Baseball - what would you change or add?

[getbent]

on the media side.....

load Bob Costas, McCarver, Joe Buck (he got his dad's voice and his mom's understanding of sports) into one of those cool Canadian air force c130 planes... drop them from 20K feet into the arctic ocean...

Have three commissioners: Kruk, Keip, Uecker.

Go back through all the game tapes of Cubs games, digitally record clips of Harry Caray.. then get Vin Skully's games and do the same thing... Have Jon Miller call the games on tv and use the sound bites from Harry and Vin to be the color commentary.

Show three games a week on television with no announcer other than the field announcer calling out the hitter. Everything has been analyzed to death.

No more purple or teal in uniforms.

No more DH (excellent fellas... great idea)

set the pitchers plate at 60' instead of 60'6" no more need to fear the priest.

Umpires have to go back to wearing black and using a bladder behind the plate.

maple bats are banned

no more special game hats or uniforms and no tribute hats like pink day for breast cancer... everyone wants to cure breast cancer, just pay your money and get the friggin thing figured out and quit having cheesy marketing events to sell products while pretending to do good. Do good. Sell good stuff. quit mixing it all up.

As for not changing anything--> this is the US. The only constant here is change. Sometimes the change is good, sometimes bad... but, if you quit trying new things you get stagnant... only worms and creepy stuff like stagnant.

Oh yeah, beer, pop, water, peanuts, cracker jack, garlic fries, hot dogs/sausages only at ball games... no friggin pizza, sushi, chicken strips and that kind of crapola. This isn't the mall, this is where fans cheer for their guys and boo the opponent.

Oh yeah, more booing. Boooooooooo boooooo booooo....

Also, players and managers should be allowed to argue balls and strikes.

Reduce the fines for getting thrown out of games...

Bring back chaw.

All managers should be required to cuss like Joe Schultz or Jim Leyland...

[TELE_BLUES]

Salary cap and floor,sunday double headers.When you get i nthe box you stay in the box.no body armor for batters and all pitchers hit.daytime weekend world series games.oh yeah a good $2 beer

[dijos]

http://wiki.vbba.org/index.php/Educa...ulesAndCustoms

[BoogerRooger]

What you need to do is change the shape of the pitch to a long rectangle in the middle of the field and have a batter at both ends. The batters could then score by running up and down the pitch instead of going all the way round. The batters could could also have flattened bats and hold them vertically. The pitcher should pitch overarm and bounce the ball on the pitch giving him much more variety. Each team should bat twice and play each game for 5 days. Then you could play international matches and not just against yourselves all the time!

Just kidding! I love watching baseball on TV.

[DougF]

Make teams like the Yankees and Red Sox split their TV revenue across the board with all the rest of the teams like the NFL does. The Yankees revenue from TV is more than some teams whole payroll.

[The Bone]

I did like the Orlando Cepeda Cha-Cha bowls, I don't think they have them anymore.

PS, on McCarver, couldn't agree more.

[awfulguitarnois]

Most of my biggies have been mentioned, but one is: Get rid of the 'Save' stat... a guy gets a save if he doesn't give up THREE runs in an inning... seriously? My grandfather pitched for several big league teams (and in two world series games) in the 40's... you went out there to pitch a game, not part of a game.

But my most important point: coaches need to STOP wearing uniforms. No one needs to see their fat butts crammed into skin-tight uni's looking like they should be racing around Miller Park with the rest of the sausages.

[Robbie W]

Originally Posted by getbent

on the media side.....

load Bob Costas, McCarver, Joe Buck (he got his dad's voice and his mom's understanding of sports) into one of those cool Canadian air force c130 planes... drop them from 20K feet into the arctic ocean...

I can't stand to hear Joe Buck calling football games. It is improvised banter with zero insight into the game. Thank goodness they put Troy Aikmen beside him.

[bug music]

Definitely delay of game penalties, on either offense or defense just like football. Give either an out or a base, 30 second shot clock.

Also on an intentional walk pitch, the batter is allowed to step out of the box and take a swing, or at least be allowed try to bunt.

And some sort of a "brass knuckle" rule might speed up the game too. Give all players brass knuckles, then after a few broken jaws and cracked teeth you'd see a lot less "chin music" and benches clearing with whole teams rushing the mound nonsense.

Or better yet, just give them hockey sticks ...
hmmm... nevermind . I'll just stick with the first 2.

- Jay

[getbent]

I do get the feeling that jimmy johnson is what troy hears in the headphones.. then he just does what jimmy thinks.

I wish Charlie Waters had been a commentator.

[mudshark]

No DH.

Build the parks a lot bigger because of the juiced baseball--400 down the lines, 500 dead center...bring speed back to the game.

Raise the mound back to where it was.

Legalize spitballs.

Do not allow hitters to wear all that body armor when they come to the plate.

[stevieboy]

Originally Posted by BoogerRooger

What you need to do is change the shape of the pitch to a long rectangle in the middle of the field and have a batter at both ends. The batters could then score by running up and down the pitch instead of going all the way round. The batters could could also have flattened bats and hold them vertically. The pitcher should pitch overarm and bounce the ball on the pitch giving him much more variety. Each team should bat twice and play each game for 5 days. Then you could play international matches and not just against yourselves all the time!

