Wednesday, August 24, 2022

MLB takes another step...er, forward?

 


We don't need no stinking leagues. For the first time, everybody plays everybody.

It would make more sense to me if divisional and league byes and home field advantage were based on games played within your own league. Just what you'd expect a cranky old guy to say, I guess.

18 comments:

ranger_lp said...

Absolutely stupid...and because of my opinion and my age, I'd be called a bitter boomer...FFS...

Publius said...

Can live with it. "Thr f----g (insert AL East team) again?" era won't be mourned. MLB's should restore some league integrity by divorcing league "Championship" from the postseason tournament. Best records in AL and NL should officially be league "Champions". Flag flies forever, and not dependent on short tourney playoff luck. The postseason tournament should then be seeded strictly by record, regardless of which league the team comes from. Division winners automatically qualify, and can call themselves division champs if they like, but they'll be seeded by their record. Who wouldn't love to see a Yanks vs Red Sox WS? Or Cubs Cards, Giants Dodgers, etc etc.

BTR999 said...

Love the last part of your post Pub. I was never a big fab of interleague play, but hell, if you’re gonna mix it up then mix it up. Yanks/RedSox WS. Yes please.

Don’t worry about being called a cranky old man - young people have stopped watching BB, and I fear we’ll take the game to our graves.

Will the last poster please turn out lights? Thank you.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Awful. The ceaseless trampling of tradition in a sport that depends on it. Yet another move toward the NFL.


HoraceClarke66 said...

I will say this: If they're going to simply disband the leagues—and they're pretty close, with 46 interleague games, by my count—then just realign the damned divisions.

Make it Yanks, Mets, Red Sox, Baltimore, and Washington. Or Philly and Pittsburgh, instead of Baltimore and Washington, or Philly and Montreal, if they end up moving TB up there.

Whatever.

But enough with their stupid, constant fiddling around—all of which ignores the real problems with the game.

Publius said...

Hoss, I'd argue there's a little bit for everybody in my proposal. The tradition but too long abandoned concept of team with best record as pennant winner is redeemed. Some kind of financial incentive should accompany. Then, "innovators" looking to inject some energy and buzz into the game get an all but independent "World Series Championship Tournament" to tinker with. The MLB regular season is its own entity crowing two champions, but it also creates the field for a separate and distinct championship event in October that could end up with all sorts of interesting matchups not limited by AL/NL composition. It's a great idea, if I do say so myself.

13bit said...

I hate them, but I’m just a guy recovering from Covid. I’m only a fan for the last five or six decades. Who gives a shit what I think?

BTR999 said...

Eric Hubbs (who he?) reports Greg Weissert will be joining the team in OAK.

AboveAverage said...

Judging from what I just saw, Greg Weissert has a proper BIG-SHOW-READY-STACHE and looks like how a closer should look like.

No deer in the headlights here people - NO SIR.

No brooding, Boone bruxer.

Just a Nasty Nephew - born and raised in Bay Shore, NY.

Get 'R' Done - Son.

Make it So (or sew if we're running low on uniforms)

HoraceClarke66 said...

I'm fine with not facing the Red Sox in the World Series. To me, the rivalry with the Sox exists outside of everything else. I would rather maul the Mets, Dodgers, and Giants periodically in the World Series.

But basically, I liked baseball pretty much the way it was. I accepted the DH. To me, that's about all the change I needed.

Sure, you had to have divisions, because you couldn't have that many teams in one league. Though even there, thinking about it, I would've been fine with keeping the Original Eight where they were and as they were in AL and NL and just starting a couple new, major leagues.

There's a lot of stuff wrong in sports, in America, in everything everywhere. Fix THAT. Don't fix what ain't broke. And above all, don't keep fixing it and re-fixing it.

AboveAverage said...

What HC66 said - AND . . .

bring back the Montreal Expos

Rufus T. Firefly said...

At least keep it NFL style with one team from each league in the WS.

Oh, and bring back the Expos. I would go to at least two games a year there.

JM said...

I could support any or all of the above ideas. What we have now is nonsensical.

And yes, Expos! How about a couple expansion teams in Canada? Manitoba Moose or Hudson Bay Boomers...

Rufus T. Firefly said...

JM,

I'm good with the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

A decrepit, yet welcoming city. Where I learned the Ontarian ice scraper is the 10 inch sheetrocking knife.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Expos was always an awful name—named for a dying entertainment, the world's fair, that had nothing to do with baseball.

Should've kept the old "Royals" name. Sure, then they'd have had to change the KC name—but what was wrong with "Monarchs," a great name with a great tradition?

These are the sorts of weighty matters that occupy my brain on off-days...

HoraceClarke66 said...

CFL used to have great names. Never quite sure why it had 2 teams named the "Roughriders," though...

DickAllen said...


I would relish an expansion team in Vancouver, where it rains all the time .

Then trade Chapman there first thing.

No one would even know he’s sweating so profusely.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Great plan, DickAllen!