Terence Moore writes for MLB.com. I always get a good laugh reading his columns, because at the very end of his columns there is this disclaimer:
Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
What Terence writes is not subject to approval from MLB. Sure, he works for MLB.com, but MLB doesn't give a shit what he writes. He could do a ten-part expose on how Rob Manfred is a closeted bigot who molests children in his spare time. IT DOESN'T MATTER, RUN THE STORY! That's how the reader is supposed to see it. Yet over the past few years Terence, an avowed "traditionalist" who hates all changes in baseball post-Big Red Machine, has written about how much he loves the following: a pitch clock, the one game Wild Card playoff, the All-Star Game format, and has slobbered all over Bud Selig once before. Well, once is not enough. Terence Moore has written the all-time fluff piece on Bud Selig and it's embarrassing. These two should just get a room.
I've defended Selig a few times, because I think he's done some good for MLB, and he gets mocked too much. Considering how outright hated Roger Goodell and Gary Bettman have become, while David Stern always received way too much credit for being handed the Bird/Magic/Jordan/Shaq/Kobe/LeBron era of the NBA and not fucking it up, I think Selig did a decent as commissioner of MLB. Bud Selig isn't my idea of a good time, but I also think he wasn't one of the worst commissioners in sports either. He moved baseball forward, and as much as the Steroid Era leaves a stain on his legacy, he also responded to the Steroid Era with a strong drug policy. But still...this is just too much. Terence Moore, NOT AT THE BEHEST OF MLB OR BECAUSE HE WORKS FOR THEM, thinks Bud Selig is the greatest and he's not afraid to slobber embarrassingly over Selig while making an ass of himself.
When Bud Selig isn't walking around his longtime Milwaukee neighborhood,
stretching his 80-year-old legs while listening through his headphones
to any baseball news he can find, he is watching 15 games a day.
There is a lot to mock here. The presentation as Bud Selig as an everyman is, of course, funny. I imagine that Selig's neighborhood isn't just a regular old neighborhood like you and I live in, but one of those neighborhoods that is really a shelter for the super-wealthy with a gate of some sort that keeps the unwanteds out. Also, I like to imagine Selig is listening to a Sony Walkman that doesn't even have a tape player.
Oh, and one other thing. It's impossible for Selig to watch all 15 games in a day. I doubt he stays up until 1am every night to catch the games. Good try, but I'm not buying it.
"I'm at home, and I have a little clicker, and I have a satellite, and I go from game to game,"
"A clicker." He has "a clicker," which I imagine he bangs on the couch cushion when it won't go to the channel he wants to go to immediately.
And if Terence wasn't on-the-nose enough with his description of Selig as an everyman, he'll just go ahead and point out that this fluff piece is about Bud Selig as an everyman. Just in case it's not obvious to the reader, here is what Terence is trying to paint Selig as being,
said the Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball, sharing his routine as just another fan.
Just another fan. And remember, no one asked Terence to write this column. This was a tongue-bath that he is giving Selig on his own accord. How this makes it better, I am not sure.
Well, Selig isn't just any fan. He spent more than two decades as the
Commissioner, and he is four months into a retirement that doesn't
exist.
Walking around the neighborhood, watching baseball all day. That's not retirement? If walking around the neighborhood and watching sports all day isn't retirement, then I have to wonder what Terence believes retirement to be. What Selig is doing all day, isn't that retirement for most people?
That means Selig is far from your average guy dreaming of snagging a foul ball some day from the bleachers.
As always, it wouldn't be a Terence Moore column if he didn't submarine his own point along the way. Bud Selig is a regular guy except he isn't.
(Terence Moore a few paragraphs ago) "Bud Selig is just like a regular guy watching baseball all day."
(Terence Moore now) "Bud Selig is not the average guy because he's too important and really, really wealthy."
Selig is that guy in spirit, though.
Well, in spirit I am really nice guy who is super-athletic and I treat everyone as I would like to be treated. Unfortunately, what I am in spirit doesn't matter when I'm not athletic enough to play professional sports, I can be an asshole and I'm incredibly impatient with some people. See, what I am in spirit doesn't matter, because in reality I'm not what I am in spirit.
Selig said he has been known to get a little excited at times while studying this baseball moment or that one.
"Studying this baseball moment..." I tell you, it sounds really fucking exciting just to talk about. I love sitting in front of the television, studying baseball moments. This sounds like something a real fan of baseball would do.
"Hey want to come over and use 'the clicker' to study baseball moments? Bring the fat free milk jug too. You know what? Screw it, bring over the jug of whole milk. I'm getting a little excited. There are baseball moments happening."
"I don't shout much, but I do mumble," Selig said. "Believe me, I will do that.
I'm not sure mumbling counts as getting excited. People who mumble when they get excited generally tend to be vagrants or other individuals who are slowly losing their mind. But yes, I absolutely do believe Bud Selig will mumble when he gets excited. That, I do believe.
Other than that, I may say on occasion, 'What the heck is going on
here?' That's when things aren't going the way I like them to go."
When those baseball moments aren't going right, sometimes you just have to ask "What the heck is going on here?" I like how Terence believes he's painting Bud Selig in a positive light, but he's portraying him as the same weird, quiet guy who seems aloof from everything and everyone that he was stereotyped as commissioner.
Selig was speaking about "things" on the diamond, not in his life.
Especially not his baseball life, because that has been an intriguing
story.
Because as much as Terence wants to paint Bud Selig as a regular guy, "things" away from the field have gone pretty well for Bud Selig. His dad owned a car leasing business and Bud made a few bucks off of that. But no, Bud Selig is just a regular fan of baseball, walking around the neighborhood and watching television all day. Just like you and I watch baseball all day, except Bud Selig is much wealthier, has "a clicker," is definitely not living a life of retirement, and used to the commissioner of baseball.
I witnessed many of the middle chapters of that story, and this was when
I knew Selig before I formally knew him. If you lived in Milwaukee
during the early 1970s when my family and I moved to town, everybody in
Wisconsin knew Allan Huber "Bud" Selig. He was woven into the fabric of
the state. He owned the Brewers, and he was on the board of directors of
the Green Bay Packers. His roommate at the University of Wisconsin was
Herb Kohl, who became a U.S. Senator and the owner of the Milwaukee
Bucks. Among Selig's best friends was Hank Aaron, which made sense.
And of course Terence Moore is writing this fluff piece on Selig because he grew up in Milwaukee. It's just like how Terence idolizes the Big Red Machine and so he writes 3-4 articles per year on them.
Selig breathed all things Braves during their stay in his native
Milwaukee from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s. When they left for
Atlanta after the 1965 season, he got the White Sox to play games at
old Milwaukee County Stadium
He eventually convinced baseball to allow the troubled Seattle Pilots franchise to become the Brewers before the 1970 season.
Bud Selig stole professional sports franchises from Seattle before it was cool to do so. He's ahead of his time in so many ways.
I began knowing Selig for real during his journey from original owner of
the Brewers to acting Commissioner in 1992 to full-time Commissioner
from '98 through his retirement in January. Through it all, Selig never
left Milwaukee as his primary residence.
That's so noble of him to include Milwaukee as his primary residence and not include any beach, vacation, or second homes as his primary residence. So even though Bud Selig may have multiple residences like any other baseball fan has, he is a man of the people, as seen by his keeping Milwaukee as his primary residence for tax purposes. I'm getting the warm and fuzzies now.
Has Selig gone back to the future as Wisconsin's staunchest baseball fan?
"Well, that's the first thing people always ask me, and then they
say, 'Now you can openly root for the Brewers,'" said Selig, with a sigh
after a pause. "But I'm still careful that way."
Yes, be careful not to let anyone think the team that Selig grew up loving and used to own, like own in terms of him actually legally owning the franchise, would be the team he would cheer for when he's retired (I'm sorry, I meant "not really retired"). Can't have that. It's better to keep the people in the dark on Selig's rooting allegiances.
Before long, he did something that his predecessors couldn't do, and
that is, he got his fellow owners to come to a consensus on a slew of
issues. He also was able to do the same with the Major League Baseball
Players Association. Interleague Play. From two divisions to three, with
Wild Cards in the playoffs. A replay system, and then an expanded
replay system. The toughest drug-testing program in pro sports. A
lasting peace between management and labor.
Outside of the one-game Wild Card, which I still hate, these is a nice list of Selig's accomplishments which have led to many baseball moments he can mutter under his breath about.
