It Looks Like Baseball Is Coming Back!

During these last several months, we have all wanted to see our favorite team sports in the worst possible way, and if you have been following the negotiations between MLB owners and players these last two months, you know that that is exactly how MLB has arrived at an agreement to stage a season:  In just about the worst possible way.

What we are going to get is a sixty game season.  As I understand it, each team will play forty games within their own division, and four games each with teams in the other league's corresponding division (NL East vs. AL East etc). Still not sure if  the playoff fields will be expanded from 10 to 12 or 14.  Looks like they're gonna make it up as they go along.  We get the DH across the board, which I like.  We also get extra innings starting with a runner on second base, which I am not so sure about.  No world about double headers with seven inning games. But you know what?  If ever there was a year to throw anything, and I mean anything, up against the wall, then a sixty game pandemic shortened season is it.  Hell, institute a mercy rule while you're at it.

While I said last week that I fall into the category of "I Don't Care" if there is a season, I also fall into a sub-category.  Call it "I Don't Care, But Now As Long As They're Going To Play, I'll Look Forward To Watching The Pirates Again."

I will also tell you the one guy for whom I am really happy.  Pirates new manager Derek Shelton.

I mean, here was a guy who has waited his whole life to get his shot at being a major league manager, only to see it waylaid by the unimaginable circumstances of the corona virus pandemic.  I will be really happy to see him get the chance to finally walk a lineup card out to an umpire as a Manager in the Big Leagues.  He has been  regular weekly guest over the last three months with Ron Cook and Joe Starkey on 93.7 The Fan, and he seems like a genuinely good guy.  As a Pirates fan, I hope that he succeeds beyond all of our wildest expectations.  Working for Bob Nutting's Pirates, he's going to need a lot of luck.

Let's hope that we can all get some joy out of this bastardized season of Major League Baseball.  Enjoy it while we can before those negotiations for a new CBA begin in 2021, because we all know how really, really ugly those are going to be.

#letsgobucs #raisethejollyroger 

Interesting Poll Results - MLB Division

MLBPA Head Tony Clark and 

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred

It is beginning to appear that Major League Baseball will return to America's sporting stage at some point this summer in just about the worst possible circumstance:  At the point of a figurative gun held by Commish Rob Manfred.  We all know the circumstances surrounding the ugly labor negotiations between the MLB Punjabs and the MLBPA, so I won't restate them here.  What I will tell you about is a poll that I put out two days ago on a dedicated sports group page on Facebook that I co-administer and in which I actively participate.  

I posed three questions on the poll upon which I asked the members to vote:

1. At this point, I really don't care if MLB returns in 2020.
2. I really, really want MLB back in 2020. 
3. MLB owners and players can all rot in Hell.

After 48 hours on line, twenty-one people responded to this poll.  A very small sample size when one considers the entire universe of baseball fandom, but it represents  15% of the entire population of the Facebook group page, which I think is significant.  Keep in mind that these 21 respondents are true sports fans, too, or else they wouldn't be a part of the group.  Here are the results.

As to question #3, which I put in there as a bit of gallows humor, three people cast their votes for that option, and one of those guys was Dave Finoli, a friend, a SABR member, a local sports author of some note, and a dedicated baseball fan.  When a guy like Dave tells baseball to "rot in Hell", that's noteworthy.

Three people opted for the second option.  They really, really want MLB back this summer.  Okay.

Fifteen people, 71% of those who responded voted for the first option, they just don't care if MLB returns in 2020.  Among those who voted this way are people like Tim Baker, a Pirates full season ticket holder since the Three Rivers Stadium days, David Cicotello, a dedicated baseball and Pirates fan who has written a book on Forbes Field, Al Cotton, a friend of mine from fantasy baseball days who is as about as dedicated a baseball fan as I know, Elena Avlon, whose family has been full season ticket holders forever and to whom the word "passionate" doesn't even begin to describe her feelings about baseball and the Pirates, Rich Morgan, who is a part off the game day staff at PNC Park, and ME, whose love for the Pirates and the sport goes back over sixty years.  Think about people like that saying "I don't care."

It is an old saying in show biz, sports, and electoral politics that "apathy is worse than anger."  If that is indeed the case, and I believe it is, and if there is any validity at all in this one small admittedly unscientific poll, then MLB is in trouble.

Sports Update?

Yep, that's a question mark in the headline because, really, we all know that there are no sports to speak of currently.  So this will really be me, more or less, cleaning out some shirt pocket notes.

