Dear Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner
It is the beginning of baseball season, and I couldn’t care less. This is astonishing to me since I grew up surrounded by baseball. My mother taught me how to throw a baseball since she believed this was an important social skill for a girl. My grandfather taught me all the arcane rules of baseball, and I was the only one on my grade school softball team who could clearly explain the logic behind “dropped third strike” or the “infield fly rule.” And oh, how I loved my flannel-lined blue cotton jacket decorated with the medallions of each of the major league team’s logos.
My mother put limits on watching TV, but never my home-town Chicago Cubs. I remember watching daytime doubleheaders as we sat on the old couch, idly picking the ticks off the dogs nestled beside us. In the long summer evenings, we would play neighborhood pick-up games of “500,” loping through the long grass to shag fly balls, futilely trying to corral ground balls ricocheting off the pocked lawn. Our games only ended when our neighbor Mrs. Reed would signal dinner time with her signature piercing whistle, sending us rushing back home with flushed cheeks and damp foreheads.
But my connection to baseball has withered away, a victim of its slow pace. The last Cubs game I went to was at least ten years ago. At the start of the game I kept a box score, meticulously noting Ks and BBs the way my mother taught me. Unfortunately, it was a pitcher’s duel, perhaps an intricate intellectual experience for pitchers and catchers, but I wanted a visual experience. From my seat down the left field line, the game looked like a bunch of players standing around waiting for something that never happened. As my mind wandered, my box score slipped off my lap into a sticky swill of beer and coke dotted with swollen popcorn. I cast about for something else to do. My eyes lit upon Alfonoso Soriano, the left fielder, and I watched, transfixed, as he began to play with his junk. Finally, some real entertainment.
I started a running bet with my husband, an over/under on the frequency of a full frontal massage. We segued to a new game of “Tug-a-Lug,” scoring points for different maneuvers. There was the 2 point “Jugger-Nut” which involved plucking the uniform whilst shimmying to settle things down. The four point “Yanking Doodle Dandy” was a discreet monkey spank. I was able to follow Soriano into the dug-out with my binoculars and recorded the “bench-squarmer.” The five point, holy grail, winner-take-all maneuver was the “clear air turbulence,” a movement so totally unprovoked by any running or jostling that I could only conclude that Soriano was happily pleasuring himself oblivious to the 30,000 fans.
I finished the game with an entirely different box score. Is this what the great American pastime has come to?
I know that Major League Baseball is concerned declining interest among kids, but it’s me you need to be worried about. I should be the archetypal die-hard fan, the one who looks forward to opening day as the eternal symbol of hope renewed. I am a fourth generation Cubs fan who can still cite the starting line-up for the 1969 team, but I could not tell you one player on the current team, except I think that there is a pretty good pitcher with a bushy beard. I should be rummaging around the garage looking for my mitt and heading out to play catch with my children and grandchildren, weaning them off the instant gratification of their internet world.
Today was the Cub’s opening day, a night game out in Los Angeles, so I thought I would give your product another try. I settled into the couch and tried to look sharp, but I quickly tired of replays of routine fly balls and grounders. On many plays, the fielder did not even have to move, but even so I was shown the same motionless play from multiple angles. I was eager to play “Tug-a-Lug” again, but any such dallying remained resolutely off-camera.
The announcers seemed to have lost interest as well as they talked about the next day’s line up. The camera panned to yawning players slumped in the slovenly dugout. I began to multi-task to fill the dead time. I found some toe nail clippers in the couch cushions and slowly and deliberately trimmed all ten digits, but when I was done the same batter was still up, fouling off pitch after pitch. What does it say about baseball that I can attend to personal grooming issues without missing a play?
Mr. Manfred, please save me. I want to be a fan, I really do, but I can’t live on nostalgia alone. I know that you are trying to speed up the game by limiting the time between pitches, and not letting the batter step out of the batter’s box, but other time-sucks could also be eliminated – chatting at the mound, warm up pitches for the relief pitcher, the prima donna extra time base stealers demand to clean up and dust off. But even so you still need something bolder and I think that I have come up with the solution.
In the other major sports – hockey, football and basketball – the offense and defense are closely intertwined, with defensive successes leading to offensive opportunities. An intercepted pass in football or turnovers in hockey or basketball all immediately turn into scoring opportunities. But not so in baseball. Offense and defense are totally separate. So here is my brainstorm. Bring the two together. If a team gets their opponents out three up/three down, they should be rewarded when they come to bat. I see two possibilities, either the batter gets an extra strike or one less ball, or the team automatically gets a designated runner at first base.
Mr. Manfred, you can take or leave my advice, but please consider doing something. I’m begging you to do something to reclaim me as a fan. I’m yours for the taking, but time is running out. I need a summer sport and soccer beckons.
Sincerely yours,
Liza Blue
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