I love baseball. It is my favorite sport for many reasons. I love the fact that there is no time clock. Watching a baseball game helps me to understand what it might have been like to live in the Victorian era, when the world moved slowly and people could take a break and go watch a ball game for entertainment.
I love how none of the 30 MLB parks are the same. To my knowledge, it is the only sport where there is no standard playing surface for the league. Each park has its own quirks, which gives the home team a unique advantage not found in other sports. It also makes for an interesting road trip, trying to see as many as you can in as short a time as possible.
I love that each league is slightly different. In the American League there is a DH, while in the National League there's not. In the American League the team with the best record can pick which Divisional series they want. No dice in the National League. Each league even hands out its own awards.
The biggest reason I like baseball, however, is because of its refusal to change its traditions for the modern sports world and all the money hoarding associated with it. This leads me to the one thing I absolutely despise about this postseason. Baseball is changing its traditions for the modern sports world.
There is no reason that there should have been an off day on Wednesday for the ALCS. Baseball has it right with the 2-3-2 format, and now they are essentially butchering the entire idea by giving an off day in the middle of Cleveland’s three home games. The entire point of the 2-3-2 is to keep the series as similar to the everyday schedule endured during the regular season as possible. If baseball was going to have an off day they might as well moved the series back to Boston for game 5 and had a 2-2-1-1-1 series like many of the other sports do.
No sport depends as much on a consistent schedule as baseball. When there’s an extra day off it gives the starting rotation an extra days rest, meaning that a team that can only go three deep in its rotation would not have to use its fourth pitcher. Also it gives the bullpen an extra day rest, so that a dominant closer can get a heavy workload one game, take a day off, and then do it again the very next game. Part of the strategy of the game involves wearing a bullpen out by getting into it day after day after day. Major League Baseball is allowing Fox to screw with the strategy of the game all for the sake of a better television schedule and a few extra bucks.
Baseball is a great sport that unfortunately has been hijacked the last few years by a need to make money. (Remember the blind eye turned to steroids earlier this decade?) What makes baseball great is that it sticks to tradition. That’s what makes its records so important, and that what makes each team part of the city’s social fabric. Gone are the days when children will sit up in bed and listen to their favorite players each night. Gone are the days when men come home from work to see how their boys did at the park that day. Gone are the days when everyone knew that the only reason the players played was because they loved the game.
These are the things I miss about baseball. They’re gone and that’s fine, at least they don’t affect the game, or the strategy involved in it.
For the love of Joe Dimaggio: Major League Baseball please don’t take away anything that messes up the game ever again.
I love how none of the 30 MLB parks are the same. To my knowledge, it is the only sport where there is no standard playing surface for the league. Each park has its own quirks, which gives the home team a unique advantage not found in other sports. It also makes for an interesting road trip, trying to see as many as you can in as short a time as possible.
I love that each league is slightly different. In the American League there is a DH, while in the National League there's not. In the American League the team with the best record can pick which Divisional series they want. No dice in the National League. Each league even hands out its own awards.
The biggest reason I like baseball, however, is because of its refusal to change its traditions for the modern sports world and all the money hoarding associated with it. This leads me to the one thing I absolutely despise about this postseason. Baseball is changing its traditions for the modern sports world.
There is no reason that there should have been an off day on Wednesday for the ALCS. Baseball has it right with the 2-3-2 format, and now they are essentially butchering the entire idea by giving an off day in the middle of Cleveland’s three home games. The entire point of the 2-3-2 is to keep the series as similar to the everyday schedule endured during the regular season as possible. If baseball was going to have an off day they might as well moved the series back to Boston for game 5 and had a 2-2-1-1-1 series like many of the other sports do.
No sport depends as much on a consistent schedule as baseball. When there’s an extra day off it gives the starting rotation an extra days rest, meaning that a team that can only go three deep in its rotation would not have to use its fourth pitcher. Also it gives the bullpen an extra day rest, so that a dominant closer can get a heavy workload one game, take a day off, and then do it again the very next game. Part of the strategy of the game involves wearing a bullpen out by getting into it day after day after day. Major League Baseball is allowing Fox to screw with the strategy of the game all for the sake of a better television schedule and a few extra bucks.
Baseball is a great sport that unfortunately has been hijacked the last few years by a need to make money. (Remember the blind eye turned to steroids earlier this decade?) What makes baseball great is that it sticks to tradition. That’s what makes its records so important, and that what makes each team part of the city’s social fabric. Gone are the days when children will sit up in bed and listen to their favorite players each night. Gone are the days when men come home from work to see how their boys did at the park that day. Gone are the days when everyone knew that the only reason the players played was because they loved the game.
These are the things I miss about baseball. They’re gone and that’s fine, at least they don’t affect the game, or the strategy involved in it.
For the love of Joe Dimaggio: Major League Baseball please don’t take away anything that messes up the game ever again.
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