The Sad State of Major League Baseball

or Why Bud Selig Needs to Step Down as Commish

 

Alex Rodriguez is the latest name tainted by the steroid scandal.  He was just one on a list of 103 names tied to positive steroid tests from the early part of the decade.  Sure, the test was supposed to be confidential, but once the names were matched to the samples, it was only a matter of time before the information became public.  It's the American way!  Now that A-Rod has been brought to earth, I’m sure Red Sox and Tiger fans are just bracing themselves for the seemingly inevitable exposure of Big Papi and Miggy Cab.  ManRam doesn’t have a team, but he might get nabbed, too. 

Right now, I’d be more surprised to find out unequivocally that a baseball player didn’t do steroids, especially a masher like Ortiz, Cabrera, or Ramirez.  Or even Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard.  Once A-Rod was implicated, nobody seemed safe.  See, this is how bad it’s gotten!  Even the ‘good guys’ are suspects.  As it stands right now, the all-time hits leader, the all-time home runs leader, the person who broke Roger Maris’s record, and the player with the most 60 home run seasons will all be left out of Cooperstown by voters.  How did this happen?  Two words: Bud Selig. 

Selig had the audacity, in a public forum, to say he doesn’t want to be held responsible for the steroid era.  What?  Say again?  Seriously?  Let me get this straight.  Selig wants to be heaped with praise for all the good things he did for baseball, like the increase in revenue, the increase in attendance, and the general overall growth.  That’s fine.  Way to go, Bud.  However, he can’t pick and choose what is attributed to him.  He has to take the good with the bad.  And unfortunately for him, the bad is overtaking the good as far as what has happened to baseball on his watch.  And if you analyze it further, most of the good can be attributed to the bad. 

Let’s look closer, shall we?  First, a little history.  In 1994, Major League Baseball closed its doors on the season on August 12.  No playoffs, no World Series.  Not surprisingly, this led to a fan backlash, and baseball’s popularity plummeted.  Attendance for a full season in 1995 was only 400,000 fans more than that of the strike-shortened 1994 season, despite that 900 more games were played.  A full 20 million more fans attended games in 1993 than in 1995.  Attendance in 1996 and 1997 lagged significantly behind pre-strike figures.  Baseball was in dire straits. 

Enter Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, circa 1998.  Big Mac and Slammin’ Sammy battled neck-and-neck in an epic home run race.  The final totals were 70 home runs for McGwire and 66 for Sosa.  Never mind that McGwire was 25 pounds heavier now than he was during his Oakland years, and that his forearms were bigger in 1998 than his biceps were in 1988.  Or that the 1998 Sammy Sosa couldn’t hide behind two of his rookie self.  These guys were huge.  Bigger than anyone who was just “working out a lot” should have been.  And bigger than if they were just taking andro, or whatever Mac claimed he was gobbling at the time.  No, something else was going on here.  A lot of the fans knew that.  Some cared, some didn’t.  Some expressed their outrage.  Most didn’t.  And for that, fans as a whole are partially to blame.  Not completely, because the nature of the fan is to watch in awe as super-human athletes perform super-human feats.  Nothing personified that idea more than the summer of 1998. 

Yes, McGwire and Sosa deserve a share of the blame.  They shouldn’t have compromised the integrity of the game by taking PEDs.  The same goes for all the players named in the Mitchell Report, as well as the 103 mystery players on the latest report, the one that exposed A-Roid.  However, this fact alone does not exonerate Bud Selig.  Baseball needed the home run race of 1998 to inject some excitement into the game.  Face it: for the common fan, a 10-9 slugfest is much more exciting than a 1-0 pitchers’ duel. Pitchers’ duels are for purists and hardcore fans.  But baseball is a business, and the weighty cost of new stadiums and outlandish player salaries cannot be supported by the hardcore fans alone.  MLB needs the fringe fans.  And the fringe fans will only watch if the game is exciting.  A purist like myself finds an epic pitchers’ duel exciting, but to the average fan, the only excitement that a pitcher could generate is a no-hitter.  Fringe fans like the long ball. 

Baseball needed a boost in popularity; it needed to bring those fringe fans back.  So Bud looked the other way at steroid use, because the home runs produced by ‘roids were bringing fans back in droves.  And it’s not like Sosa and McGwire were the only case studies, either.  Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs in 1996.  Fifty!  He never reached even half that amount again in his career.  Roger Clemens ballooned in size and became a much better pitcher in his late 30s than he was in his late 20s.  And the man who was supposed to save baseball, the one who was going to render Barroid’s tarnished record irrelevant, now he’s a steroid statistic. 

Looking past individual players, there’s the empirical evidence as well.  Over the last 30 years, not including the strike-shortened 1981 and 1994 seasons, there have been an average of 4276 home runs hit each season.  On its face, this shows nothing.  It’s the 15-year splits that are so telling.  From 1979-1993, there were just 3454 home runs hit per year, as contrasted with 1995-2008 (1994 was a strike-shortened year, and therefore not included in the calculations), which saw 5099 home runs fly over the fences every season.  How do you account for a 47% increase in home run production?  During the same time period that the alleged steroid activity was taking place?  Was Bud Selig even watching baseball during this time? 