"I am a fan, and I enjoy the game immensely," Selig said, adding that he was particularly fond of the retired Derek Jeter,
I mean, who doesn't love The Jeter? The answer? Minka Kelly. She is probably not a fan of The Jeter. And possibly Mariah Carey or Jessica Biel. Though no one can be sure since Derek Jeter still has their phones confiscated upon entrance to his home, so any complaints they had at the time about The Jeter will remain in those phones.
and now they have what they call "The Selig Experience" at the same Miller Park that Selig built for the Brewers.
The "Experience" opened last week as a high-tech exhibit that uses
multimedia to describe how Selig saved Major League Baseball in
Wisconsin.
This doesn't sound self-serving at all.
It features a 3D version of Selig in his old Milwaukee County Stadium
office, and the highlights include Aaron slamming his National League
pennant-clinching home run in 1957.
A 3D version of Bud Selig. Screw muttering about baseball moments, I want to see a 3D Bud Selig for a real sense of excitement.
"You know, it was just unbelievable when they opened 'The Selig
Experience' last week, because sitting right next to me was Henry
[Aaron], and right behind me was Robin Yount," Selig said, referring to
two Baseball Hall of Famers with Milwaukee connections.
"I'm telling you. I wish you could have seen [Aaron's and Yount's]
emotion while watching this thing. I do have a passion for baseball, and
if you watch 'The Selig Experience,' I wouldn't have to tell you too
much more."
"It's great to have these two great baseball players sitting there while they celebrate how I saved baseball in Milwaukee. What a great moment and everyone should celebrate how great I am."
Okay, it's not exactly what Selig means, but in a fluff piece about Bud Selig it's easy to mock how Selig seems to be celebrating himself just a little bit as well.
You ready for the money shot of slobbering that Terence will do over Bud Selig? It's basically a tongue-bath in written form. If "Open Arms" could be translated into sports talk, then sung by Terence Moore while on one knee as Bud Selig blushes and acts like he's embarrassed, then these last two sentences would be the equivalent of that song.
Actually, I've watched something better than "The Selig Experience" to see Selig's passion for baseball.
I've watched Selig.
Wow, that's an embarrassing way to end the column. I'm not sure I've ever read a person fawn over Bud Selig like this since the last time Terence Moore fawned over Selig. And in no way has Terence written such an embarrassingly devoted column because he works for MLB.com and cares to keep Selig's legacy in the forefront of people's minds. Not at all.
Though I do have to ask the following question. Is Terence saying "The Selig Experience" isn't as good as sitting there on the couch, staring at Bud Selig, watching him mutter and bang "the clicker" on the couch in order to get it work? If so, that doesn't say a hell of a lot for "The Selig Experience."
The real "Selig Experience" would be watching a four hour baseball game and then having it end in a tie while everyone shrugs their shoulders and then walks home. Later, the decision will be made in order to prevent a tie from happening, as opposed to simply continuing to play baseball until one team wins, that there must be stakes tied to the game. Then World Series homefield advantage will be tied to this exhibition game, as if the real issue was that the stakes in the game weren't high enough and wasn't simply that the game ended in a tie. Knowing an exhibition game ended in a tie and figuring the best way to solve this problem was to raise the stakes and then tie these stakes from an exhibition game to the World Series, as opposed to simply making rules stating the exhibition game can't end in a tie...now that's the real "Selig Experience."
Showing posts with label bud selig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bud selig. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
4 comments Jerry Green Thinks Bud Selig Took a Piss on the Common Man with All These Newfangled Changes to Baseball
Jerry Green's default mechanism is to long for the good old days. Everything that happened in sports was better 30-40 (even 60) years ago. Sports are ruined today and the common man has been cut out of baseball completely. Now you may ask, "But Ben, who is this 'common man' that Jerry Green is referring to?" I do not know the answer to that question, but when I find the common man, I expect him to be very upset and ravenous to kick Bud Selig's ass. Because after all, with all of these changes to baseball, Selig left the common man behind. The common man is in a cave, ruing the day that Bud Selig became commissioner and dared to try and think of new ideas, ideas that Babe Ruth and Hank Greenberg would think were absolutely ridiculous, to "improve" baseball. Fortunately, Jerry Green is around to stand up for the common man and remember the good old days when everything was better in baseball. Back when there was racism throughout the game and those silly Mexican players stayed in the country where they belong.
A purist's lament:
Don't you love how sportwriters who long for the old days call themselves "purists"? I'm not sure Jerry Green is understanding that when he refers to the era of Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson as "pure" he also means "there weren't any black players allowed to play the sport and they had their own separate league so this was better." There is definitely a slightly racist tint to this appeal for "purity." When a sportswriter is using the same language that racist organizations use to advocate for the demeaning treatment of those aren't like them, then I would probably reconsider my language if I were a sportswriter. Maybe it's just me. It's racist organizations and baseball writers who long for "purity."
Baseball, once, was the Common Man's game.
Yes, baseball was once a lot of things. It no longer is a lot of things and this isn't a bad thing. Progress doesn't have to be scary.
It was simple: the major-league teams played through the season in what were legitimate pennant races. The eight or 10 teams in the two leagues played games starting in April and finishing in October.
So contract 10 to 14 teams and hold more "legitimate" pennant races? That's the key to making baseball better apparently. Engage fewer fans for a shorter period of time by limiting the number of cities that have baseball teams and making sure fewer teams are in contention. I can't see how this wouldn't work. Brilliant. The common man would love this.
At the end of the schedule, after 154 or 162 games, the team in first place in the American League played the team in first place in the National League. The postseason was confined to an event noted as the World Series. The first team to win four games in the best-of-seven games became what was known widely, as the World Champions.
Things have changed. I don't understand the opposition to change. There should be a separate baseball internet for people who long for the days of purity. That way it helps to keep their internet pure from scary ideas that cause change in sports and those impure fans of sports don't end up reading the disgruntled rantings of those who are afraid of anything new.
This was how Babe Ruth and Hank Greenberg played baseball in a better era.
It still is gripping. The pennant races are still close and the one game wild-card playoff, though contrived and stupid, does provide a sense of theater the sport desperately needs. I wouldn't consider the era in which Ruth and Greenberg played as a better era simply because it was an older era and I hope I never get to the point when I lament the game was better when Trout and Cabrera were hitting the ball all over the field.
Whitey Ford pitching curveballs vs. Duke Snider. Jackie Robinson called safe on a steal of home plate to the wailing of Yogi Berra. Willie Mays running into deep center field to catch Vic Wertz monstrous shot over his shoulder at the Polo Grounds. Ruth calling his shot and then hitting a home run at Wrigley Field. Grover Cleveland Alexander trudging from the bullpen hung-over to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded.
Here's the deal though, Jerry. These days are NEVER coming back. Even if Rob Manfred decided that he wanted to only have an American League and National League with no divisions, and the two teams with the best record in each league meet, Whitey Ford will never be throwing curveballs to Duke Snider. Ruth won't ever call his shot again. Willie Mays won't catch a Vic Wertz shot over his shoulder for a second time. Those days are gone. Clayton Kershaw will pitch to David Ortiz. Mike Trout will catch a fly ball off the bat of Bryce Harper. It won't be the same because the past is the past. So if your beef is with the set up of MLB with the three divisions and two wild cards, then that's fine, but it seems your beef is that all of the old players who dead now aren't playing. So well, that's just something you are going to have to get over. They aren't coming back, so enjoy the players now in the lesser era or move on with your life and don't watch baseball anymore.
The Common Man could relate to the ballgames. We all had played baseball. We carried our fantasies. Until the rude awakening, the day that we discovered that we couldn't play.
But we still loved our baseball.
I don't think it's the wild card and expansion that has caused the common man to lose interest in baseball. I think it's a product of a different society and times have changed to where fans like a faster paced game. Society moves on, even if you aren't ready for it to.
Ticket prices were affordable.
Bud Selig isn't the sole cause of ticket prices becoming unaffordable. Inflation, player salaries and the realization that teams can make a shitload of money by raising ticket prices and maximizing profits caused ticket prices to become less affordable. Even so, a ticket to a minor league game isn't overly expensive and it's a great night out with the family or friends. There are options to watch baseball at an affordable price level. Again, it feels like Jerry Green is lamenting a time gone by, not specific things Bud Selig has done.
When I was a kid, a Common Man could cough up 55 cents to sit in the bleachers, a buck 10 for general admission along the first or third base line. And if you brought a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in a brown bag, you could watch Ted Williams playing against Joe DiMaggio in a doubleheader.