Silly points!

[eggman]

Howdy,

1. A more uquitable form of revenue sharing. We've almost got 18 Washington Generals now. But Minnesota somehow gets 36 mpg with thier miniscule payroll!
2. Either ditch that silly DH rule or have the NL adopt it too. Really..is scoring runs so problematic as it was in the pitching-rich days of 1972?
3. 154 game schedule. Even Ted Williams said that MLB needs to chop a week off either end of the season. Ted's word is good enough for me!
4. Force the A's to wear those Finley era, 70's uniforms. Must everybody try to look like the Dodgers or Yankees? I admit, this one is half in jest, but I miss the wild A's unis.
Eggman

[BoogerRooger]

Originally Posted by stevieboy

Silly points!

Sorry, feeling bored. Probably should be practicing.

[denny]

In professional baseball, eliminate the shortstop and center fielder. Lots more hitting and running.

[Billy B.]

How about NEVER preempting Family Guy with the World Series again? People pay for espn so leave My sunday evening cartoons alone ............Please? sorry

[walpow]

Originally Posted by Ptrallan01

Ban the DH (even if my team won because our DH was the MVP)!!!!

Ban interleague play.

Exactly what he said. (And they're my team too.)

[BuddyLee]

Originally Posted by Billy B.

How about NEVER preempting Family Guy with the World Series again? People pay for espn so leave My sunday evening cartoons alone ............Please? sorry

But Family Guy is terrible and has never once been funny.

[xStonr]

The season is way too long. Playing the World Series in November is a joke.

[woodman]

Ban those ugly-a$$ pants that lop over the shoetops — show some sox!

and, of course as many have suggested, get rid of the DH. an asinine move to put more butts in seats so non-fans can ooh and ahh over the long ball.

[BillyG]

Allow Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame

Fire Bud Selig

Let pitchers intimidate with some good old fashioned "chin music".

[PennyCentury]

1. Stop making the taxpayers finance your stadiums.

2. There is no #2

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by PennyCentury

1. Stop making the taxpayers finance your stadiums.

2. There is no #2

Best point yet...if the teams can pay players those kind of salaries, they can afford to build their own stadiums.

[Radspin]

I basically would like to see it go back to the '60s or earlier--no DH, no interleague play, change the height of the pitchers mound to where it was, shorten the season, eliminate the wild card and so on.

But most of all--bring back some of the World Series games to the daytime or at least earlier in the evening, so young kids on the East coast can watch then instead of having to go to bed, or stay up late and be wiped out for school the next day.

[8upSS]

Originally Posted by BuddyLee

But Family Guy is terrible and has never once been funny.

BLASPHEMY!

[backalleyblues]

1) No DH

2) Raise pitcher's mounds 3 inches-not quite as high as they were in the 50's and 60's, but higher than that circle of dirt they call a mound today. We want to keep a balance between hitters and pitchers, not one dominate over the other...

3) Cut two teams, but the ones I'd cut would be Washington and Milwaukee (payback for Bud Selig) No way are you gonna cut the Rays, they're much better nowadays...

4) Fire Bud Selig, and talk Peter Uberroth into coming back for a couple years... then find someone who can be a steward of the game, not just a puppet of the owners...

5) Ban maple bats... more good wood for telecasters!!!

6) I don't mind the throwback unis, just so long as we don't have to see those hideous Astros unis from the 70's...

Franc Robert

[Rooney]

Originally Posted by getbent

No more purple or teal in uniforms.

Disagree, the Diamond Backs original uniforms were perfect for a midwest team. Don't allow anymore teams to wear red or blue. Half the teams already do, change it up. Same thing with the (Devil) Rays. They were really original and new and now they're just blue like everyone else.

[stantheman]

The Season is too long.
It's too long - period.
154 Games is plenty.
ALSO - I'd like HALF of The Games to be Inter-League Games.

Plus I think Catchers should be allowed foreign objects.

[Joel Terry]

The first base coach should be given one (1) coconut cream pie per each half inning to throw at the first baseman's face in order to thwart a pick-off play. Just think of the cavalcade of new statistics--face-hitting percentage (FHP); pie errors (kind of like a balk--like if the pie is thrown prematurely); etc.

Hell, you could start a fantasy pie-throwing first-base coach league.

And think of the cross-promotional marketing potential.

[JohnK24]

Originally Posted by PK

Its been done! They call themselves the Pittsburgh Pirates

PK

Bwahahahahhaha.....man that's a good one. As a Pirates fan who has endured many years of well, being shat upon by team owners, I agree. This is why I've been a NYY fans for the past few years.

The only change I'd like to see is to shorten the season so as to end the World Series in early October, besides that...leave it all alone, I love baseball as pure as it is.