That’s why I’m calling for Bud Selig to step down from baseball.  He needs to just admit he was wrong, that he screwed up and horribly mismanaged America’s pastime, and simply walk away.  No more excuses, no more pleas to be exonerated, no more crap.  Bud Selig is no more deserving to continue as the commissioner of baseball than Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens are to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  Less deserving, in fact.  Not electing players like Bonds or Clemens is akin to pulling the wool over America’s eyes and pretending the steroid era never happened.  But that’s what Buddy-boy wants to do.  Just get a big-ass Sharpie and start blacking out the records.  Hey Bud, you might be able to get an industrial-strength asterisk machine at Staples.  That might come in handy when you attempt to alter the past.  

Everybody involved in baseball has to face up to one simple fact: the steroid era was real.  It really happened.  Steroids or not, McGwire and Sosa actually chased Roger Maris's record of 61, way back in 1998.  McGwire actually hit 70 bombs in a single season. Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's legendary 755 career home run record, by actually hitting career home run number 756.  He currently actually has 762 career home runs. These moments are real, because people were there.  They saw it happen.  They let it happen.  And now they have to live with the consequences.  The steroid era was everybody's fault.  Even the common fan.  As the saying goes, "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups," the fans could have done something.  But they didn't.  We didn't.  Bud Selig didn't.

They say history is written by the winners.  If we let Bud Selig rewrite the past and hide the steroid era behind the curtain, then he’s won.  He gets his money, he gets his credit for bringing baseball back, but most importantly, he gets to throw everyone under the bus for the steroid epidemic.  Bud, please.  Do us a favor.   Throw yourself under that bus instead.  It’s what baseball deserves. 

 

It’s Been a Long Time

or Things I’ve Thought About in the Meantime

 

I haven’t been able to write much what with school and all, but there is a handful of issues that have passed us by that I want to comment on.  This installment of Wrecking Trains is kind of a mixed-bag affair.  I’ve got a few things I want to talk about, but none of them are deep enough to warrant an entire column.  And since I don’t have enough readers yet, I can’t turn this into a mailbag, either. 

 

World …[rain delay]  … Series

It was an interesting Fall Classic this year.  There’s not much to be said; it was pretty boring, there was a ginormous rain delay (2 days to finish 3.5 innings of game 5), and an incredibly anticlimactic finish for the 2008 (Devil) Rays.  They reminded me of the 2006 Tigers for obvious reasons.  They came out of nowhere to make the playoffs, everyone spent all season waiting for them to falter and return to earth, and they beat a perennial playoff powerhouse to reach the World Series.  Oh yeah, and when they got there they completely forgot how to play baseball and got trounced.  They couldn’t hit (sound familiar?), couldn’t pitch (yep), and couldn’t play defense (pretty sure that happened to the Tigers, too).  So Philadelphia took home the trophy, and brought a championship to the most tortured city in sports for the first time since Dr. J and the Sixers secured the Larry O’Brien trophy in 1983. 

For all the arguments that the pundits make about the American League being so much better than the National League, the Phillies’ win in 2008 pulls the leagues even in titles over the last eight years.  If you look at the interleague splits over the last twelve seasons (since 1997, when interleague play began), the AL is ahead 1,536-1,420.  This is not the absolute dominance that some would have you believe.  Sure, the AL leads 440-316 over the last three years, but they’ve also lost two of the three World Series over that same period.  And honestly, what matters more, the interleague play record during the regular season, or World Series wins?  It all goes back to the basic premise in all of sports: any team can beat any other team on any given day.  There are no ‘sure things’ in sports.

Personally, I think the bigger issue is that 2008 is the fifth straight World Series in which the losing team has won no more than just a single game.  It’s the sixth straight series without a Game 7.  This is a problem, folks.  Why is the World Series not competitive anymore?  Well, once again, there were long layoffs between (and in the middle of) the series.  Is this really the problem?  Until this year, that was the consensus.  After all, the Rockies (9 days off in 2007; swept in Series) and Tigers (8 days off in 2006; lost Series 4-1) both had long breaks between the LCS and World Series, and both lost the momentum and mojo they had in the first two rounds of the playoffs.  That was the reason, right?

Not so fast.  The (Devil) Rays turned this theory on its head.  This time around, it was the Phillies that disposed of the Rays after sitting on their tails for over a week.  But baseball is a game of streaks and slumps, and injecting unnecessary breaks in the action will inevitably affect the quality of play.  Either way, the breaks in the playoffs are ridiculous.  The teams play 162 games in 180 days during the regular season, then play just 13 games in 25 days (2006 Tigers), 11 games in 22 days (2007 Rockies), or 14 games in 27 days (2008 Phillies).  Why is that?  Having a day off for every day they play (on average) is not helping these teams.  Sure, a long season can take its toll on players, but if the concern is really about injuries and fatigue, then the regular season should be shorter.  Yes, there will be inevitable delays, like when one LCS goes to 7 games, but the other is decided in only 4.  But that’s a difference of 3 days, so why did these teams have 8 or 9 days off? 

