I remember when I started to understand baseball. I believe it was 2003 and the Cubs were in the playoffs. They were playing in a game, at home, and it was a must win. Lose and they were out. Well the whole 9th inning they kept showing this old lady who was watching the game with her hands clenched together, almost prayer style. Well, once the Cubs lost the game they cut to this poor old lady and you saw her there crying. I just knew that she believed that this was the last chance she was going to get to see her Cubs win a World Series. I understood baseball at that point, because no matter how long I live I would never cry if the Redskins didn't win another Super Bowl. I like the Skins a lot, but I don't love them the way northsiders love their Cubbies. Some families have lived in the US for 5 or 6 generations. That's how long the love for the Cubs have been past down.
That's baseball. It is love. It is tradition. It is America's past time. And in its current form in the United States on the biggest stage it is Major League Baseball or the MLB. And under this MLB, this union of American and National Leagues, it sucks. It sucks sucks sucks. There are specific problems that lots of non-baseball fans typically mention when they criticize baseball which I will kindly list for the reader:
-boring
-games are too long
-too predictable
-not enough action
These really boil down to a matter of opinion so I won't argue against these points. However, I think that there is a more important reason why the MLB sucks which I hope they fix sometime. There is no equality in baseball. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, but that's not what I'm talking about. I am saying that there are inequities built within the constructs of the MLB which prevents ubiquity.
First of all, there are two leagues and two sets of rules. In the National League there are 9 players in the line up at a time. So the Mets have 9 guys "playing defense" at the top of every inning and then those same 9 guys on the batting order at the bottom of the inning. This arrangement makes a whole lot of sense. Well, then there's the American League where there are 10 players in the line up at a time. The Yankees have 9 guys "playing defense" at the top of an inning just like the Mets; however, they give whoever pitched that inning a break at the bottom of the inning and put in what is called a designated hitter (DH). That's right, in the American League a pitcher doesn't normally swing a bat. Instead they stick in either a more consistent hitter or a more powerful hitter. This sort of makes sense too since I've seen a lot of MLB pitchers swing a bat and they look ridiculous. So what happens when NL and AL teams play each other like in the World Series? The home team rules apply. The result of this is you see a lot of older position players migrate over from the NL to be a DH for an AL team. Another thing that I've heard mentioned quite a bit is that the overall hitting is better in the AL.
Second, there are thirty teams in the MLB and they each have their own unique stadium. That doesn't sound much different than any other sport, but imagine this. Would the NBA allow Orlando to move the 3 point lineback one more foot than normal? Would the NFL allow the Steelers to put an
11 meter "steel" wall ANYWHERE on or around the ball field? Well, the answer is no, duh. Then why does baseball allow it? The fields are constructed in such a way to allow or inhibit certain things. The reason Barry Bonds breaking the Home Run record was great (before the alleged steroid thing) was because he did it in spite of playing for the Giants who play in a stadium known to inhibit homers. The Mets and Yankees both christened brand new stadiums this season and here are the differences of the dimensions they had in common:
Citi Field (Mets) Yankee Stadium
Left field 335 ft (102 m) 318 ft (97 m)
Left center 364 (111) 399 (122)
Center field 408 (124) 408 (124)
Right center 378 (115) 385 (117)
Right field 330 (101) 314 (96)
The source is wiki, so take it with a grain of salt, but there is still another big discrepancy. They're in the same city so there shouldn't be much variance in environmental considerations, but
Yankee Stadium had more than twice the Home Runs hit in it than Citi Field. The stat was calculated from the beginning of the season to about mid June. Albeit, we've already established that the hitting is much better in the AL, but not more than 2x as good. I think it is safe to say that bringing in those fields a few meters help the Yanks get more homers for their great hitters. Unfortunately, it helps screw over their pitchers, too.
Finally, the most atrocious offense against equity of the MLB. The thing that makes the whole mess unbearable to me. While I can forgive the other two I can never get over this last thing. The one thing that irks me so much about the MLB is... the National League having 16 teams and the American Leage having 14 teams. Surprised? Well, not only is my mild OCD offended by this, but equality is offended! Get this, they actually moved the Milwaukee Brewers to the National League to make the leagues unequal. You kidding me? Why would they do this? Allow me to enlighten you!
The MLB, in its infinite wisdom, moved the Brewers to the NL in 1998 since each league would have had 15 teams leaving one team an odd man out. So either one team would just be sitting around for a series of games every once in a while or they'd have to face each other in interleague play. Well, MLB officials wanted to maintain each league's internal competition so it made more sense to just keep both leagues with an even number of teams. I could forgive this. I could totally see this as sensible. They wanted to maintain the integrity of each league as its own traditional entity. The best team from the NL would then face off against the best team in the AL and the two leagues would dual it out to show the world which league was superior. Yeah that makes sense. But there's a problem with that. In 1997 the MLB authorized interleague play during the regular season. *sigh* So before 1997 NL players and AL players would only meet at most twice, the all-star game and the World Series. After 1997 all the mystique of an NL team playing an AL team vanished in the mist. SO WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MOVE THE BREWERS IF THEY HAVE INTERLEAGUE PLAY ANYWAY? Some kid on a message board tried to tell me that MLB doesn't want interleague play as much as would happen if the teams were split 50-50 between AL and NL. But is that really THAT important if you're going to have interleague play ANYWAY? If they totally cut it out then fine, have your unequal leagues, but seriously, MLB is just losing their integrity on two front. First, by having interleague play anyway they are taking away the tradition and mystique of the all-star game and World Series and second, they have a chance to have equal leagues, thus equal divisions.
The issue that comes around during playoff time is that one division in the AL has an unfair advantage into the playoffs while one team in the NL has a disadvantage. Each league has two divisions with five teams each. However, the AL west only has 4 teams and the NL central has 6 teams. So not counting a wild card spot in the playoffs 20 teams in baseball have a 20% chance at a playoff shot while the AL west teams have a 25% chance and the poor NL central teams only have a 17% chance. Short story is this: if you want to have a statistically greater chance of being in the playoffs go to the AL west. Bonus note: if you want the best shot at going to the playoffs play for the Angels since those other teams suck.
Bottom line, my beef against MLB has nothing to do with the game, the game is fine. I just really wished they got rid of the DH and made more uniform stadiums. Baseball purists claim that's what makes baseball so flavorful and majestic. Okay, fine, those I could let go if they just evened up the leagues. Either that or get rid of interleague play. Don't tell me that you made the leagues uneven to preserve predominant intraleague play when you just have teams from different leagues play each other anyway during the season. Don't double whammy yourself, MLB, by sacrificing both tradition AND equality. If you have to sacrifice one thing or the other just sacrifice one thing OR the other. YOUR CHOICE! Please, not both.