Good for you. Bud Selig didn't kill Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Bud Selig didn't set ticket prices for games, and quite frankly, rightly began to take steps to make the game faster in an era of specialized pitching that has resulted in more pitching changes that slowed the game down.
But best for the purist, the pennant races were real.
They still are real. Just because the pennant races aren't like the pennant races in 1938 doesn't mean the 2015 races aren't real. Remember this night? It sort of felt real, didn't it?
If Major League Baseball still had genuine pennant races, the 2014 standings through the top five finishers — the old-fashioned first division — would have been exactly like this:
American League
National League
This would fix everything if there was an Angels-Nationals World Series. Snider versus Ford! Willie Mays catching fly balls and Babe Ruth calling his shot. All of these things would happen again.
Now we're stuck with the debris that Bud Selig left behind.
"The debris" meaning that more baseball fans are engaged in the sport for a longer period of time. What in the hell could Bud Selig have been thinking to try and engage more fans of more teams in the sport for a longer period of time? If only he had set up two leagues and just let the team with the best record in each league play each other in the World Series, the time of games would decrease, tickets prices would plummet, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would become the national currency for the national pastime again, and fans would come come flocking back to the sport purely for the sake of nostalgia they never actually experienced. It would all happen!
The true pennant races and the genuine standings might have confused the figure manipulators and similar Sabremetric creatures.
Bud Selig is a famed Sabermetrician. And also, calling the pennant races "true" and the standings "genuine" doesn't make it so. I think a real pennant race can involve the wild card as well, and recent history has shown me to be correct.
The traditional World Series — Nationals vs. Angels — might have happened. Mike Trout vs. Bryce Harper was a purist's pipe dream.
Oh, so the World Series involving the team with speed that didn't hit home runs isn't a purist's dream? And here I thought it would be.
Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Williams, DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Tris Speaker, Mickey Cochrane, Charlie Gehringer, Goose Goslin — these are names that reek with tradition.
And nothing says "tradition" like the World Series meeting between a 23 year old and 22 year old who haven't ever appeared in a World Series before, who happen to play on two teams that didn't exist in their current form prior to 2005. THAT is tradition.
But MLB trashed tradition during the power-lusting reign of a commissioner.
Yes, he trashed tradition by moving the Expos to Washington and calling them the "Nationals" and by changing the name of the Angels to the "Anaheim Angels" and then the "Los Angeles Angels," except Jerry apparently longs for the tradition that these teams represent. A tradition that wasn't there prior to Bud Selig becoming the commissioner.
One year, early in his administration, Selig ordered the cancellation of the World Series during a bitter labor dispute with the players union. The next spring he decided the game must go on — with replacement players. Bud wanted to serve up sandlot baseball at big-league prices.
Right, he did want to do this. What has resulted from this strike that happened 20 fucking years ago (though to Jerry, that's like yesterday)? Baseball has had labor peace since that time. Baseball is the only major sport to have labor peace over the last 20 years.
That spring 20 years ago was Sparky Anderson's finest moment in his Hall of Fame career as manager with Cincinnati and Detroit. He refused manage the fake major leaguers in a false season.
Sparky maintained the dignity that Selig lacked.
Except Anderson never really had to actually make this call that he was prepared to make because the union and MLB came to a deal.
Bud went out last month following the weakest World Series in the history of the sport.
He staged a World Series pitting two fourth-place teams. There was Fox TV drooling about the Royals playing the Giants. The Giants' best from April through September, in a 162-game season, had been to tie for fourth in the National League with the Pirates.
The 2014 World Series was the third-lowest rated World Series of all-time. The 2013 World Series, which took place between two teams that had the best record in their respective leagues, is the fifth-lowest rated World Series of all-time. So I think it's just that the World Series has lower ratings due to there being other options on television more than fans don't watch because they want to see teams with the best record in their league play.
He went out boasting and preening that Major League Baseball is thriving. He spoke about the prosperity created during his tenure, more than ever in his sport. He proclaimed that the club owners and the players became richer and richer.
MLB teams are setting attendance records under Bud Selig, so obviously fans are attending the games. The stadiums could be bigger than they used to be, but when claiming the idea that the common man is being left out, the fact a lot of common men are choosing to attend baseball games seems to disprove this idea.
Does the Common Man — the shot-and-beer guy, or the average dude on the assembly line — give a hoot about Mike Ilitch's prosperity?
Don't think so!
No one gives a crap about Ilitch's prosperity, but this goes for every sport that has an extremely wealthy owner. I don't care about my favorite NFL team's owner and whether he makes a ton of money, yet this doesn't mean I'm being shut out from attending NFL games. "The average dude on the assembly line" doesn't give a shit if the owner of any of his favorite teams makes money, no matter the sport, and whether that owner is filthy rich or just really, really rich is irrelevant to this fictional dude (should I call him the "replacement dude" just to irritate Jerry Green's anti-Sabermetric tendencies?). Baseball isn't an outlier regarding this attitude of "the average dude on the assembly line."
Selig went out claiming MLB had created the most powerful drug enforcement policy in professional sports. He says, bursting with ego, that this policy is part of his legacy.
But this is true. MLB has a pretty powerful drug enforcement policy.
The truth is that Selig was tardy leading MLB into drug enforcement. The great home-run explosions — Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa — went on before Baseball ignored steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Baseball reveled in the attacks on Ruth and Henry Aaron and Roger Maris by Bonds, McGwire and Sosa.
This is also true. It's very hard to force through a powerful drug enforcement policy when there isn't a big problem that needs to be addressed. Often, something has to break before it gets fixed. That is what happened in baseball. The player's union wasn't going to agree that a powerful drug enforcement policy was necessary if they didn't see a real reason to have this powerful policy. The Steroid Era allowed both owners and the player's union to see the issue present and the necessity for a powerful drug enforcement policy. So yes, the Steroid Era is on Bud Selig, but without that era it would have been hard for the player's union to see the need for stricter testing. Such is how life works. Things have to get worse before they get better.
We purists, the cadre of remaining traditionalists, shuddered at the obliteration of Ruth's statistics, of Aaron's and Maris' records.
And this is on Bud Selig, but it's not fair to complain he was responsible for the Steroid Era and then take away credit for creating a powerful drug enforcement policy. It's hard to push through change when there isn't a problem that seems to need solving.
Bud went out with self-praise for the sweeping drug suspensions of 13 abusers two years ago, in a dragnet operation. It was based on the testimony from convicted Biogenesis operator Anthony Bosch.
In essence, Bud went out after dealing with a drug dealer.
Now this is very true, but Jerry Green is again choosing to complain about everything Bud Selig did simply because he longs for days that will never come again. Jerry Green complains that Bud Selig didn't clean up baseball in time for records to be broken by PED users and then criticizes Selig for being aggressive in trying to prevent PED users from breaking more long-held baseball records. Jerry wants to blame Selig for not being tough enough on PED users, but then complains Selig was too tough on PED users.
It can't always work both ways. Jerry Green wants MLB to clean up baseball, but not to be too aggressive in cleaning up baseball. It's a travesty that PED users are breaking baseball records, but he doesn't want MLB to be too aggressive in making sure this doesn't happen again. I think Selig went a bit overboard to nail A-Rod, but I also don't blame Selig for being tardy to put in place a strict drug enforcement policy.
He did not leave Major League Baseball. He opted to linger. MLB retained him as commissioner emeritus at a peon's wage of $6 million per year. He gets a drop in salary.
But Bud is still there, after all, hanging around. Imagine, 6 million bucks to point out to Rob Manfred, the replacement, err, new commissioner where home plate is.
Yep, I'm not a huge fan of Selig being allowed to earn all this money for not really doing a whole lot. Still, Selig didn't ruin baseball by introducing the wild card, he simply tried to open up the pennant races for more teams to get fans more engaged. I shudder to think what would happen if fewer teams were involved with pennant races during the month of August and September.
For sure, the Common Man ought to relate to that.
I still don't know who the common man is and I refuse to capitalize it. Jerry Green is very lost if he thinks the way back to baseball prosperity is to have two leagues with the best teams in each league meeting in the World Series. He longs for lower ticket prices, dead players to suddenly come back alive and play again, and for owners to not make a lot of money on the backs of fans. Changing how the playoffs structured won't fix this, so basically Jerry's problem isn't with Bud Selig, but with the passage of time. Perhaps he should take up his beefs with a clock or calendar.