[DNestler]

Lots to agree with here!
1) Dump the DH!
2) Stop "national" broadcasts of Baseball. Force ESPN and Fox to use local, home team talent.
3) Stop allowing TV networks to set start times. This will enable west coast teams to play home games at normal times, instead of 3 hours early, on national broadcasts and during playoffs.
4) Stop playing and asking us to sing along with "America the Beautiful" in the 7th inning stretch. We already play the National Anthem at the beginning of the game, isn't that enough?
5) Meaningful salary cap with major penalties for going over. The Yanks and Red Sox should not be able to buy a World Series with outsized payroll.
6) Drop the season back to 154 games, but keep the current playoff structure.
7) Get rid of metal bats at all levels of baseball; get rid of maple bats in the MLB. Ash for everyone!

Daniel

[Buckocaster51]

Season is too long.

As has been pointed out, organic twin-bills would solve that.

Most of the games that I saw as a kid were double headers. We were thrifty!

The designated hitter has never made sense to me. Having only one league have it makes even less sense.

Have week of amnesty where anybody with performance-enhancing drugs in their background can come clean. After that they are fair-game for prosecution, suspension and being banned for life with an asterisk.

That guy from Cincinnati that was banned for life by not following a rule that he was reminded about every time he walked into a locker room is doing fine just as he is.

More day games. Especially in the playoffs. Every team should play three a week. One on a weekday, the other two on weekends. Weekend night games are taking the game away from the kids.

Ask the Dodgers how much money they got from the city, county, and state to build Dodger Stadium. Have everybody else follow suit.

Have a non-mouthpiece broadcast of each game. Much like C-SPAN. We are big boys and girls and can figure out what is going out without it being explained to us.

It is ludicrous for commercial television networks to broadcast games. Imagine if you will that the ALL announce that next year they will not broadcast any games. After a few days of shock, the teams would be BEGGING anybody to broadcast any sort of news about their teams. That goes for all sports, not just baseball.

Which by the way,

Has been berry berry good to ME!

[TBoneDeluxe]

Absolutely Nothing!

[Tim Bowen]

Originally Posted by hekawi

i'll add one: When you want to issue an Intentional Walk, don't bother with four lobs just give a signal and the batter gets 1st free.

or, in the style of Bob Gibson, just hit the guy with the 1st pitch...why waste 4 when you're giving him the base.

That eliminates the possibillity that the batter can't reach for the lob and serve it into the field, or that the wild pitch (even at goofy pitch speeds) can create havoc if the pitch gets away. Automatic designation defeats the spirit of baseball. While I'm not a fan of plunking guys, I'll say that I'd prefer the Bob Gibson approach to anything resembling, say, an infield fly rule.
____________________________________________

I actually think that the differences between AL and NL play (noteably, the designated hitter) are among the most interesting aspects of the game. Each league understands the rules, and they have to deal with it when it matters, so nothing really bugs me in this respect. You're not going to win because your pitcher bats or not, you're going to win because you understand the parameters and strategy of the game. And if you win in baseball, luck is almost certainly a peripheral factor.

I do think that the relationship between the base running path toward first base, the thrower, and the runner, could stand some review.

Other than that, I'd simply request that the Atlanta Braves win 100% of their games.

[castpolymer]

Now may be the time to bring back the ideas of a genius, Bill Veeck!

[drewsblues]

Originally Posted by The Bone

#1. Get rid of a few teams completely.
#2. Shorten the season to 154 games.
#3. Eliminate the wild-card.
#4. Eliminate the All-Star game giving home-field advantage.
#5. Eliminate different rules for the American and National Leagues.
#6. Fire Bud Selig.
#7. Gid rid of all the noisy music between innings and when the players come to the plate.
#8. Reinstate Pete Rose.
#9. Declare the past decade or so "The Steroid Era" and start with a clean slate, with no hinderance to anyone that played during that era from getting into the Hall of Fame. Look at performance only.

#6 should be #1 on the list.

[lewis]

All foul balls should be strikes.
Five instead of nine innings.

[woodman]

Originally Posted by Tim Bowen

That eliminates the possibillity that the batter can't reach for the lob and serve it into the field, or that the wild pitch (even at goofy pitch speeds) can create havoc if the pitch gets away.

yes indeed — i remember listening to a Yankees game on the radio as a kid when Yogi Berra stepped up and slapped a lob into the right-field stands to win the game in the ninth inning.

Originally Posted by Tim Bowen

I actually think that the differences between AL and NL play (noteably, the designated hitter) are among the most interesting aspects of the game. Each league understands the rules, and they have to deal with it when it matters

i miss the machinations of juggling the bullpen and batting order when the pitcher's batting at a critical time and the manager has to decide whether too put in a pinch-hitter and go with a new pitcher.

as for the Braves, i'd settle for winning percentages like they were getting in the Smoltz/Glavine heyday — but then they'd win the Series when they got in!

[Zillinois]

Originally Posted by Tdub

I would have a couple of changes:
Also a pitch clock - 5 seconds after the pitcher gets the ball from the catcher or ump. Catcher must throw the ball back to the pitcher immediately or get a delay of game penalty (has to forfeit his catchers mitt until the next batter).

Time limits would help, I mean come on, it's like they get paid by the hour.

[sacizob]

Stop throwing a ball out of the game just because the catcher dropped it in the dirt.
(yet when a batter hits a grounder they keep it in the game)