It’s all about TV revenue.  MLB wants prime-time matchups in prime TV slots.  So it sacrifices the flow of the playoffs to accomplish this end.  But this self-serving purpose is also self-defeating.  It undermines baseball’s credibility when, in an effort to boost television ratings, baseball tampers with scheduling, and in turn diminishes the quality of the World Series.  Sure, this juggling act may help ratings for LDS and LCS games, but it’s killing the competition in the World Series, and fans have stopped watching. 

 

0-16! Congratulations!

Kudos to the Lions for completing Jim Rome’s dream.  It takes a cohesive team effort to go out and lose every single game you play for an entire season.  No, seriously.  Wow.  Not even a single victory.  See my first blog post if you want a further explanation for why this happened.  Matt Millen is a moron.  And the team’s not getting any better if all they’re going to do is hire his underling to replace him. 

Ford:  “So, what qualifications do you have for this position?”

Mayhew:  “Well, I worked and studied under Matt Millen for eight years.”

Ford:  “You’re hired!”

Is that how Martin Mayhew’s interview actually went?  Here’s a thought, William Clay: 0-16 is karma for being one of the worst owners in all of sports.  Well, at least one of the worst owners that hasn’t moved his team to another city. 

And speaking of 0-16, I think it’s important for Lions fans that the team got a big ol’ goose-egg in the win column this year.  That’s right, I said fans.  Everyone is going to remember the 2008 Detroit Lions as only team to go 0-16.  Which, in a twisted, sadistic way is good for Lions fans.  Things can’t get better until they get worse.  By Because of 16 games of epic failure, the 2008 Lions have cemented themselves in history as the worst team ever.  Fans have abandoned all hope.  Most of them realize that the only way to fix this is a complete overhaul, and may finally take steps to accomplish it. 

The reason William Clay Ford never spent the money to put a good team on the field is because he didn’t have to.  Why pay more to make the same amount of money?  Every game was sold out.  Fans bought jerseys, shirts, and hats.  Ford counted his money, and thought nothing of the 2-14, 3-13, and 4-12 teams that mired in mediocrity.  Oh, sure, coaches were fired, players were cut, rookies were drafted, and free agents were signed.  But there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it all, because the end results didn’t matter to the bottom line.  The team was still going to make the Fords money. 

But now that the team exactly one win in their last 24 games, and none in their last 17, fans may actually stop attending games.  They may stop buying memorabilia.  If this happens, the money supply dries up.  And the Fords have to fix it, starting with the product on the field. 

 

Closing the Door on the Bullpen

It only took most of the offseason.  But Dombrowski finally signed a closer.  It’s not K-Rod, it’s not K-Wood, and it’s not some Putz (pootz, not putz, apparently, is the correct pronunciation).  But it’s also not F-Rod (or F-Bomb, based on what comes out of most fans’ mouths when he enters the game) or the Roller-Coaster.  Enter Brandon Lyon.  Dombrowski and Leyland expect him to compete with Zumaya to be the everyday closer. 

Lyon’s career ERA is 4.46, so he’s not exactly Rivera-esque.  But he is a better option than Fernando Rodney, who looks like a criminal.  When he glances around the park while he pitches, you wonder if maybe he’s keeping an eye out for his parole officer.  Which may explain his erratic pitching, not having his full focus on the game at hand.  Needless to say, it will be infinitely more pleasing to watch a closer whose primary sequence isn’t either [single – single – walk – warning track fly ball – strikeout – double – FAIL] or [single – 0-2 count beanball – home run – single – home run – FAIL].  High comedy, and entertaining as hell if you don’t care about the outcome of the game.  On the other hand, if winning brings you joy, following the 2008 Tigers was probably painful, especially in the later innings.   

Look at it this way.  The Tigers bullpen had 34 saves as a team last year.  But that’s not even the worst part.  Those 34 saves were all the team could muster in 63 opportunities!  That’s a 54% success rate.  Fifty-four percent is a failing grade in just about every college course ever.  In other words, the bullpen failed.  Lyon, on the other hand, converted 26 of 31 chances last year.  That’s 84%, which is about a B or B-minus.  Given that the Tigers won 74 games last year, and 89 wins took the division, this is bad.  They blew 29 saves in 2008.  If you turn just half of those blown saves into wins, the Tigers are right there in the divisional race.  If Brandon Lyon converts 84% of his saves, given 63 chances he saves 53 games.  Nineteen more games than the bullpen did, in fact, save last year.  Add that to their actual win total of 74, and the Tigers have 93 wins, taking the division.  However, Leyland and Dombrowski determined that Todd Jones and Fernando Rodney were the right guys for the job last year, so the egg is all over their face. 

Thanks for listening to my ramblings.  I know some of the topics are pretty old, but I couldn't let them go by without commenting on them at least a little.  Hopefully I'll be a bit more consistent with my posting.  Stay tuned because I've got a piece on Bud Selig that I'm working on.   After that I'm going to try to post every week or two, even if it's just something small.