A purist's lament:
Don't you love how sportwriters who long for the old days call themselves "purists"? I'm not sure Jerry Green is understanding that when he refers to the era of Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson as "pure" he also means "there weren't any black players allowed to play the sport and they had their own separate league so this was better." There is definitely a slightly racist tint to this appeal for "purity." When a sportswriter is using the same language that racist organizations use to advocate for the demeaning treatment of those aren't like them, then I would probably reconsider my language if I were a sportswriter. Maybe it's just me. It's racist organizations and baseball writers who long for "purity."
Baseball, once, was the Common Man's game.
Yes, baseball was once a lot of things. It no longer is a lot of things and this isn't a bad thing. Progress doesn't have to be scary.
It was simple: the major-league teams played through the season in what were legitimate pennant races. The eight or 10 teams in the two leagues played games starting in April and finishing in October.
So contract 10 to 14 teams and hold more "legitimate" pennant races? That's the key to making baseball better apparently. Engage fewer fans for a shorter period of time by limiting the number of cities that have baseball teams and making sure fewer teams are in contention. I can't see how this wouldn't work. Brilliant. The common man would love this.
At the end of the schedule, after 154 or 162 games, the team in first place in the American League played the team in first place in the National League. The postseason was confined to an event noted as the World Series. The first team to win four games in the best-of-seven games became what was known widely, as the World Champions.
Things have changed. I don't understand the opposition to change. There should be a separate baseball internet for people who long for the days of purity. That way it helps to keep their internet pure from scary ideas that cause change in sports and those impure fans of sports don't end up reading the disgruntled rantings of those who are afraid of anything new.
This was how Babe Ruth and Hank Greenberg played baseball in a better era.
It still is gripping. The pennant races are still close and the one game wild-card playoff, though contrived and stupid, does provide a sense of theater the sport desperately needs. I wouldn't consider the era in which Ruth and Greenberg played as a better era simply because it was an older era and I hope I never get to the point when I lament the game was better when Trout and Cabrera were hitting the ball all over the field.
Whitey Ford pitching curveballs vs. Duke Snider. Jackie Robinson called safe on a steal of home plate to the wailing of Yogi Berra. Willie Mays running into deep center field to catch Vic Wertz monstrous shot over his shoulder at the Polo Grounds. Ruth calling his shot and then hitting a home run at Wrigley Field. Grover Cleveland Alexander trudging from the bullpen hung-over to strike out Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded.
Here's the deal though, Jerry. These days are NEVER coming back. Even if Rob Manfred decided that he wanted to only have an American League and National League with no divisions, and the two teams with the best record in each league meet, Whitey Ford will never be throwing curveballs to Duke Snider. Ruth won't ever call his shot again. Willie Mays won't catch a Vic Wertz shot over his shoulder for a second time. Those days are gone. Clayton Kershaw will pitch to David Ortiz. Mike Trout will catch a fly ball off the bat of Bryce Harper. It won't be the same because the past is the past. So if your beef is with the set up of MLB with the three divisions and two wild cards, then that's fine, but it seems your beef is that all of the old players who dead now aren't playing. So well, that's just something you are going to have to get over. They aren't coming back, so enjoy the players now in the lesser era or move on with your life and don't watch baseball anymore.
The Common Man could relate to the ballgames. We all had played baseball. We carried our fantasies. Until the rude awakening, the day that we discovered that we couldn't play.
But we still loved our baseball.
I don't think it's the wild card and expansion that has caused the common man to lose interest in baseball. I think it's a product of a different society and times have changed to where fans like a faster paced game. Society moves on, even if you aren't ready for it to.
Ticket prices were affordable.
Bud Selig isn't the sole cause of ticket prices becoming unaffordable. Inflation, player salaries and the realization that teams can make a shitload of money by raising ticket prices and maximizing profits caused ticket prices to become less affordable. Even so, a ticket to a minor league game isn't overly expensive and it's a great night out with the family or friends. There are options to watch baseball at an affordable price level. Again, it feels like Jerry Green is lamenting a time gone by, not specific things Bud Selig has done.
When I was a kid, a Common Man could cough up 55 cents to sit in the bleachers, a buck 10 for general admission along the first or third base line. And if you brought a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in a brown bag, you could watch Ted Williams playing against Joe DiMaggio in a doubleheader.
Good for you. Bud Selig didn't kill Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Bud Selig didn't set ticket prices for games, and quite frankly, rightly began to take steps to make the game faster in an era of specialized pitching that has resulted in more pitching changes that slowed the game down.
But best for the purist, the pennant races were real.
They still are real. Just because the pennant races aren't like the pennant races in 1938 doesn't mean the 2015 races aren't real. Remember this night? It sort of felt real, didn't it?
If Major League Baseball still had genuine pennant races, the 2014 standings through the top five finishers — the old-fashioned first division — would have been exactly like this:
American League
| Team | Wins | Losses | Pct. | GB |
| Los Angeles | 98 | 64 | .605 | — |
| Baltimore | 96 | 66 | .593 | 2 |
| Detroit | 90 | 72 | .556 | 8 |
| Kansas City | 89 | 73 | .549 | 9 |
| Oakland | 88 | 74 | .543 | 10 |
National League
| Team | Wins | Losses | Pct. | GB |
| Washington | 96 | 66 | .593 | — |
| Los Angeles | 94 | 68 | .580 | 2 |
| St. Louis | 90 | 72 | .556 | 6 |
| San Francisco | 88 | 74 | .543 | 8 |
| Pittsburgh | 88 | 74 | .548 | 8 |
This would fix everything if there was an Angels-Nationals World Series. Snider versus Ford! Willie Mays catching fly balls and Babe Ruth calling his shot. All of these things would happen again.
Now we're stuck with the debris that Bud Selig left behind.
"The debris" meaning that more baseball fans are engaged in the sport for a longer period of time. What in the hell could Bud Selig have been thinking to try and engage more fans of more teams in the sport for a longer period of time? If only he had set up two leagues and just let the team with the best record in each league play each other in the World Series, the time of games would decrease, tickets prices would plummet, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would become the national currency for the national pastime again, and fans would come come flocking back to the sport purely for the sake of nostalgia they never actually experienced. It would all happen!
The true pennant races and the genuine standings might have confused the figure manipulators and similar Sabremetric creatures.
Bud Selig is a famed Sabermetrician. And also, calling the pennant races "true" and the standings "genuine" doesn't make it so. I think a real pennant race can involve the wild card as well, and recent history has shown me to be correct.
The traditional World Series — Nationals vs. Angels — might have happened. Mike Trout vs. Bryce Harper was a purist's pipe dream.
Oh, so the World Series involving the team with speed that didn't hit home runs isn't a purist's dream? And here I thought it would be.
Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Williams, DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Tris Speaker, Mickey Cochrane, Charlie Gehringer, Goose Goslin — these are names that reek with tradition.
And nothing says "tradition" like the World Series meeting between a 23 year old and 22 year old who haven't ever appeared in a World Series before, who happen to play on two teams that didn't exist in their current form prior to 2005. THAT is tradition.
But MLB trashed tradition during the power-lusting reign of a commissioner.
Yes, he trashed tradition by moving the Expos to Washington and calling them the "Nationals" and by changing the name of the Angels to the "Anaheim Angels" and then the "Los Angeles Angels," except Jerry apparently longs for the tradition that these teams represent. A tradition that wasn't there prior to Bud Selig becoming the commissioner.
One year, early in his administration, Selig ordered the cancellation of the World Series during a bitter labor dispute with the players union. The next spring he decided the game must go on — with replacement players. Bud wanted to serve up sandlot baseball at big-league prices.
Right, he did want to do this. What has resulted from this strike that happened 20 fucking years ago (though to Jerry, that's like yesterday)? Baseball has had labor peace since that time. Baseball is the only major sport to have labor peace over the last 20 years.
That spring 20 years ago was Sparky Anderson's finest moment in his Hall of Fame career as manager with Cincinnati and Detroit. He refused manage the fake major leaguers in a false season.
Sparky maintained the dignity that Selig lacked.
Except Anderson never really had to actually make this call that he was prepared to make because the union and MLB came to a deal.
Bud went out last month following the weakest World Series in the history of the sport.
He staged a World Series pitting two fourth-place teams. There was Fox TV drooling about the Royals playing the Giants. The Giants' best from April through September, in a 162-game season, had been to tie for fourth in the National League with the Pirates.
