Where is Jane Fonda when Selig needs her?
Commish Bud Selig and his Gang of Thirty seem intent on destroying the traditions of the Grand Old Game with a little thing called "radical realignment." Can we be sure that this is not a scheme being cooked up by the misguided Hollywood Left?
Bryce Martin
5/21/2001
Who is guiding Major League Baseball? The misguided Hollywood Left?
Commissioner Bud Selig and his owner cohorts threaten to further unravel the seams and traditions of the Grand Old Game with their rad tinkerings. They even refer to it as "radical realignment," which it surely is.
The possibility of another strike is talked about more by radio and television sports show hosts at the moment, but we've been there before. Where we have not been is in that desecrated landscape that is Selig's vision for the game's future.
Selig may be the commissioner in title but as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers he is just one of 29 other owners. His only real power is that of mouthpiece for the mob dictate. In that role, he has said that he wants as many as 17 teams to switch leagues.
How can that be good for the game? We already have inter-league play, taking away much of the intrigue of "alien" teams meeting in the World Series, wild-card playoffs, and now a potential assault that would make past league records virtually meaningless. Why sacrifice the tradition, history and continuity of the game for no good reason?
Remember the maverick owner of the Oakland A's, Charlie Finley? Maverick? His ideas were mere surface gimmicks. Selig plans structural damage.
Radical can be defined as "a departure from (the) norm." There are many directions to go in making that turn and settling on a destination. Selig's proposals thus far in switching teams around, including from league-to-league, is more in line of Christmas-in-July radical rather than, say, switching from regular to decaffeinated on Saturday mornings watching the kids. It is revolution gone loony.
What's next? The image of Jane Fonda live on CNN in a radical-chic ally role, surrounded by a cadre of soldiers in green army fatigues in Havana's Central Park? There she is, meshed with a mingling of communist-approved citizens, extolling the U.S. baseball restructure but insisting that Cuba, our neighbor to the southeast, be included in any meaningful fair-play discussions.
Too far out, huh? But not too far left.
Selig's predecessor, Fay Vincent, actually made the first big push for geographical realignment, and got his ears boxed for suggesting it. He favored moving the Cardinals and Cubs to the NL West and the Braves and Reds to the NL East. A modest proposal compared to what is on the table now. The Cubbies, fearing that Vincent might actually pull it off, went to court and won. Vincent later resigned after receiving a vote of no-confidence from the owners.
Selig, de facto commissioner for six years after Vincent, and elected to the position in 1998, has pushed for a major restructure for nearly five years but has yet to gain a consensus. Unlike Vincent, however, he is gaining support.
"We must examine further realignment in order to prevent satisfactory schedules for both the clubs and the players," Selig said, in a much-quoted speech he made not long after taking office.
By "further realignment" he could only have been referring to his Milwaukee club, which he was allowed to switch from the AL to the NL, the first time such a thing had happened since an 1892 move involving the old Federal League. The circumstances of that switch can hardly be seen as setting a precedent to mollify what was done with the Brewers.
So, what was behind Selig's slick move?
Well, other than tearing at the tradition and stability of the game, it did seem to have some logic. Milwaukee's move to the NL Central left Detroit to fill its void in the Al Central, and allowed the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays to move into Detroit's vacated AL East spot. This left the NL with 16 teams and the AL with 14; with the NL having two divisions of five and one of six, and the AL two divisions of five and one of four.
This is all supposedly logical in that it makes scheduling purposes more efficient. More logical, though, would have been 15-team leagues with each league having three divisions of five teams each and no league switches. What nixed that were the edicts made to Tampa Bay and the Arizona Diamondbacks about which leagues they would join -- and could be moved to - as new franchises that worked against the leagues arriving at even numbers.
Still, does such a decided quirk as this call for such drastic action? Instead of moving Milwaukee why not have some unbalanced divisions until finding a more reasonable solution? After all, the 2001 season is surviving with some extremely odd, unbalanced match-ups.
Motives? Try this. The Brewers drew relatively small home crowds and were not a road attraction. Put them in the NL Central with the Cards and Cubs and they are guaranteed excellent crowds at both ends. Translation: Big buckos for Selig.
Here is what radical realignment is supposed to do to bolster the game: 1) Align teams closer together geographically. This will cut down on travel time and cost teams less money for transportation; 2) Create rivalries between teams in the same geographic bounds; 3) This has not been mentioned, but they'll think of it: reduced travel time would allow for a "fresher product" on the field. Hogwash. Here's the real slop: 1) Money that teams would save in traveling shorter distances would be squandered elsewhere (read higher salaries) and present no real gain. 2) Rivalries have a birth and life all its own and are not easily manufactured. 3) Extra time for players just means more time to exhaust themselves in other ways.
As long as Major League Baseball can keep union players on the field, it can solve most all of its ills with just two words: "Play ball!" In the meantime, the Gang of Thirty is holding the ball.
Chain, too.
...