There was one live event this past Sunday, and that was "The Match 2"  featuring the teams of Tiger Woods/Peyton Manning and Phil Mickelson/Tom Brady.

I watched and enjoyed it immensely and here are some of the reasons why.

• The Match raised $20 million for COVID19 relief efforts.

• It was played, for the most part, in miserable weather and these four multi-millionaire athletes soldiered on for the cause, so good for them. (Major League Baseball, take note.)
• All but Brady wore shorts.
• Manning and Brady, purportedly to be single digit handicappers, were spraying the ball over the course.  In my Tuesday round of Retiree Golf this week, I hit more fairways off the tee than Tom Brady did on Sunday (albeit I hit it a LOT shorter).  It's fun to see great athletes humbled.
• Tom Brady never used a driver.
• No caddies.  They drove their own carts, used range finders, cleaned their own clubs, and pulled their own pins.  I mean, TIGER WOODS was pulling the pins on the greens.  He probably hasn't had to do that since he was ten years old.
• Tiger Woods didn't miss a fairway all day.
• Tom Brady called Peyton Manning "Paydirt."  Great nickname.
• And of course, Brady holing out from 100+ yards in the fairway after hacking it all over the place. And splitting his pants.
• Justin Thomas as an on course commentator.
• Charles Barkley.
• And of course the constant realization that the game played by the likes of Woods and Mickelson is way, way, way different than the game played by high level amateurs like the two QB's, let alone the game played by hackers like you and me.

News reports a few days after the event had Mickelson speculating about continuing the format of The Match with different celebrity guests.   Names like Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, Tony Romo, and Patrick Mahomes were being floated by Lefty.  To that, I say be careful what you wish for.  Keep trotting the golden goose out there, and soon The Match will be just another dunk contest, home run derby, or outdoor NHL game.  Plus, how long will it be before the "celebrities" will C and D Listers like Ryan Seachrist and whoever it is that won the last season of The Bachelor?

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While Woods, Mickelson, Manning, and Brady were slogging it through the downpours in Florida on Sunday, MLB and the MLBPA continued their pissing contest over money when and if some form of a Major League Baseball season is to be played.  You know the story: "Billionaires vs. Millionaires" fighting over  moola while 100,000 Americans have died and tens of millions are out of work because of a global pandemic.

Rather then me go on and on about the horrible optics of this whole thing, I strongly recommend that you read Jason Mackey's lengthy piece that appeared in the Op-Ed section of Sunday's Post-Gazette:

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/insight/2020/05/24/Home-run-or-strikeout-Baseball-s-return-to-play-negotiations-could-have-long-term-effect-on-the-game/stories/202005240045?fbclid=IwAR0a6H23SNIh1nX-uYMp0PlULzgYG4YIG1oHGBVb06uQc0_rJw1_MgYhAbY

It not only outlines the issues of these specific negations, but also lists why baseball, the sport, is declining in following among younger people.  The best line in the article is quote that says of MLB and its Players that "it's almost like they're asking people to not follow their sport."

As it is, I say that it is less than 25% probable that there will be a baseball season in 2020.  Hope I'm wrong.

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Football.  I have watched two episodes of "America's Game" on the NFL Network highlighting the 1975 and 1978 seasons of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The show on the 1979 season awaits me on my DVR.  I don't like to be one of those guys who wallow in nostalgia, but man it sure is fun watching those shows.   Those teams were GOOD!!!

MLB Players Strike Out

The news came down this past week that the Major League Baseball Players Association rejected all but one initiative proposed by management that were aimed to speed up the pace of play of baseball games for the upcoming season.  By turning a deaf ear to these proposals, the players have said that they don't care about games lasting well over three hours (four hours once you get to the post season).  They don't care that lengthy games with loads of dead time will continue to turn off younger people, people who are needed to replace old guys like me when we, you know, die. They really just care only about themselves, but, hey, I guess that that is no real news flash.

Oh, one proposal did get approved: A pitcher will no longer be required to throw four wide ones when intentionally walking a batter.  When such strategy is called for, the batter automatically be awarded first base.  As John Mehno put it in his column today, that ought to cut off at least two, maybe three, minutes from the length of the season.