The 2014 World Series was the third-lowest rated World Series of all-time. The 2013 World Series, which took place between two teams that had the best record in their respective leagues, is the fifth-lowest rated World Series of all-time. So I think it's just that the World Series has lower ratings due to there being other options on television more than fans don't watch because they want to see teams with the best record in their league play.
He went out boasting and preening that Major League Baseball is thriving. He spoke about the prosperity created during his tenure, more than ever in his sport. He proclaimed that the club owners and the players became richer and richer.
MLB teams are setting attendance records under Bud Selig, so obviously fans are attending the games. The stadiums could be bigger than they used to be, but when claiming the idea that the common man is being left out, the fact a lot of common men are choosing to attend baseball games seems to disprove this idea.
Does the Common Man — the shot-and-beer guy, or the average dude on the assembly line — give a hoot about Mike Ilitch's prosperity?
Don't think so!
No one gives a crap about Ilitch's prosperity, but this goes for every sport that has an extremely wealthy owner. I don't care about my favorite NFL team's owner and whether he makes a ton of money, yet this doesn't mean I'm being shut out from attending NFL games. "The average dude on the assembly line" doesn't give a shit if the owner of any of his favorite teams makes money, no matter the sport, and whether that owner is filthy rich or just really, really rich is irrelevant to this fictional dude (should I call him the "replacement dude" just to irritate Jerry Green's anti-Sabermetric tendencies?). Baseball isn't an outlier regarding this attitude of "the average dude on the assembly line."
Selig went out claiming MLB had created the most powerful drug enforcement policy in professional sports. He says, bursting with ego, that this policy is part of his legacy.
But this is true. MLB has a pretty powerful drug enforcement policy.
The truth is that Selig was tardy leading MLB into drug enforcement. The great home-run explosions — Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa — went on before Baseball ignored steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Baseball reveled in the attacks on Ruth and Henry Aaron and Roger Maris by Bonds, McGwire and Sosa.
This is also true. It's very hard to force through a powerful drug enforcement policy when there isn't a big problem that needs to be addressed. Often, something has to break before it gets fixed. That is what happened in baseball. The player's union wasn't going to agree that a powerful drug enforcement policy was necessary if they didn't see a real reason to have this powerful policy. The Steroid Era allowed both owners and the player's union to see the issue present and the necessity for a powerful drug enforcement policy. So yes, the Steroid Era is on Bud Selig, but without that era it would have been hard for the player's union to see the need for stricter testing. Such is how life works. Things have to get worse before they get better.
We purists, the cadre of remaining traditionalists, shuddered at the obliteration of Ruth's statistics, of Aaron's and Maris' records.
And this is on Bud Selig, but it's not fair to complain he was responsible for the Steroid Era and then take away credit for creating a powerful drug enforcement policy. It's hard to push through change when there isn't a problem that seems to need solving.
Bud went out with self-praise for the sweeping drug suspensions of 13 abusers two years ago, in a dragnet operation. It was based on the testimony from convicted Biogenesis operator Anthony Bosch.
In essence, Bud went out after dealing with a drug dealer.
Now this is very true, but Jerry Green is again choosing to complain about everything Bud Selig did simply because he longs for days that will never come again. Jerry Green complains that Bud Selig didn't clean up baseball in time for records to be broken by PED users and then criticizes Selig for being aggressive in trying to prevent PED users from breaking more long-held baseball records. Jerry wants to blame Selig for not being tough enough on PED users, but then complains Selig was too tough on PED users.
It can't always work both ways. Jerry Green wants MLB to clean up baseball, but not to be too aggressive in cleaning up baseball. It's a travesty that PED users are breaking baseball records, but he doesn't want MLB to be too aggressive in making sure this doesn't happen again. I think Selig went a bit overboard to nail A-Rod, but I also don't blame Selig for being tardy to put in place a strict drug enforcement policy.
He did not leave Major League Baseball. He opted to linger. MLB retained him as commissioner emeritus at a peon's wage of $6 million per year. He gets a drop in salary.
But Bud is still there, after all, hanging around. Imagine, 6 million bucks to point out to Rob Manfred, the replacement, err, new commissioner where home plate is.
Yep, I'm not a huge fan of Selig being allowed to earn all this money for not really doing a whole lot. Still, Selig didn't ruin baseball by introducing the wild card, he simply tried to open up the pennant races for more teams to get fans more engaged. I shudder to think what would happen if fewer teams were involved with pennant races during the month of August and September.
For sure, the Common Man ought to relate to that.
I still don't know who the common man is and I refuse to capitalize it. Jerry Green is very lost if he thinks the way back to baseball prosperity is to have two leagues with the best teams in each league meeting in the World Series. He longs for lower ticket prices, dead players to suddenly come back alive and play again, and for owners to not make a lot of money on the backs of fans. Changing how the playoffs structured won't fix this, so basically Jerry's problem isn't with Bud Selig, but with the passage of time. Perhaps he should take up his beefs with a clock or calendar.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
2 comments MLB.com Must Have Given Terence Moore a Raise, Because He Loves Himself Some Bud Selig
Yes, this is a post about how I don't like the one game Wild Card playoff and Terence Moore does. Yes, I still hate it even after the exciting one game Wild Card playoff game this year. "Hate the sin, love the sinner." That's my motto about the one game Wild Card playoff. It's exciting as a one game series, but I prefer it as a three game series, mostly because I think a 162 game season shouldn't be decided by a one game playoff.
Terence Moore has written his annual "I love this new one game Wild Card playoff" column. I'm not kidding, it's an annual thing. The one game Wild Card playoff was instituted in 2012 and he's written about it every year since. Here is Terence's 2012 column about it. Here is Terence's 2013 column about it. Now we have the 2014 version of this column. What makes it better this time is Terence goes overboard and starts over-praising Bud Selig for his wonderful vision to set up a one game Wild Card playoff. I greatly dislike the one game Wild Card playoff. I think it's dumb to take a 162 game season and condense it down to one game. Sure, it gives division winners a reward for winning the division, but not really. Prior to the one game playoff, division winners got to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. They still get to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. Nothing gained, nothing lost. One division winner gets the same reward they received prior to the one game playoffs, it's just they don't have to play in a one game Wild Card playoff they never had to play in previous to 2012 anyway. The seedings don't change with the new second Wild Card.
Of course Terence loves the idea because MLB.com is affiliated with MLB and he has to pretend to like the change to an expanded playoff format. It's the same reason Terence writes a column about how the All-Star Game is just so great.
So on to Terence's 2014 "The One Game Wild Card Playoff is Great" columns with some extra Bud Selig love. I've always appreciated Bud Selig's reign as MLB Commissioner more than others have, but I do draw a line at taking the time to expound at just how wonderful he has been. He's had great successes and great failures. There will be worse commissioners and there will be better commissioners. So onto how great the terrible one game Wild Card playoff game is.
It's nearly mid-September after a lengthy spring and summer of baseball, but from now through the end of the month, there will be a slew of significant games.
Thank you, Mr. Selig.
Yes, because there were never any significant games played down the stretch prior to 2012. The final day of the 2011 season never happened. Now that there is a one game Wild Card playoff, teams that wouldn't be in the hunt for the second Wild Card (teams that don't have as good of a record as the team getting the first Wild Card) will now be able to ignore their 162 game record entirely and get a chance with one game to steal the Wild Card spot the first Wild Card team earned over the entire season.
So far in the two years of the extra Wild Card two of the four teams have playing in the Wild Card game have had the same record. The two Wild Card games that involved teams with different records had a record differential of 4 and 6 wins. So with that small sample size, I can come to the conclusion only half the time the first Wild Card team will have earned the Wild Card spot over the season and shouldn't have to play an extra game.
If there is not a large gap in the record of the first and second Wild Card team, the second Wild Card would not add any more significant games to the month of September since these two teams would be fighting for the one Wild Card spot under the system prior to 2012. See how it works? If there is more drama post-2012, it's because teams are fighting for the second Wild Card spot that the first Wild Card team (potentially) rightfully earned over 162 games. If there was less drama prior to 2012 then there was still be a dogfight for a Wild Card spot during the month of September. The difference being one team (the second Wild Card team) now gets a chance to play one more game to prove they should be in the playoffs. Otherwise, nothing is different. At the expense of more drama, which I am not against, an entire season is broken down into one game. I am against that. Make the Wild Card playoff a three game series and I will be much happier. Rant not done.
