenets for good responsible growth. Don't take it too seriously. That is, if you think the game will survive another strike without major changes.
1. Get rid of the balk rule to save and preserve the pitcher/batter chess match. Allow pitchers to stop, start, contort and even fake pitches counted as balls so as to better fool the hitter. If a game lasts longer, then ticket prices will be merited and megabuck players will have more in common with 9 to 5ers and almost have to actually earn their money.
2. Stop the tired, old standard of only catchers calling pitches in games. Allow pitchers the option to control their own destinies by calling their own games and letting backstops take the signals instead. If you have to, let pudge behind the plate wear a mike earpiece where the plate cam used to be and put a walkie talkie radio in the pitcher's glove.
2. Ban all performance enhancing drugs. Yes, even legal ones.
3. Send Bud Selig to work for Enron where he belongs.
4. Hire Bob Costas as Commish.
5. Induct Pete Rose into the Hall for his workmanlike, non-steroid tainted career. Gambling is child's play compared to performance enhansing drug usage because one can't imagine Charlie Hustle fixing a game or betting against his own team. Besides, the conservative gambling stance was instituted by the same old world racist snobs who banned blacks from the Major Leagues way back when. So the mob fixed the 1919 series. Big deal. With today's salaries, that can and will never happen again.
6. Bypass the threat of contraction and move small market teams south of the border where baseball is a national obsession. Make way for a Sin City ballclub. Call them the Las Vegas Gamblers and hire Pete Rose as GM.
7. Induct Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and God knows who else into the HOF but segregate them into a special steroid section sponsored by Marvel Comics.
8. Scout more players in Italy and elsewhere. Blossoming star pitcher Jason Simontacchi spent way too much time traveling to the four corners of the globe looking for a job because of subtle reverse discrimination. It's ironic that he finally wound up with the Cards, skippered by Tony LaRussa. Mind you, in the 1st half of baseball's last century when balls were harder and heavier and bodies were free of juice, Italian-Americans made up a majority of baseball's elite players. Find a good stat based video game, create a bunch of Olympic style ethnic national teams and check out the results in a historical dream season. They may surprise you. Then again, today there's Piazza, Giambi and then a bunch of journeymen or bench warmers. Go figure.
9. Give ESPN's Dan Patrick a shot in AAA. The man can hit. I'm dead serious, people.
10. Hire Joe Morgan as combination Boston GM and field manager, watch the Red Sox finally win it all again within 3 years ... and see MLB make the comeback it made back in the 70s.
» Hank Festa is a hardspoken yet humble scribe who would appreciate it if paid sportswriters did not come here for article inspiration to steal his thunder. Don't take his ideas. Give him a job.
Also by Hank Festa
» Get Your Red Sox Here: Weep All About It!
» The Strike Zone Or Your Life: The Bean Ball Debate Exposed
» Seasons In The Sun : Baseball In The 70s
» A Closet GM's Philosophy Of Winning: Stats & Role vs. Heart & Soul
» Gibby's '88 Series Limp Shot: Baseball's Last "Earned Home Run"
» Flamethrower's Epiphany: Confessions Of A Live Arm
» In The Event Of A Strike...: The Time Off Must Be Used to Fix the Game
» More submissions
Copyright © 2002 by Hank Festa. Posted June 20, 2002.
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