Stop The Madness

This is one of those posts that epitomizes the name of this site.  This is a rant.  A major one.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports wrote today that a final agreement on expanding playoffs to 10 teams starting in 2012 could be announced as soon as tomorrow.  I am so excited.  NOT.  What is it with MLB that they feel they have to continuously fix what ain’t broke?  It started with the Designated Hitter in the 70’s and it has been nothing but tinker, tinker, I’ve got to think of some way to justify my existence, from the Commissioner’s office ever since.  Interleague play, the All Star Game non fix, I could go on and on.

It’s bad enough that we are now going to have perpetual interleague play, something I hate with a passion that is exceeded only by my passionate hatred of the Designated Hitter.  What’s worse is that MLB now has taken that one additional step in it’s slippery slope journey to becoming the NBA.  How long before it moves from 10 playoff teams to 12?  14? 16?  Everybody just jump in and let’s have a free for all? We have perpetual interleague play, let’s have perpetual playoffs.  While the idea of year round baseball may be appealing to some the law of diminishing returns says it isn’t going to be better baseball.  You know that great song you love so much until you hear it played on the radio ad nauseum and you decide it has to be the worse song you ever heard?  Yes, folks, that’s what I’m talking about.

With this latest salvo in the How Many More Ways Are They Going To Mess With Baseball Wars, we also have the addition of the Stupidest Way To Mess With Baseball subplot, the one game playoff.  Those additional two teams are going to play each other and eliminate one, in a single game.  That rates about a 12 on the 1 to 10 Dumb Ideas Scale.  Why don’t we just flip a coin and save everybody the wear and tear of a game?  You would likely get the same result anyway.  If you want to save money and not use the coin, eeny meeny miny mo would work too, or plucking the petals off daisies.  Whatever.

Now I am sure that some people are going to think that I am just some Old School baseball fan who just doesn’t like change.  That would be partially right.  I am an Old School baseball fan. (I’m also old, which sort of explains it) I don’t have a problem with change if it is change that actually improves baseball.  The use of advanced metrics in player evaluations, the institution of drug testing,  revenue sharing, these are changes that I can get behind and do support.  The other things are just window dressing and they don’t make sense to me.

Don’t even get me started about expanded instant replay.  If you like 10 or 12 hour baseball games, keep going down that road.

End of rant.

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