So, baseball fans will continue to be treated to the following:

• Josh Harrison stepping out of the batter's box, tapping his spikes with his bat, and taking two practice cuts after every pitch.
• Antonio Bastardo and Felipe Rivera taking 40 or so seconds to deliver every pitch.  It's a fact.  I timed these two guys at a late season game I attended last year.
• Just about every batter in MLB stepping out and adjusting his batting gloves after every pitch.
• Watch a manager take a slow walk to the mound, conferring with his infielders, catcher, and pitcher, wave in a left handed reliever, watching that reliever take a slow walk to the mound, take eight warm-up pitches (after he has been warming up for ten minutes in the bullpen; a relief pitcher should get one warm up pitch, two at the max, when he comes in just to get the feel of the mound), see that pitcher face the single left handed batter he was brought in to face, then watch that same manager do the same thing all over again when he removes that lefty relief specialist and brings in a right hander.   That is a LOT of time expended to face one single batter in a game.  It's why a lot of people bring books to the ball park, if they even come at all.
• And let's not even begin to talk about the time spent in replay reviews.

Before the Purists start screaming the usual "you can't put a clock on baseball" b.s., no one is saying that baseball should be anything less than a nine inning, twenty-seven out contest.  And there is a distinct difference between the "length" of a baseball game, and the "pace" of a baseball game.   Having a batter stay in the batter's box or having a pitcher deliver a pitch within a prescribed time limit is NOT putting clock on the game.  A three hour game played at a brisk pace is a lot different from a three hour game spent watching Josh Harrison tap his cleats time and again, and watching Clint Hurdle and Joe Maddon doing the continual dance with pitching changes described above.

Of course, the biggest culprit for these lengthy games are the interminable commercial breaks, especially during national telecasts and post season games.  That, however, is where the money comes from so it's not going to go away, so it behooves baseball and its players to figure out other ways to solve the problem.  Management seems willing to try.  The players, not so much.

Oh, and one other thing.  Post-season games and the World Series, the showcase events and the most important games of the season, will continue to end well after midnight in vast swatches of the country, and, as a result, will not be seen by millions of people. If that is not a concern to baseball and its players, it should be.

The NFL, MLB, and Bob Walk

No one will argue that the National Football League stands head-and-shoulders above all other North American sports institutions in terms of popularity, marketing, the ability to read the pulse of its fan base, and in a myriad of other ways.  There are many reasons for this, and allow me to offer just one.


NFL followers do not obsess and whine incessantly whenever a team with roots in the original NFL, say the Pittsburgh Steelers, play a regular season game against a team from the original AFL, say, the Oakland Raiders.  They look at it as a part of the schedule and, in many such instances, they embrace and look forward to such contests.


NFL fans do not feel that the climactic event of its season, the Super Bowl, is tainted just because the two teams in it might have previously played each other in the regular season.  In fact, such games hold the possibility of becoming historic in the sport.  The Super Bowl between the Giants and Patriots that followed the 2007 season springs immediately to mind.


The NFL makes rules changes every year, some of them quite significant - there is talk of eliminating kick-offs, although this has not been adopted - and the fans accept these changes as part of the natural evolution of the game and do not rend there garments because the NFL punjabs are tampering with the very heart and soul of the game.


What causes me to mention this are the diatribes that Pirates announcer Bob Walk has been delivering of late against Inter-league play (been with us since 1997) and the designated hitter (been with us since 1973; that FORTY SEASONS now). Now I happen to like Bob Walk a lot.  Loved him when he pitched so nobly for the Bucs back in the day, and think he is a very good and insightful announcer, but he really needs to get off of this particular 




bandwagon and shut up!  I don't think he realizes that with the move of the Astros to the American League next year, two 15 team leagues means that there will be inter-league play every day next year (remember when three NFL teams moved to the "American Conference," which was the old AFL, in 1970 when the leagues merged? Worked out OK for football, I think).


As for the designated hitter, 2012 represents the FORTIETH season that it has been with us. What the American League adopted as an experiment in 1973 is now in use in every professional and amateur baseball league in every country on the globe where the game is played, except, as we all know, in the National League.  Sorry, but when it comes to the DH, it is the National League and it's adherents who look  like the goofballs by refusing to adopt it, and the completely ludicrous concept of MLB playing it's Championship Event each season under two sets of rules is so completely wrong that I can't even begin to find the words to address it.


Hey, those who know me know I love baseball - and the National League - first among all sports, and I love the "old school" nature of it (for example, I saw nothing wrong in Cole Hamels "welcoming" Bryce Harper to the big leagues with a fastball to the ribs!), but baseball shoots itself in the foot so often by clinging to the past, it sometimes drives me crazy.