Thursday, April 30, 1998
Revamp game to bring back good ol’ days of summer
COLUMN Baseball needs new schedule to enjoy national spotlight
again
Here it is UCLA Bruins: my application to take interim
commissioner of baseball Bud Selig’s duty away from him, and become
the controller of the national pastime.
Now that the Milwaukee Brewers are in the National League, Selig
will need to devote more time to overcoming the San Diego Padres,
so I must step in.
And boy do I know how to step.
Before you cast judgment on me, let me show you how I can stomp
with the big dawgs.
I have the ultimate plan to boost the popularity of baseball and
to make it once more the most important sport in America.
The problem with baseball is that it is such a long season that
people really stop caring about the sport in the middle of the
summer.
With blockbuster movies like Godzilla opening in the heat of the
summer and taking place in an air-conditioned environment, baseball
has lost some of its glamour.
Fans forget what drives them to love the sport. After all, the
middle of the season does not determine who will make it to the
playoffs or who will break Roger Maris’ home run record.
The middle of the season is like "It’s a Small World" at
Disneyland. Sure, when you first enter that tunnel and hear that
music singing you get happy. But by the time you hit Antarctica you
just want to jump out of the boat and swim back to reality.
In baseball, most fans begin to lose that desire for baseball
and by the end of the season, everyone just hops off.
Much to the dismay of baseball fans, only two months really,
actually mean anything to the sport – April and October – while all
the others become penguin fodder.
Unfortunately, there are two more sports out there that compete
for that chance to shine: basketball and football.
In April, it’s hoop time, as the NBA playoffs come at us full
force. There is no time to check the baseball box scores as
basketball fills up the prime baseball watching channels. (TBS and
TNT have 60 games in 40 nights.)
No one wants to see the highlights of a game-ending double play
at Wrigley Field when Sir Jordan is flying through the air causing
the net to ripple.
April is the opening month of baseball, a time where the sport
is reborn and should be on everyone’s mind, but it ends up falling
to the wayside like a Clipper basketball season.
Basketball and ice hockey have taken April and June and are not
ready to relinquish it.
So you might be saying, "Quit complaining; baseball gets
September and October."
But does it really?
In a country that reveres football, baseball becomes a second
fiddle, especially when a baseball team can buy a World Series
ring.
By the end of the season baseball has been played for so long
that it becomes stale in most of America’s remote-control mind.
Football becomes the big deal and baseball becomes about as popular
as curling.
So why is this important to my application for commissioner?
I would take baseball and start it early, turning the fall
classic into the "end of the summer jamboree." With the heat
devouring the soul, people would chill at home and watch baseball,
thus giving the sport more publicity and less competition.
Plus the opening season would only be competing with the regular
basketball season which would be a boost to baseball, as basketball
would also have that old musty smell.
Think of "It’s a Small World" with a Viper loop.
Diehard traditionalists may argue that changing the season
around will kill the sport; however, even though attendance is up,
not taking action will make it extinct.
As commissioner it would be my duty to preserve the beauty of
baseball and if my application is sent to the paper shredder then
it is time for the owners to market their players.
Tony Gwynn should be a household name like Michael Jordan. Frank
Thomas should be synonymous with Brett Favre.
Either market the players or change the schedule, but don’t let
our national pastime disappear into the rippling water of other
sports.
After all, it’s a small world.
Salmon wishes he had a ballpark hot dog right now and wants the
Lakers to say, "Uhhh nanana." E-mail responses to
[email protected].