The Tigers have spent the last few days in Detroit fighting for their American League Central lives against the Royals, and Comerica Park has been rocking when it hasn't been rolling. You can expect much of the same this weekend in San Francisco.
This would have happened regardless of whether there was a second Wild Card team or not. These teams would have been fighting for the division regardless. And no, winning the division doesn't mean "more" now. It means no more or no less. It means the same thing. The team with the best record plays the Wild Card team and the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best record play each other. Same as before, no matter what Terence Moore says or tries to make it seem like.
There, inside the orange-and-black noise factory that will be AT&T Park, the Giants and the Dodgers will continue their rivalry. This time, they're trying to sprint past the other toward the finish line of the National League West.
Again, this wouldn't have changed if there was no second Wild Card team because these are teams fighting to win their division. In fact, the team that didn't win the division has more of a fallback to not winning the division in that they know there is now another Wild Card spot they could earn.
So when reporters asked Houston interim manager Tom Lawless earlier this week if he planned to use a lot of his September callups the rest of the way, which is what most non-contending teams do this time of year, Lawless emphatically said no.
He added, "While we're playing these games in the playoff hunt, it's not fair to everybody else [to play callups]. We're going to try to win the game, bottom line."
Though it is fair to mention the Astros trying to win a game is different from other MLB teams trying to win a game. Lawless also didn't mention that he would have played callups if the Astros were playing teams who weren't in the playoff hunt. Maybe that is supposed to be understood.
Even out-of-the-running teams remain motivated these days.
That's sort of reaching a little bit. More teams in the hunt for a playoff spot doesn't seem so bad overall. A one game playoff to decide which teams gets to advance does seem so bad to me. It takes an entire season of performance and distills it into one game where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!
We're back to Mr. Selig, otherwise known as Bud, or the Baseball Commissioner, if you prefer. Interleague Play. Expanded replay. Old-new ballparks. Three divisions in each league. The toughest drug policy among the major sports leagues in North America. Everywhere you look, you see the visionary mind of the retiring Selig,
I mean, I guess. These all seem like ideas that Terence Moore would normally despise, so I can't help but wonder if his love for these changes to the game are in some way inspired by his employment with MLB.com. Sure, they don't write his columns for him, but they also can't have one of their own columnists bashing most of the commissioner's signature ideas. That doesn't look good.
who keeps dragging the game's traditionalists (my hand is raised) into the 21st century. That's why it isn't surprising that his decision two years ago to add a second Wild Card for each league to the postseason is the gift that keeps on giving and giving … and giving some more.
I recognize it's a matter of opinion, but what exactly has the second Wild Card given? It does put more teams in contention for the chance to play one more game and "make the playoffs," which is bullshit since "the playoffs" in the case of the Wild Card game is one game, but other than that it hasn't enhanced or changed the playoff format in any way. The second Wild Card allows more teams a chance to compete for a one game playoff. That's the gift and it is given during the span of one game and then the postseason goes back to exactly how it was when there was only one Wild Card team.
For starters, more than half of the 30 Major League teams either are pretty much assured a playoff berth through winning their division or own a decent chance right now of playing in October courtesy of one of those Wild Card spots.
Great, more teams have been given the illusion of success through the process of the MLB playoffs being expanded. Unfortunately, for one of these teams the elation will last one more game and then it will be over. A 90 win team may get beaten by an 85 win team in a one game playoff and the new Wild Card system will be a success. This is because more teams were involved in the competition for that Wild Card spot and success over the entire season was essentially ignored in favor of a one game playoff.
And in baseball, one game playoffs are not the best way to determine which is the better team. Baseball is not like the other major sports where one game can show the strength of a team. In baseball, the strength of a team could lie in the rotational starting pitching depth they have and this is what makes them a good team. Using a one game playoff to determine which is the "better" team is misleading because one team could have a good starting rotation with no aces, while another team has Clayton Kershaw and four other below average starters. If Team A without the aces wins 90 games during the season, they have shown themselves to be the better team over 162 games. Yet Team B, who hypothetically won 85 games during the season, trots out Clayton Kershaw for the one game playoff and they are able to win the Wild Card game as a result. Did the Wild Card playoff just erase 162 games of achievement through one game? Yes, it did. A one game playoff doesn't measure the strength of a team and that's mostly why I really dislike the one game Wild Card playoff that Terence Moore inexplicably likes so much. A one game playoff in baseball isn't just a crapshoot, it's the middle finger to how baseball is played over the other 162 games.
Then there are teams like the Astros, with one eye on next year, but with the other on trying to gain momentum for 2015 by spoiling the dreams of contenders.
Which they may be trying to do anyway if there was no second Wild Card.
Let that sink in. That already is more than enough to salute Selig for what he's done during his 23-year reign.
Congrats, Bud Selig! The liquor and the whores are being paid for by Terence Moore tonight! Also, can Terence have another raise?
There was nothing like this regarding impactful games. In fact, back when there were Big Red Machines and Yankees dynasties led by Ruth, DiMaggio or Mantle -- or even those years of a Miracle Mets-type team here and there -- pennant races often consisted of, well, nobody, or maybe a couple of teams fighting for one spot … or perhaps three or four, but that was about it.
And then the Wild Card and divisional reorganization changed that. The idea the Wild Card game is a brilliant idea just eludes me. It's a contrived way of drumming up excitement and getting more teams involved in the Wild Card race. I'm not against another team from each league making the playoffs, but at least make it a 3 game series. Don't make it a one game series WHERE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN that goes against what makes baseball great, which is the starting pitching depth one team may have, where they don't need an ace to win games because they are a good team. For me, a one game playoff goes against what baseball should be looking to reward when a team makes the postseason. If two teams are tied for a division lead, then a one game playoff makes sense. In the case of a one game Wild Card playoff where the two teams could have different records, a one game playoff makes less sense to me.
Then Selig added three divisions and a Wild Card for each league into the mix in 1994. Under this system, the division winners were joined in the playoffs by that Wild Card team, and it remained that way until 2011.
The Wild Card was an improvement in my opinion. Adding another Wild Card team can be an improvement, but it can't be done in a one game playoff that drums up drama and ignores the 162 game season that was just played.
Selig knew baseball's playoff system could become even greater than that. So he added that second Wild Card team to each league before the 2012 season to create a "win-and-you're-in" game at the end of the regular season for both the American League and the National League involving their Wild Card teams.
Just make it a three game series, please. Even if the second Wild Card was taken away, there would still be drama for the race to the final Wild Card spot, but at least pretend the Wild Card game gives lip service to rewarding teams for their performance over 162 games by making it a three game series. Allow more than one starter for each team to decide if a team "wins-and-is-in."
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
No, it added another Wild Card spot to the playoffs for one game and one game only. Prior to 2012, were there a rash of teams not trying to win the division and intentionally only trying to win the Wild Card spot? Was I not aware of this happening? Were there MLB teams saying, "Fuck it, we don't want to win the division. We just want to make the playoffs, not have homefield advantage in the playoffs and play the best team in our league." I don't recall this happening. In fact, the second Wild Card (as we will see contained in a quote by Fredi Gonzalez) can give a team less incentive to win the division and aim for one of the Wild Card spots since there is an extra Wild Card spot open now.
Now division winners are relevant again.
They were relevant before. Just as relevant before as they are now. Teams that win their division, which is what all MLB teams were trying to do prior to 2012, still play in the Divisional Series just like they used to play in the Divisional Series. The seeding hasn't changed and homefield advantage hasn't changed. Division winners are as relevant as they were prior to 2012. It's just the value of the Wild Card has been diminished because a team that gets the Wild Card still has to play in the one game Wild Card round. Division winners don't have to play in this game, just like they didn't have to play in this Wild Card game when it didn't exist. Teams will still try to win the division, just like they tried to win the division prior to 2012.
Unlike Wild Card winners, division winners still are guaranteed the chance to play more than just a single-elimination game during the postseason.
Which they were guaranteed prior to 2012 as well. Now there is no guarantee a team that wins one of the Wild Card spots will be able to play in the Divisional Series. That is the only change with the second Wild Card in place.
Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the Brewers by 1 1/2 games for the NL's second Wild Card spot, but you just know anybody with a "P" on his cap in the Pirates' clubhouse would prefer to erase the Cardinals' 4 1/2-game lead in the NL Central.
