Beard Shavings - April 16, 2011

Hello, faithful readers! This season has started strong for the Colorado Rockies, and I have been busy making sure greatness is filtering through to where it is needed. This will become a more difficult job as the schedule gets more difficult, but for now, we should be pleased with the Rockies' results. They won eleven games in April last season, and they are at that win total today, halfway through the month. A quick start guarantees nothing, but considering that they sit atop the NL West without much contribution from their starting 3B, LF, and #1 pitcher, I think there is much to be optimistic about this season.

Some of my best work!

Early last week, I was making a run to the Sun to pick up some hydrogen (don't ask, it's a Beard thing), and I received a question, in the form of a text message, that intrigued me. Normally, I would include this in an Ask The Beard segment, but as it requires a somewhat lengthy answer, I decided it would be best to focus on this question entirely. In fact, I found myself so lost in thought while reading this question that I completely overshot the Sun, and was slingshot back to 1983, where I was able to catch up (so to speak) with a little band from Texas as they were recording their next album.

Traveling through time is not something I do that often, due to space-time continuum ethics issues, but when it happens more-or-less accidentally, I don't mind taking the time to enjoy it and have a little fun. I wound up in Texas as the boys were putting the finishing touches on what would become the best-selling record of their career. The band wanted to call it "El Zed Zed." All I really did was to convince them that it was a pretty silly name that wasn't nearly as clever as they seemed to think. "I'd just eliminate that choice entirely," I said, and that kind of got the ball rolling. I'm sure the album would have sold a lot of copies no matter what they called it, but a significant portion of greatness lies in the fine-tuning, which fortunately is something I enjoy taking part in.

But anyway, back to the question. When I returned from 1983, I had what I think is a good answer ready to go, and I'd like to share it with you here.

Hey Beard,
If you were the comissioner [sic] of baseball, what would you change?
Bud S., New York

Hello there Bud, and thank you for your question. Being commissioner of baseball is a dream of mine, and I would very much like to see it come true. Unfortunately, since commissioner of baseball is a lifetime position and I am immortal, I have a feeling that I would not meet with their approval. I'd be a fantastic commissioner, though, because I understand that which makes the game special to its fans, and that's what the commissioner is supposed to do: to protect the game from the owners and players who would do it harm, either intentionally or not.

I believe I would make the following changes as soon as I sat behind the desk in the commissioner's office:

1). Eliminate interleague play. 
I know that there are many fans (and owners) who enjoy interleague, and fans in the "natural rivalry" cities may miss their annual face-off with their crosstown foe, but I believe interleague play has run its course. It causes far too many problems to be worthwhile.

Schedule balance is the primary issue: when teams within the same division do not play the same opponents, it will inevitably have an unfair effect on the outcome at the end of the season. Last season's NL West standings bear this out: the final standings almost perfectly mirror the ease of the teams' interleague schedule.

SF 92-70    Interleague opponent win %: .495
SD 90-72   IL%: .475
Col 83-79   IL%: .512
LA 80-82   IL%: .532
AZ 65-97   IL%: .550

How fair is it that the Dodgers and Diamondbacks each had to face the Red Sox and Yankees, while the Giants and Padres got the chance to beat up on Oakland, Baltimore, and Seattle? Now, one can certainly argue that the Diamondbacks would have been pretty bad regardless of whether or not they had that brutal interleague schedule, and the Padres could still have led the division for nearly the entire year without their creampuff AL opponents, but we will never know. I'm sure there are examples of teams who faced a tough schedule and still won their division... but the bottom line is that an unbalanced schedule is simply not fair.

In the interest of fairness, one of two things must happen: MLB must either expand interleague play so that each and every team plays each and every other team the exact same number of times, or eliminate it entirely, so that each team in a division plays the same schedule.

Interleague also causes scheduling problems, as seen in the Rockies' series against the Mets last week. It used to be that each team would face non-divisional opponents twice at each home park, but since the Rockies only visit the Mets once this year, they were forced to play a doubleheader on a getaway day to make up a game postponed earlier in the series. Had the weather forced a second postponement, the limits created by interleague scheduling would have presented a major problem in making up that game later in the season. For this reason, my decision would be to eliminate interleague play entirely.

