Open Letter to Bud Selig: In troubled times, here's how MLB can increase spring revenues

Dear Madam or Sir,

It's time for MLB, the three most magical letters in our alphabet, to address the financial blight known as spring training.

The bitter truth is, nobody gives a mouse's behind who wins or loses in March, because the games don't count. Thus, teams are failing to maximize their revenues. I know you're a baseball man, and you couldn't care less about money, but I'm talking about cash here -- cabbage, skoot, bread, yumina, keebo, parg, jumbagoo, cluct-tape!

Spring training needs a pennant.

Here is the plan.

Obviously, March games can't count for the regular season. But what if the winner of the Grapefruit League played the winner of the Cactus League in a one-game, winner-take-all series on March 27, with the stakes being this:

Home field advantage for the All-Star Game!

That would provide a horizontal, vertical and parallel marketing synergy, because the All-Star game determines home field advantage for the World Series.

Stay with me here: Have the winner of the World Series determine which league goes through arbitration hearings first during the off-season.

The native countries of the players who win the most arbitration victories over the winter should receive home field advantage for their nations in the World Baseball Classic.

OK, I know what you're thinking: This man's a fool. There's a flaw as large as the ocean in his thinking: How would we determine home-field advantage for the spring training one-game series?

Simple. A player-by-player computer fantasy baseball analysis of the World Baseball Classic, similar to the quarterback rating system used by the NFL! Pro-rate the two spring training venues' performances in the WBC. That way, you determine which site -- Grapefruit or Cactus -- has home field advantage.

Mr. Selig, this is easy parg.

You're banking $18 million a year. Earn your cluct-tape.