Ok, skip the bullshit, yeah, yeah, here's how to fix Major League Baseball. Forward this to Bill Simmons. Forward to MLB. Forward to Robert Dean Manfred. Forward this to at least ten baseball fans and ask them to forward to ten fans, and we can CHANGE THE GAME!!!
I used to watch baseball. I don't anymore. No one under age 40 I know watches anymore, we need to do something.
(1) Each stadium needs to do something more special or funky with their outfield walls, something like Fenway with the Green Monster. As a viewer I need something to affix my hopes to, my eye to, with each at bat. Can he hit it over there? Can he hit the Green Monster? Can he hit it into the bay? It doesn't need to be silly like 240 ft porch or anything but each stadium needs a more definitive outfield situation with respect to increasing the chance of a home run ball, ground-rule double, or interesting ricochet situation. This needs to happen yesterday. For example in Citi Field, let's say there's a ten foot gap in center field, if the ball goes through there, it runs another ten years into a little square area, and the CF has to go in there and get it. Or like in Atlanta, maybe out in LF there's some deep corner like that, extra 15 feet, Acuna hits it back there, see you later, in-the-park homer. You know this is great.
I'm sick of the shit with the stats, oh he hits .318 left handed on summer days with a light wind. I want a guy going up there trying to clobber the weird short porch in right. I want something I can understand, like backyard baseball, you know if it gets past the bush, you're golden. I'm not smart enough to understand the slurve, the slider, the hanging curve, but if the field has a funny shape I can pay attention to that.
(2) The divisions need to be completely re-organized to decrease travel and also to increase the odds of fighting. Think of all the rivalries in American high school sports, all the local hatred at the high-school level from playing the same five teams over and over. Here's how it goes:
AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
New York Yankees
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Boston RedSox
Baltimore Orioles
This is obvious, you have the four big--$$ teams of the NE plus Baltimore. They all hate each other, they have big payrolls, let's watch them beat up on each other with their monster budgets. This needed to happen two years ago, we all know it. Imagine all the beautiful fights between Phillies and RedSox fans. Imagine how bad Mets-BoSox would fight. We need this. Look, they can travel to games on the Subway, the train, how great is that!
NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST
Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals
Toronto Blue Jays / Montreal Expos
Florida Marlins
WTF???? What the efffffff??? What did he do there? Is this guy sane??
Look, we don't need two Florida teams, we don't. Those two teams (Tampa and Miami) are combined now, No one goes to games in Florida, maybe if we combine them we can get the stadiums filled. In the new order, Tampa doesn't exist, and we just have the Florida Marlins. They consist of the two Florida squads mashed together. We're sick of seeing empty stadiums. We don't want it. We don't need it. Guess what else? The Florida Marlins play 30 home games a year in Puerto Rico. Yes, I said that. EEEEEEFFF yes. Yes, yes.
Holy cow, he forced the Blue Jays to play 40 homes games in Montreal, yes he did. They will have to come up with a new hat, maybe a BlueJay flying in front of the letter M. It's not right for Montreal not to have a team. Maybe these two cities together can sell enough merch to keep a Canadian team afloat.
wHAT ELSE CAN HE DO? wILL HE FORCE the Washington team to also play 30 home games per year in Buffalo? Yes, he did that. Washington has no fans. Inject Buffalo Bill fan here. It works every time.
So now you have four teams along the East Coast, with similar budget, and you have a Canadian team and a Florida team, and you are tied to Canada and Puerto Rico and Buffalo. International division, beautiful!
AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL
Chicago Cubs
Chicago WhiteSox
Detroit Tigers
Milwaukee Brewers
Minnesota Twins
NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
St. Louis Cardinals
Kansas City Royals
Cleveland Guardians
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates
Yes, I totally put the WhiteSox and the Cubs and then the Royals and the Cardinals together. For these games they have to ride public transit to and from the games. These games are always during the day and cheap so the kids can come. Free popcorn. Meanwhile let's see if Minnesota and Milwaukee can learn to hate each other. Imagine the local rivalries, the hatred. Whichever team wins that series each year gets a special trophy filled with beer that the players swig.
AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST
Las Vegas Athletics
Colorado Rockies
Houston Astros
Texas Rangers
Arizona Diamondbacks
Seattle Mariners
NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST (CALIFORNIA)
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
San Diego Padres
Los Angeles Angels
Holy shizzz, he's done it again. He made a CALIFORNIA DIVISION. Why??? Because California. Because California Girls!!! These teams when they play have to go to games in a huge team-owned bus with a glass dome, so the fans can see them driving on the freeway. These intra-Cali games are always daytime games, always cheap for the kids, free popcorn, make new fans. These are all going to break out into fights, which is good.
Each year whichever team in the CALIFORNIA Division wins the season series, yes MLB gives all those players their own Corvettes in their team colors. Yes.
Let's face it, no one loves the America League West, no one ever has, these are a bunch of weird teams stuffed over here.
(3) New uniforms. All team uniforms must be-resigned. A team can have only three jerseys all year, a home, a road, an alternate. Only three hats, three jerseys, three pants, etc. No Mother's Day bullshit, no Father's Day/army/25th anniversary combo. A team can have white or grey but not both. And you have to have white or grey as neutral. Black is not neutral. Then the other two are colors, one of which can be black. No more than five teams can have red as a prominent color. No more than five teams can have dark blue as a prominent color. The Pirates have to use the horizontal striped hats every year as an option. I'm sick of every team being red or blue. Only three teams can have black as their neutral, unless your team like Pirates has used black already as a color scheme.
(4) Clobberfest. If a batter is hit by a pitch and it's on the head/face, on the nuts or right on the hand or elbow, or if the batter isn't hit but it's an obvious headhunt throwback pitch, the batter is allowed 20 seconds in which to charge the mound. No other players can get involved. 20 seconds is allocated for immediate justice. After that the refs break it up. As the hitter you have 20 seconds to get to the mound and take a swing!!! No taking a bat with you!
(5) The team managers/coaches cannot wear a baseball hat. They have to wear a fedora or top hat or other hat that was commonly worn by men prior to 1950. No one wants to see these old men wearing baseball caps.
(6) In-the-park home run counts as two points. A triple adds another out to that inning. Immediately following a triple, the player is allowed if he wants to run backwards through the basepaths celebrating, until he reaches third again. If there are runners on those bases they give him a leaping high five. After a double, the hitting team can re-arrange the batting order for the next hit. So like if you are the Braves and hitting and let's say Ozzie Albies doubles, that means the next hitter can be whomever the manager chooses, you can skip back to Acuna again.
(7) Five times per game a starting pitcher for each team must throw a baseball that is one of those super bouncy ones that kids use. No, seven times.
(8) Bases doubled in size to make it easier to get base hit. Also base paths shortened by 2.5 feet. Now much easier to beat out the throw. This will create incentive for hitting the ball and singling and bunting, give us something to watch besides outs and homers.
(8.5) Infield is brought in for all stadiums to make it very difficult for a pop-up to catcher. No one wants this play to stay in modern baseball.
(9) You can't strike someone out looking, only swinging. If a guy stands there and it's a strike, it's another foul ball.
(10) The catcher is allowed to sit on a small stool. I don't want to feel bad for that guy and his aging knees that the announcer is always talking about.
(11) Uniform punishment. The worst team in the league each year has to then return the next year and play in a pink jersey with burgundy pants and a little bow tie. They wear that jersey every game until they emerge from the basement.
(12) Starting pitcher minimums. The starter has to go at least six innings, every game, unless he's injured. If he's injured during the game, then of course he has to miss his next start to avoid fake injuries occurring.
(13) Season shortened. 144 games instead of 162. No more reason for everyone to fake injuries. Maybe pitchers like Strider can stay healthy. All playoff series are now 7-game series and they play on consecutive days including no days off in between series if both teams have completed their prior series. That was easy. There is no wildcard game. There is no three-day-break between games. There is no playoff travel day between each game. Four playoff teams per league. Seven-game-series are always played four games-three games-four games with the team with best regular season record having the four home games.
There, I did it, I fixed MLB.
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