"It's not a matter of life or death..."

 Filed on behalf of HoraceClarke66, whose computer was stolen and sold to Russia...

“…What is, what is?”

 

Well, actually a lot of stuff, much of which is being debated right now.  But let’s not go there.

 

Instead, I want to talk about something trivial:  The proposals to make the 2020 Abomination Rules—7-inning games in doubleheaders, starting every extra inning with a runner on second-base—a permanent disfigurement of the game we all love.

 

“Who cares, who cares?”

 

The words above were penned by the great Elvis Costello in 1980, part of a song called, “Hoover Factory.”  It’s about an old Hoover vacuum factory outside of London that was about to be torn down, like several other abandoned Art Deco buildings from the 1930s.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FAzWgY8Ftc

 

As you can see, it was drop-dead gorgeous:

 

 

But hey, what would be the big deal if it was reduced to rubble?

 

“It’s not a matter of life or death…”

 

Neither are these moronic new rules for pandemic baseball.  Installing them will just be one more example of chipping away at the great game for no discernible reason.

 

Baseball isn’t overrun by extra-inning games, especially not those that go on and on, inning after inning.  The owners long ago all but eliminated doubleheaders, so that they’re only played in the case of monsoon-level rainouts.

 

Nor do the lords of MLB have any interest in actually shortening the games.  Or addressing  the real problem, which is that the game today is more one-dimensional—and boring—than it has ever been.

 

What they are after is making the game more predictable.  Squeezing it into reliable, three-hour boxes.  This way it can be turned all the more easily into one of the timed games that baseball envies so much, football and basketball, where advertisers can be assured that the action will always take place within certain time slots.  

 

It’s all for the money, of course, like everything else, and if it mutilates the game some of us love so much, well, is that really so bad? 

 

And will it really be so bad when, not long from now, MLB puts ads on the outfield grass?  Then on the infield grass, the bases, and the uniforms? 

 

When all teams, as well as their stadiums, are named after their corporate sponsors?  When our favorite team becomes the My Pillow Yankees?

 

“Who cares…?”

 

The Hoover Factory, incidentally, was saved.  It was converted into a supermarket and apartments, with all of its salient elements preserved and it looks great. 

 

Just another beautiful thing.  Just something to make people feel better as they go into it or drive past it on another working day.  Just the way we think of baseball. 

 

If only somebody would save our favorite thing.