Solutions to Baseball's Problems

Baseball doesn't really have any problems, really. I mean not like Zimbabwe or Bernie Madoff or beeper salesmen have troubles. Baseball is wildly successful and is rolling in so much money that it real worst problem is paper cuts. And I should state that baseball is one of my favorite things in the world. But like everything, it has a few problems that could be fixed to make it a bit better. For example:

Problem: There's a crazy disparity in income between large-market teams and small-market teams. This is been the source of much hand-wringing in baseball for a long time now. A lot of half-measures have been taken, like revenue sharing, in which the small-market teams get an infusion of cash from the rich ones.

But this stinks because it enables the Florida Marlins to basically tank each year and still make a profit. All they have to do is keep their payroll artifically low, and revenue sharing will ensure that they make a profit even if they don't sell a single ticket all year. How come tea partiers haven't come out against revenue sharing? If that ain't communist, I don't know what is.

I should note that the rest of the small-market teams make a real effort to win. And because some of them have had some success lately, the clamor for reform has actually died down a bit. But the fact of the matter is still that if the Milwaukee Brewers develop a player like Prince Fielder, they can hope to keep him for, at best, the first half of his career, after which he's going to sign with the Yankees for ten gabillion dollars. There's not too much the Brewers can do about that -- The Yankees serve a massive group of people, both to watch the games and attend them, and the Brewers just don't.

Solution: The away team gets half the gate at each game. So when the Royals visit the Yankees, they get half of the proceeds for ticket sales for the games they play. Why shouldn't they? They're on the bill too. They make half the effort on the field. The home team still keeps all the money from concessions, merchandise, TV rights, etc. Maybe the home team could keep 55% to cover the salaries of the grounds crew and announcer and hilarious fellow in the chicken suit. Whatever - regardless, the Royals organization should be paid for their contribution to those individual games.

The Yankees would hate this, of course. The Yankees make lot more in gate receipts than the Royals do. But really, the big difference-maker between the Yankees and Royals is the size of their TV contracts, and that won't change. Under this plan, the Yankees would still make more money than everyone else. But it won't be quite as lopsided. And it's an elegant, simple plan, without any of the clumsy, artificiality of revenue sharing. It sure won't allow the Marlins to tank.

So what if the Yankees refuse to give up half their gate? Then the Royals say "OK, fine, then we're not coming. Good luck filling your schedule." Simple. That would never happen, of course, because the owners are all a bunch of rich old white men who spend their time scratching each other's backs with backscratchers made of million-dollar bills. Their enemy is the players, so if the plan doesn't involve screwing the players somehow, they won't do a thing.

Problem: Games are too slow. This is the first thing that every baseball hater says about our beloved game, so just the mention of it makes us baseball lovers want to shoot them very, very slowly. But there are times when I have to agree. When you're watching Nomar Garciaparra foul off the tenth pitch of the at-bat, and then leave the batter's box, remove all his clothes, put them all back on, tap his head ten times, wash his hands fifteen times, do twenty Hail Marys, and then finally step back in the box, you can't help but think "Hurry the hell up!!!!"

Solution: I've already let the cat out of the bag on this one. The solution is to not automatically let the batter leave the batter's box between pitches. Once he enters the batter's box, he has to stay there until he gets a hit or walks hit by a pitch or falls down or gets eaten by a monster. If he wants to leave the box in mid-at-bat, he has to ask the umpire. The umpire doesn't have to say yes. This would be an easy fix -- this is already what batters have to do after the pitcher gets set. Just extend it to the whole at-bat.

Of course, you still have slow pitchers. I think you might have to just have a time limit between pitches. If you don't deliver the ball in time, you've just thrown a ball. That's not the most elegant solution, but hey, I can't think of everything.

Problem: Umpires are human beings. I'm not one to blame umpires for missed calls. It's extremely hard to make split-second calls over split-second plays 100% correctly all the time. Poor umpires only get noticed the 1% of the time they miss a call.

So the point is, I feel bad for umpires. So bad that I want to fire them all and replace them with computerized systems. They already have such a computerized system for judging whether pitches are balls are strikes. Why not just let that system take over? A little noise can come up immediately if it's a ball, and a different one if it's a strike. No missed calls, no arguing.

As for tags, catches, home run calls, etc., there have to be similar systems that could judge those and spit out a response immediately. That's the key, of course -- it has to make the call immediately. You can't have some guy in a booth looking at instant replays.

This one especially will probably not catch on with baseball fans. Their likely response will be "But umpires are a part of the game!" True, I would argue, but not a good part. I want competition to be as fair as humanly, or if need be, robotically, possible. I don't enjoy having human error play such a large role. I'll miss the umpires at first, but I'll get used to the new system and eventually enjoy it more because I wouldn't have to wonder what would have happened if calls went the other way. And that's what it's all about -- what's most fun to watch. And no, I wouldn't want the players all replaced by robots. That would not be fun to watch. (Or would it ...)

In general, true baseball fanatics tend to think of the sport as a perfectly wrought machine, one for which a single alteration would ruin everything. It ain't. It's entertainment, and can always be made to be more entertaining.

Other sports do it. There was a time when basketball had no shot clock. At the end of games, the team that was ahead would just sit there dribbling, trying to run out the clock. They instituted the shot clock to prevent that, and now ... well, now basketball games end with a bunch of tedious fouls and time outs ... but anwyay, that's still better than watching some schmuck dribble for twenty minutes.

So yeah, those are my proposals. They will never, ever, ever be enacted. Oh well.