How do we get through to these people? Perhaps some Tony Orlando, you know, “Twice on the pipes.”
Here’s the deal: There are three primary things that have made 21st-century MLB insufferably and needlessly dreary, a dare to the better senses:
1) Too much commercial time. But fat chance MLB will mess with TV revenue.
2) Replay rules that unplug the game for unintended second opinions of every bang-bang play at every base. But MLB is too invested in replay and wrongly convinced that there’s overwhelming popular demand for microscopic baseball. Thus, “getting it right” umpiring from mission control in lower Manhattan will continue, even if “getting it right” is a matter of perhaps.
3) The modern “By the Book” breed of managers who don’t believe what they see and don’t trust their baseball instincts thus prefer to work off prearranged formulas that create designated-inning and designated-batter pitching changes. Games that logically would include four, five pitchers and run 2:45, now regularly include 10 to 12 and run 3:40 — even with the new, laughable automatic intentional walk.
Tony La Russa popularized this style of managing, not to mention the “I see nothing!” presence of the suddenly muscle-massed slugger and equally sudden massive rise in home-run outputs by players on his teams. He became a VP of MLB operations.
Commissioner Rob Manfred is stuck with No. 3 the way Adam Silver is stuck trying to deal with NBA teams that rest their stars by giving them entire games off, thus creating a bait-and-switch for TV viewers and ticket buyers who have been sold the NBA as a star-driven enterprise.
Manfred can’t mandate a change in managers’ game strategies, no matter how foolish and game-killing.
How does he deal with the Rays as they join the Red Sox and Yankees, among others, to compete for the title of slowest team in baseball?
Last Sunday, when the Rays and Red Sox totaled 12 pitchers — six each — in an 11-2 final, the 8½-inning game ran 4:32.
But that was less an aberration than another warning.
Friday night, as seen on YES, the Yanks were up, 2-1, in St. Pete when Rays manager Kevin Cash brought in Diego Moreno, who impressed Ken Singleton, among others, by retiring the five Yanks he faced, no walks, one strikeout.
But with the Rays having taken a 4-2 lead and even with the DH, out Moreno went. Jose Alvarado next lasted one-third of an inning, allowing a walk. So in came Ryne Stanek, who threw a 2-2 meatball to Matt Holliday, who tied it with a two-run homer.
Bottom line: Rays 5, Yanks 4, 3:18; 11 pitchers to play an 8½-inning game.
Next day, Rays 9, Yanks 5; nine pitchers and — yikes! — 3:50 to complete an 8½-inning game.
That night, Mets 7, Angels 5, 10 pitchers, an 8½-inning game runs 3:37.
Pick a game, any game. Saturday’s Braves 5, Nats 2; another 8½-inning game. It ran 3:20 as 10 pitchers pitched, six of them Braves. There were 12 pitchers in Friday’s Giants 6-5 over Cards. Plenty more to come, this week.
I don’t know how Manfred & Co. can put an end to this — managers must be allowed to manage — thus how to get through to them that the way they manage makes for many pages in The Book, but little to no sense.
Stanley Cup works magic every game
Why Stanley Cup hockey is special, continued:
Friday, speaking with Drew Loftis, who often edits this column, he volunteered, “I have no emotional attachment to any of the four remaining teams, but I can’t keep my eyes off this stuff.”
The next morning, having coffee, I overheard a fellow tell a friend, “I don’t care who wins, it’s just great to watch.”
The intensity of the players — the all-out, all-in, every-shift action, often for six, seven, eight minutes without a whistle — makes Stanley Cup play riveting.
Saturday at Anaheim, Nashville, without 6-foot-3 center and top scorer Ryan Johansen, simply out-willed the Ducks to a 3-1 win — the third goal against an abandoned net with 48 seconds left.
Yesterday’s blowout in Pittsburgh on NBC? Happens, but seldom.
A-Rod spouts revisionist Wilpon praise
Alex Rodriguez, calling Angels-Mets on FOX, Saturday, reminded us that he’s both a charmer and full of it. He referenced, “Fred Wilpon, the great owner of the Mets.” How so? As if we don’t know better. He nearly lost his team — and should have — for twice falling in love with Ponzi schemers.
Memo to YES: Scrolling “Braves 3, Nationals 2, rain delay” doesn’t cut it. Give us the inning; is it an official game?
None of the NBC analysts noted it, but the stretch run in Saturday’s Preakness was as weird as it was wild. Cloud Computing, 13-1, throughout the stretch to defeat 2-1 Classic Empire, never took a straight-ahead step. It lugged in, went back wide, back in and then out. It gained ground without saving any!
The Jays last week suspended center fielder Kevin Pillar for spewing a homophobic slur at the opposing pitcher. Reader Chris Niemir: “Had he said that in a rap song, nobody would have blinked.”
For those who still need to understand the human damage a big-time sports-indulged man the likes of a Jerry Sandusky can do, check out Tuesday’s HBO “Real Sports,” 10 p.m., the piece about pedophiles and their victims within Britain’s top soccer franchises.
Still can’t figure it out. Saturday, when Gary Sanchez, from the Dominican Republic, hit the mound to chat with Masahiro Tanaka, who’s from Japan, in what language did they converse? And why did Tananka cover his face with his glove? To foil lip readers?
Kenny “All Night” Albert was at it again, Thursday. On his NBCSN call, Ducks-Predators went to double OT.
Pity, yesterday’s Celtics-Cavs was played at night, doubly so that it was scheduled to tip at 8:35 — a half-hour later than ESPN Sunday night baseball.
If and when the Rays’ Evan Longoria is elected to the Hall of Fame, he should enter wearing the cap of the team that put him there: the Yankees, who turn him into Lou Gehrig.
After ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, Thursday, of the Celts’ Isaiah Thomas, said, “But at the end of the day, he’s only 5 feet 9 inches tall,” reader Bill Chase of Albany asks if Greenberg knows “how tall he is at lunchtime?” Reminds me of Joba Chamberlain’s stoicism: “At the end of the day, the sun comes up.”