Commish Bud Selig and his Gang of Thirty seem intent on destroying the traditions of the Grand Old Game with a little thing called "radical realignment." Can we be sure that this is not a scheme being cooked up by the misguided Hollywood Left?
Bryce Martin
5/21/2001
Who is guiding Major League Baseball? The misguided Hollywood Left?
Commissioner Bud Selig and his owner cohorts threaten to further unravel the seams and traditions of the Grand Old Game with their rad tinkerings. They even refer to it as "radical realignment," which it surely is.
The possibility of another strike is talked about more by radio and television sports show hosts at the moment, but we've been there before. Where we have not been is in that desecrated landscape that is Selig's vision for the game's future.
Selig may be the commissioner in title but as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers he is just one of 29 other owners. His only real power is that of mouthpiece for the mob dictate. In that role, he has said that he wants as many as 17 teams to switch leagues.
How can that be good for the game? We already have inter-league play, taking away much of the intrigue of "alien" teams meeting in the World Series, wild-card playoffs, and now a potential assault that would make past league records virtually meaningless. Why sacrifice the tradition, history and continuity of the game for no good reason?
Remember the maverick owner of the Oakland A's, Charlie Finley? Maverick? His ideas were mere surface gimmicks. Selig plans structural damage.
Radical can be defined as "a departure from (the) norm." There are many directions to go in making that turn and settling on a destination. Selig's proposals thus far in switching teams around, including from league-to-league, is more in line of Christmas-in-July radical rather than, say, switching from regular to decaffeinated on Saturday mornings watching the kids. It is revolution gone loony.
What's next? The image of Jane Fonda live on CNN in a radical-chic ally role, surrounded by a cadre of soldiers in green army fatigues in Havana's Central Park? There she is, meshed with a mingling of communist-approved citizens, extolling the U.S. baseball restructure but insisting that Cuba, our neighbor to the southeast, be included in any meaningful fair-play discussions.
Too far out, huh? But not too far left.
Selig's predecessor, Fay Vincent, actually made the first big push for geographical realignment, and got his ears boxed for suggesting it. He favored moving the Cardinals and Cubs to the NL West and the Braves and Reds to the NL East. A modest proposal compared to what is on the table now. The Cubbies, fearing that Vincent might actually pull it off, went to court and won. Vincent later resigned after receiving a vote of no-confidence from the owners.
Selig, de facto commissioner for six years after Vincent, and elected to the position in 1998, has pushed for a major restructure for nearly five years but has yet to gain a consensus. Unlike Vincent, however, he is gaining support.
"We must examine further realignment in order to prevent satisfactory schedules for both the clubs and the players," Selig said, in a much-quoted speech he made not long after taking office.
By "further realignment" he could only have been referring to his Milwaukee club, which he was allowed to switch from the AL to the NL, the first time such a thing had happened since an 1892 move involving the old Federal League. The circumstances of that switch can hardly be seen as setting a precedent to mollify what was done with the Brewers.
So, what was behind Selig's slick move?
Well, other than tearing at the tradition and stability of the game, it did seem to have some logic. Milwaukee's move to the NL Central left Detroit to fill its void in the Al Central, and allowed the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays to move into Detroit's vacated AL East spot. This left the NL with 16 teams and the AL with 14; with the NL having two divisions of five and one of six, and the AL two divisions of five and one of four.
This is all supposedly logical in that it makes scheduling purposes more efficient. More logical, though, would have been 15-team leagues with each league having three divisions of five teams each and no league switches. What nixed that were the edicts made to Tampa Bay and the Arizona Diamondbacks about which leagues they would join -- and could be moved to - as new franchises that worked against the leagues arriving at even numbers.
Still, does such a decided quirk as this call for such drastic action? Instead of moving Milwaukee why not have some unbalanced divisions until finding a more reasonable solution? After all, the 2001 season is surviving with some extremely odd, unbalanced match-ups.
Motives? Try this. The Brewers drew relatively small home crowds and were not a road attraction. Put them in the NL Central with the Cards and Cubs and they are guaranteed excellent crowds at both ends. Translation: Big buckos for Selig.
Here is what radical realignment is supposed to do to bolster the game: 1) Align teams closer together geographically. This will cut down on travel time and cost teams less money for transportation; 2) Create rivalries between teams in the same geographic bounds; 3) This has not been mentioned, but they'll think of it: reduced travel time would allow for a "fresher product" on the field. Hogwash. Here's the real slop: 1) Money that teams would save in traveling shorter distances would be squandered elsewhere (read higher salaries) and present no real gain. 2) Rivalries have a birth and life all its own and are not easily manufactured. 3) Extra time for players just means more time to exhaust themselves in other ways.
As long as Major League Baseball can keep union players on the field, it can solve most all of its ills with just two words: "Play ball!" In the meantime, the Gang of Thirty is holding the ball.
Chain, too.
...
posted by Bryce Martin | 10:17 PM
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