WHICH THEY WOULD HAVE WANTED TO DO EVEN IF THERE WAS NO SECOND WILD CARD! In fact, there is more incentive to erase the Cardinals divisional lead with one Wild Card spot because if the Pirates don't erase this lead then they don't have as good of a chance to make the playoffs. So in this case, an argument could be made winning the division is less important to the Pirates in 2014 than it was in 2011, because they know if they don't win the division in 2014 they still get one shot to make the Divisional Series that wasn't available to them in 2011.
"Our goal always is to win the [NL East], but the way things are right now in baseball, just getting into the playoffs somehow at the end of the season and finding a way to keep playing in October isn't bad," said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose team is nine games behind the division-leading Nationals.
Feel the fury in Fredi Gonzalez's voice while the Braves desperately try to catch up with the Nationals! Wait, no that's not fury, that's resignation the Braves can't catch the Nationals and he's fine with just taking the second Wild Card spot. As usual, Terence Moore has provided information in his column that helps to submarine his main point. He says:
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
Thus the current obsession of the Tigers, Royals, Giants and Dodgers with trying to capture their respective divisions as opposed to settling for a Wild Card berth. Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the Brewers by 1 1/2 games for the NL's second Wild Card spot,
Meanwhile Fredi Gonzalez, the manager of one of those teams that would only want the Wild Card spot as a last resort and would be obsessed with trying to capture their respective divisions, says, "Eh, I want to win the division, but the way MLB has the Wild Card system set up then it doesn't matter if we win the division as long as we are still playing when it comes time for the playoffs."
See the brilliance of Bud Selig and the one game Wild Card playoff? Teams are now desperate to win their division, unless that seems too hard, in which case the new Wild Card spot will suffice perfectly. Feel the tension and feeling of "the division is our last resort" Fredi Gonzalez has.
"If we get in as a [Wild Card] team, and if we all of a sudden run the table and win the World Series, you're good with that, right?
FEEL THE DESPERATION TO WIN THE DIVISION! IT'S PALPABLE!
Right, but the odds of that happening aren't the best anymore.
Actually, the odds of receiving a berth in the playoffs through the Wild Card have increased with the addition of the second Wild Card. It's not like a team that gets in the playoffs with the second Wild Card has a much more difficult gauntlet to run than a team that wins their division. The Wild Card teams have to win one more game than division winners have to win.
Which is good.
This was a paragraph by the way. Three words equals one sentence which equals an entire paragraph. Terence Moore must be proud of himself. Ready for another really short paragraph?
For nearly everybody.
Another three word sentence that equals a paragraph.
It probably seems petty, but I won't ever learn to love the one game Wild Card playoff. Make it a three game series and then I can get on-board with the idea.
Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Of course it wasn't. Terence Moore could just speak negative opinions on Bud Selig's job performance and no one at MLB.com would care.
Terence Moore has written his annual "I love this new one game Wild Card playoff" column. I'm not kidding, it's an annual thing. The one game Wild Card playoff was instituted in 2012 and he's written about it every year since. Here is Terence's 2012 column about it. Here is Terence's 2013 column about it. Now we have the 2014 version of this column. What makes it better this time is Terence goes overboard and starts over-praising Bud Selig for his wonderful vision to set up a one game Wild Card playoff. I greatly dislike the one game Wild Card playoff. I think it's dumb to take a 162 game season and condense it down to one game. Sure, it gives division winners a reward for winning the division, but not really. Prior to the one game playoff, division winners got to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. They still get to host the Wild Card team in the Divisional Series. Nothing gained, nothing lost. One division winner gets the same reward they received prior to the one game playoffs, it's just they don't have to play in a one game Wild Card playoff they never had to play in previous to 2012 anyway. The seedings don't change with the new second Wild Card.
Of course Terence loves the idea because MLB.com is affiliated with MLB and he has to pretend to like the change to an expanded playoff format. It's the same reason Terence writes a column about how the All-Star Game is just so great.
So on to Terence's 2014 "The One Game Wild Card Playoff is Great" columns with some extra Bud Selig love. I've always appreciated Bud Selig's reign as MLB Commissioner more than others have, but I do draw a line at taking the time to expound at just how wonderful he has been. He's had great successes and great failures. There will be worse commissioners and there will be better commissioners. So onto how great the terrible one game Wild Card playoff game is.
It's nearly mid-September after a lengthy spring and summer of baseball, but from now through the end of the month, there will be a slew of significant games.
Thank you, Mr. Selig.
Yes, because there were never any significant games played down the stretch prior to 2012. The final day of the 2011 season never happened. Now that there is a one game Wild Card playoff, teams that wouldn't be in the hunt for the second Wild Card (teams that don't have as good of a record as the team getting the first Wild Card) will now be able to ignore their 162 game record entirely and get a chance with one game to steal the Wild Card spot the first Wild Card team earned over the entire season.
So far in the two years of the extra Wild Card two of the four teams have playing in the Wild Card game have had the same record. The two Wild Card games that involved teams with different records had a record differential of 4 and 6 wins. So with that small sample size, I can come to the conclusion only half the time the first Wild Card team will have earned the Wild Card spot over the season and shouldn't have to play an extra game.
If there is not a large gap in the record of the first and second Wild Card team, the second Wild Card would not add any more significant games to the month of September since these two teams would be fighting for the one Wild Card spot under the system prior to 2012. See how it works? If there is more drama post-2012, it's because teams are fighting for the second Wild Card spot that the first Wild Card team (potentially) rightfully earned over 162 games. If there was less drama prior to 2012 then there was still be a dogfight for a Wild Card spot during the month of September. The difference being one team (the second Wild Card team) now gets a chance to play one more game to prove they should be in the playoffs. Otherwise, nothing is different. At the expense of more drama, which I am not against, an entire season is broken down into one game. I am against that. Make the Wild Card playoff a three game series and I will be much happier. Rant not done.
The Tigers have spent the last few days in Detroit fighting for their American League Central lives against the Royals, and Comerica Park has been rocking when it hasn't been rolling. You can expect much of the same this weekend in San Francisco.
This would have happened regardless of whether there was a second Wild Card team or not. These teams would have been fighting for the division regardless. And no, winning the division doesn't mean "more" now. It means no more or no less. It means the same thing. The team with the best record plays the Wild Card team and the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best record play each other. Same as before, no matter what Terence Moore says or tries to make it seem like.
There, inside the orange-and-black noise factory that will be AT&T Park, the Giants and the Dodgers will continue their rivalry. This time, they're trying to sprint past the other toward the finish line of the National League West.
Again, this wouldn't have changed if there was no second Wild Card team because these are teams fighting to win their division. In fact, the team that didn't win the division has more of a fallback to not winning the division in that they know there is now another Wild Card spot they could earn.
So when reporters asked Houston interim manager Tom Lawless earlier this week if he planned to use a lot of his September callups the rest of the way, which is what most non-contending teams do this time of year, Lawless emphatically said no.
He added, "While we're playing these games in the playoff hunt, it's not fair to everybody else [to play callups]. We're going to try to win the game, bottom line."
Though it is fair to mention the Astros trying to win a game is different from other MLB teams trying to win a game. Lawless also didn't mention that he would have played callups if the Astros were playing teams who weren't in the playoff hunt. Maybe that is supposed to be understood.
Even out-of-the-running teams remain motivated these days.
That's sort of reaching a little bit. More teams in the hunt for a playoff spot doesn't seem so bad overall. A one game playoff to decide which teams gets to advance does seem so bad to me. It takes an entire season of performance and distills it into one game where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!
We're back to Mr. Selig, otherwise known as Bud, or the Baseball Commissioner, if you prefer. Interleague Play. Expanded replay. Old-new ballparks. Three divisions in each league. The toughest drug policy among the major sports leagues in North America. Everywhere you look, you see the visionary mind of the retiring Selig,
I mean, I guess. These all seem like ideas that Terence Moore would normally despise, so I can't help but wonder if his love for these changes to the game are in some way inspired by his employment with MLB.com. Sure, they don't write his columns for him, but they also can't have one of their own columnists bashing most of the commissioner's signature ideas. That doesn't look good.
who keeps dragging the game's traditionalists (my hand is raised) into the 21st century. That's why it isn't surprising that his decision two years ago to add a second Wild Card for each league to the postseason is the gift that keeps on giving and giving … and giving some more.
I recognize it's a matter of opinion, but what exactly has the second Wild Card given? It does put more teams in contention for the chance to play one more game and "make the playoffs," which is bullshit since "the playoffs" in the case of the Wild Card game is one game, but other than that it hasn't enhanced or changed the playoff format in any way. The second Wild Card allows more teams a chance to compete for a one game playoff. That's the gift and it is given during the span of one game and then the postseason goes back to exactly how it was when there was only one Wild Card team.
