This “don’t want to embarrass anyone” is not only misguided when it is then used as the excuse not to announce anything publicly, but it is also simply absurd on its face: in the age of replays and widespread MLB coverage on television and internet, EVERYONE WHO IS INTERESTED HAS ALREADY SEEN THE REPLAY AND KNOWS WHAT THE RIGHT CALL SHOULD HAVE BEEN! It’s not like publicly announcing that the league reviewed the play and thinks the umpire made the wrong call will alert fans that the wrong call was made— we already knew, mangs.

The problem I can see is if it calls into question the legitimacy of the game outcomes, which IS a real issue to think about. I just don’t think that refutes public announcements of findings of wrong calls.

I may have overstated: but apparently standing, removing of hats, and lugubrious decorum are mandatory. In fact, there have been at least a couple of lawsuits over the matter, one against the Newark Bears and one against the New York Yankees, for harrassment by stadium personnel (or city police) about movements and actions during the rendering of GBA. See:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/Teens-Sue-NJ-Minor-League-Over-God-Bless-America-59322722.html

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/yankees/2009-07-07-fan-lawsuit_N.htm

I for one (and my wife for another) refuse to have Bud and MLB mandate my patriotism. The G’s better never get heavy-handed with this or they will feel my rath like those misguided few in sec 108 who thought it appropiate to mention my lack of 7th inning GBA compliance.

With all the extra teams I don’t mind the 4 teams per league. I look at how excited some of our younger fans were this July and August and I realize this was probably the first time our team was relevant for them.

 I do like going back 154 games though. The Fringe teams get to keep the marketing tool of "We’re in this!!" in exchange for 7 games at the end of the season when they are not in "it". And I absolutely hate the 5 game round. The team with the best overall record should get a home field advantage that one weird call, ball hope or a guy having a carrier game does not totally reverse.

I’d eliminate the Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America from existence and make America the Beautiful or This Land is Your Land the new National Anthem

…and play non of them at a freaking baseball game.

4 playoff teams? Let’s have 1993 happen again and we’ll see how you feel about have four playoff teams.

I’d rather not play the Padres 25 damn times a year, thank you.

. . . to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when with a cloud of dust and a hearty—oops, wrong intro: to those thrilling days of yesteryear when there were two leagues and no divisions and nobody had much of a problem with that.

The longer-form version, which is scarcely original, is that in those days, when no AL team played any NL team, a good part of the joy of the game was the license it gave for speculation, and the conversations and debates that that league isolation engendered. The excitement of finally having the best of each meet for the first time was stupendous.

With seven-team “divisions” (really, in effect, leagues), there are still six other teams to play, and a lot more scope for genuine, deep-seated, long-lasting rivalries. Moreover, it is a basic principle of sports that one should play contests only against those with whom one is in actual competition for a given title or reward; the rest is diluted as to fan appeal, even the results “count” (though they only count as half a game, an inherently silly idea if you think about it).

This topic deserves an essay of its own, and this is only suggestive of the case that can be made.

I’m OK with the anthem but for the love of corn it’s been eight years, can we PLEASE stop with the God Bless America.

GBA is awful but I love the National Anthem like an insane relative.

Because that would mean putting 50 players out of work, and I don’t see the Players’ Union agreeing.

Yes, it would. It is by no means necessary—one could have one league with two 8-team divisions—but it seems probable that there are simply too many markets out there, some of which have almost never supported their team much even when it is competitive or even a champion.

I don’t know what say the Players Association would have in such a move, but since contraction was semi-seriously discussed in the recent past, it must be do-able. Anyway, we’re just playing amusing fantasy games, so yeah, let’s shrink out a couple of bad markets. (The biggest problem in reality, I suspect, would be the lousy markets that have nevertheless persuaded the local governement to buy them a shiny new stadium; those governments would not be happy with a 50,000-seat white elephant.)

No way MLB ever gives up the money from the third (actually first) round of playoffs.

Contraction also makes no sense. Far better to add two more teams and go to 8 4-team divisions and eliminate interleague play.

18 games against your division rivals = 54 games.
12 games against each team in one of the other divisions = 48 games
8 games against each team in one of the other divisions = 32 games
7 games against each team in one of the other divisions = 28 games
total 162 games, rotate through the divisions every 3 years to average out hi- and low-draw opponents and players.

/looks at ceiling wondering what satyricrash is looking at.

. . . that electronic ball-and-strike systems are a lot less reliable than one might think, especially as to top and bottom of the zone.

(I don’t know about anyone else, but to my eye—and my lady’s—those TBS “PitchTrax” boxes have seemed almost comically bad.)

I might stop watching baseball if this ever happened.

I like the idea of the instant replay challenge. There is one problem I see with it, though. There are some plays in baseball that for whatever reason, seem to get called rather generously – the “neighborhood play” for the double play, where they don’t always care if you just drag your foot near the bag but don’t touch it. Imagine what would happen if say in a playoff game, the eighth inning ended on a bases loaded double play. If they challenge and see that he didn’t quite touch second, do the umps correct the call? The ss/2b probably assume they can do that now, since that’s always the way it’s been called. Similarly, most times the baserunner is called out on a tag play if the ball beats him to the base, even if he beats the tag. These are pretty messy situations, the right call is good but how do you explain the changes to players? Just tell them things will be different, or wait till it shows up in a potentially crucial spot and let them find out then?

Because it somehow shifts the responsibility for getting the calls right from the officials to the teams. With the down-time in baseball and a easy availability of multiple angles of video footage, there is absolutely no reason, none, why each and every non-ball/strike call shouldn’t be reviewed and corrected before the next play. It’s very simple, really, and it kills two birds with one stone: add an official scorer and an official play reviewer to every umpire team, if he spots a suspect call, he can radio down to the crew chief instantly, and have the play reviewed and corrected within 30 seconds, probably before the pitcher would have thrown the next pitch anyway in many cases. Plus, you get an independent scorer who is subject to neither home-town bias nor the appearance of impropriety.

The only reason they “need” the challenge flag in football is because calls/non calls are blown on virtually every down. How many times do you see an obvious hold turn out to be a non-call? How often do you hear a color man say “they allow that move on almost every play”? Such a real-time double-check system is impossible in football because so many of the calls are hopelessly subjective, the clock would get screwed up, and there’s just too much happening on the field at any one time to review it all in real time. Except balls/strike, baseball suffers from none of those issues. Other than the umpire’s union and tradition, there’s absolutely no reason why there can’t, or shouldn’t, be near real time video review in MLB.

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Because they are no longer flexible enough to get properly down behind the plate for ball-strike calls. (Or, as Eric Gregg was, are too fat.)

If you can’t win >40% of your games against quality opposition, should you really be in the playoffs?

I haven’t seen any studies on the subject, but I don’t see how the order of games could affect the outcome in any way. In any case, you need to win 3 games. Winning the first 3 isn’t any easier than winning the last 3.

This is fantasies we’re playing with here. In this case, most regrettably so, as you say.

I once gave Sandy Alderson, when he was at the A’s, a copy of a brochure I had picked up in a dentist’s office, chockful of truly horrible photos of the results of mouth cancer from tobacco, and suggested the team distribute copies to players. He told me they had already tried similar things, with roughly zero result.

Well, it is a narcotic . . . .

Yes, but if you were Bud Selig you love your self so much that you couldn’t bear to think about the world without you in it!