2). Eliminate the designated hitter from the World Series.
This will be a very unpopular decision with many, many fans, but it must be done. I considered eliminating the DH entirely, which would be my personal preference... but it's been around so long at this point that it has an entire generation of fans who have grown up with that style of baseball. Sad, but true. Even stupid traditions are still traditions, so if the AL wants to have their little rule, so be it... but the rules of baseball are clear: the game is to be played with nine players, not ten, and therefore the series which decides the champion should be played with the real rules of the game.

AL baseball is checkers, NL baseball is chess. If you enjoy the dumbed-down version of this game, you have the AL... knock yourself out. However, the pinnacle of the game should be played with the rules which create the best game possible, and that means the rules the NL uses, in which a player's strengths must outweigh his weaknesses for him to be a full-time player.

3). Outlaw video replay.
This is not really a change, as replay isn't being used currently except for home run calls, but with the commissioner currently discussing its expansion, I would take steps to ensure that video replay is never used in major league baseball.

Many argue that the ultimate goal should be to "get the call right." I disagree... getting the call right should definitely be a goal, but the ultimate goal should be to create the best game possible. Injecting video replay into the game of baseball will disturb the pace of the game which has drawn fans for over a century, without even ensuring that the right call is made.

I bet it's smelly in there.

Let's look at the NFL for a moment. The NFL is a league which has nearly completely embraced video replay. Is their game now devoid of controversy? Did video replay eliminate all argument over officiating? No, absolutely not on both counts. The NFL has simply changed its rules to reflect the fact that human eyes are no longer making the calls, and the arguing over officiating continues. There will always be close plays, and with or without video replay, there will always be bad calls and controversy.

The NFL does have something going for it that makes replay a good fit, however: the way the game is played. The NFL is a one-way game of territory... you push forward, the other team pushes back, and the play ends. There are natural pauses in the game in which a video replay can be used, without interrupting the flow of an already-staccato game, and without seriously altering the result of that play.

Neither of those things are true in baseball. While baseball is definitely a slow-paced game, it does have a pace, and long pauses while the umps retire below the stadium to review a play will dramatically alter that pace. There are clearly people who don't like the pace of baseball, and would like to see it changed... to them I say: find a different sport that matches the pace you expect, and leave baseball alone, because there are millions of fans who enjoy baseball because of its pace.

Furthermore, football's linear nature creates a clear pattern for each play: huddle, line up, snap, move downfield X amount of yards, whistle, return to huddle, repeat. Each and every play begins and ends the exact same way, and this pattern leaves plenty of spots not only to review the play, but also to give a fair re-start of play after a review is complete. If a player in the NFL runs for a touchdown, and the video replay shows that he stepped out of bounds at the 20, the next play is simply started at the 20, and they move on from there.

Baseball does not progress like that, however, and a replay overriding an ump's call creates problems without easy answers. For example: a shot down the line is ruled foul by the third-base ump. Everybody stops running and returns to their positions, but then the replay reveals that the ball was actually fair. Would it have been a single? A double? Would the left fielder have bobbled it, allowing a run to score? We will never know, because an interrupted play in baseball never actually happens.

As commissioner, I would do two things: I would add umps down the foul lines, as is currently done during the playoffs. These umps would have the sole duty of determining fair/foul calls beyond the bases, home run calls, and catch/no-catch calls in the outfield. I believe that this would address many of the officiating issues that are currently motivating people to call for replay in baseball.

The other thing I would look into is a real-time line monitoring system, such as is currently used in tennis to judge balls that are in or out. If the umps have a real-time computer system (a light on the scoreboard, an audible signal the ump can hear through an earpiece, etc.) which indicates if a ball is fair or foul, or over the fence or not, then the call could be made in real time, allowing the play to unfold as it would have naturally. This would also allow the umps to give more focus to their primary jobs, which are balls and strikes, and safe/out calls at the bases.

There are other things that I, The Beard, would address as Commisioner of Baseball: the salary structure should be more fair to small-market teams, but it's unclear how to do that without making it more unfair to big-market teams. The season could be shortened so that we don't have baseball in November, but that brings up other scheduling issues. The postseason could be shortened, eliminating days off, but then the TV networks would cry. So there are many things I would look into, but the three I've listed would be where I would start.

Thank you for reading! The Rockies face a big test later this week, as the World Champion Giants come to town. Hopefully the Rockies have their juiced balls ready to switch in at a moment's notice, and they can fire a few of them straight up Tim Lincecum's butt.

Excelsior!