For starters, more than half of the 30 Major League teams either are pretty much assured a playoff berth through winning their division or own a decent chance right now of playing in October courtesy of one of those Wild Card spots.
Great, more teams have been given the illusion of success through the process of the MLB playoffs being expanded. Unfortunately, for one of these teams the elation will last one more game and then it will be over. A 90 win team may get beaten by an 85 win team in a one game playoff and the new Wild Card system will be a success. This is because more teams were involved in the competition for that Wild Card spot and success over the entire season was essentially ignored in favor of a one game playoff.
And in baseball, one game playoffs are not the best way to determine which is the better team. Baseball is not like the other major sports where one game can show the strength of a team. In baseball, the strength of a team could lie in the rotational starting pitching depth they have and this is what makes them a good team. Using a one game playoff to determine which is the "better" team is misleading because one team could have a good starting rotation with no aces, while another team has Clayton Kershaw and four other below average starters. If Team A without the aces wins 90 games during the season, they have shown themselves to be the better team over 162 games. Yet Team B, who hypothetically won 85 games during the season, trots out Clayton Kershaw for the one game playoff and they are able to win the Wild Card game as a result. Did the Wild Card playoff just erase 162 games of achievement through one game? Yes, it did. A one game playoff doesn't measure the strength of a team and that's mostly why I really dislike the one game Wild Card playoff that Terence Moore inexplicably likes so much. A one game playoff in baseball isn't just a crapshoot, it's the middle finger to how baseball is played over the other 162 games.
Then there are teams like the Astros, with one eye on next year, but with the other on trying to gain momentum for 2015 by spoiling the dreams of contenders.
Which they may be trying to do anyway if there was no second Wild Card.
Let that sink in. That already is more than enough to salute Selig for what he's done during his 23-year reign.
Congrats, Bud Selig! The liquor and the whores are being paid for by Terence Moore tonight! Also, can Terence have another raise?
There was nothing like this regarding impactful games. In fact, back when there were Big Red Machines and Yankees dynasties led by Ruth, DiMaggio or Mantle -- or even those years of a Miracle Mets-type team here and there -- pennant races often consisted of, well, nobody, or maybe a couple of teams fighting for one spot … or perhaps three or four, but that was about it.
And then the Wild Card and divisional reorganization changed that. The idea the Wild Card game is a brilliant idea just eludes me. It's a contrived way of drumming up excitement and getting more teams involved in the Wild Card race. I'm not against another team from each league making the playoffs, but at least make it a 3 game series. Don't make it a one game series WHERE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN that goes against what makes baseball great, which is the starting pitching depth one team may have, where they don't need an ace to win games because they are a good team. For me, a one game playoff goes against what baseball should be looking to reward when a team makes the postseason. If two teams are tied for a division lead, then a one game playoff makes sense. In the case of a one game Wild Card playoff where the two teams could have different records, a one game playoff makes less sense to me.
Then Selig added three divisions and a Wild Card for each league into the mix in 1994. Under this system, the division winners were joined in the playoffs by that Wild Card team, and it remained that way until 2011.
The Wild Card was an improvement in my opinion. Adding another Wild Card team can be an improvement, but it can't be done in a one game playoff that drums up drama and ignores the 162 game season that was just played.
Selig knew baseball's playoff system could become even greater than that. So he added that second Wild Card team to each league before the 2012 season to create a "win-and-you're-in" game at the end of the regular season for both the American League and the National League involving their Wild Card teams.
Just make it a three game series, please. Even if the second Wild Card was taken away, there would still be drama for the race to the final Wild Card spot, but at least pretend the Wild Card game gives lip service to rewarding teams for their performance over 162 games by making it a three game series. Allow more than one starter for each team to decide if a team "wins-and-is-in."
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
No, it added another Wild Card spot to the playoffs for one game and one game only. Prior to 2012, were there a rash of teams not trying to win the division and intentionally only trying to win the Wild Card spot? Was I not aware of this happening? Were there MLB teams saying, "Fuck it, we don't want to win the division. We just want to make the playoffs, not have homefield advantage in the playoffs and play the best team in our league." I don't recall this happening. In fact, the second Wild Card (as we will see contained in a quote by Fredi Gonzalez) can give a team less incentive to win the division and aim for one of the Wild Card spots since there is an extra Wild Card spot open now.
Now division winners are relevant again.
They were relevant before. Just as relevant before as they are now. Teams that win their division, which is what all MLB teams were trying to do prior to 2012, still play in the Divisional Series just like they used to play in the Divisional Series. The seeding hasn't changed and homefield advantage hasn't changed. Division winners are as relevant as they were prior to 2012. It's just the value of the Wild Card has been diminished because a team that gets the Wild Card still has to play in the one game Wild Card round. Division winners don't have to play in this game, just like they didn't have to play in this Wild Card game when it didn't exist. Teams will still try to win the division, just like they tried to win the division prior to 2012.
Unlike Wild Card winners, division winners still are guaranteed the chance to play more than just a single-elimination game during the postseason.
Which they were guaranteed prior to 2012 as well. Now there is no guarantee a team that wins one of the Wild Card spots will be able to play in the Divisional Series. That is the only change with the second Wild Card in place.
Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the Brewers by 1 1/2 games for the NL's second Wild Card spot, but you just know anybody with a "P" on his cap in the Pirates' clubhouse would prefer to erase the Cardinals' 4 1/2-game lead in the NL Central.
WHICH THEY WOULD HAVE WANTED TO DO EVEN IF THERE WAS NO SECOND WILD CARD! In fact, there is more incentive to erase the Cardinals divisional lead with one Wild Card spot because if the Pirates don't erase this lead then they don't have as good of a chance to make the playoffs. So in this case, an argument could be made winning the division is less important to the Pirates in 2014 than it was in 2011, because they know if they don't win the division in 2014 they still get one shot to make the Divisional Series that wasn't available to them in 2011.
"Our goal always is to win the [NL East], but the way things are right now in baseball, just getting into the playoffs somehow at the end of the season and finding a way to keep playing in October isn't bad," said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose team is nine games behind the division-leading Nationals.
Feel the fury in Fredi Gonzalez's voice while the Braves desperately try to catch up with the Nationals! Wait, no that's not fury, that's resignation the Braves can't catch the Nationals and he's fine with just taking the second Wild Card spot. As usual, Terence Moore has provided information in his column that helps to submarine his main point. He says:
It made a Wild Card spot something that a playoff-hopeful team would want only as a last resort.
Thus the current obsession of the Tigers, Royals, Giants and Dodgers with trying to capture their respective divisions as opposed to settling for a Wild Card berth. Elsewhere, the Pirates lead the Braves and the Brewers by 1 1/2 games for the NL's second Wild Card spot,
Meanwhile Fredi Gonzalez, the manager of one of those teams that would only want the Wild Card spot as a last resort and would be obsessed with trying to capture their respective divisions, says, "Eh, I want to win the division, but the way MLB has the Wild Card system set up then it doesn't matter if we win the division as long as we are still playing when it comes time for the playoffs."
See the brilliance of Bud Selig and the one game Wild Card playoff? Teams are now desperate to win their division, unless that seems too hard, in which case the new Wild Card spot will suffice perfectly. Feel the tension and feeling of "the division is our last resort" Fredi Gonzalez has.
"If we get in as a [Wild Card] team, and if we all of a sudden run the table and win the World Series, you're good with that, right?
FEEL THE DESPERATION TO WIN THE DIVISION! IT'S PALPABLE!
Right, but the odds of that happening aren't the best anymore.
Actually, the odds of receiving a berth in the playoffs through the Wild Card have increased with the addition of the second Wild Card. It's not like a team that gets in the playoffs with the second Wild Card has a much more difficult gauntlet to run than a team that wins their division. The Wild Card teams have to win one more game than division winners have to win.
Which is good.
This was a paragraph by the way. Three words equals one sentence which equals an entire paragraph. Terence Moore must be proud of himself. Ready for another really short paragraph?
For nearly everybody.
Another three word sentence that equals a paragraph.
It probably seems petty, but I won't ever learn to love the one game Wild Card playoff. Make it a three game series and then I can get on-board with the idea.
Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Of course it wasn't. Terence Moore could just speak negative opinions on Bud Selig's job performance and no one at MLB.com would care.
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