You can observe a lot just by watching.
Yogi Berra
Last week, my column was diverted from the sports section to the editorial pages even though I included the word “baseball” in the headline to preserve my spot.
Eatonton Messenger editor Ian Tocher didn’t fall for that, however, and correctly determined that the column had nothing to do with sports and represented a dangerous foray into political commentary.
I felt like an adult for a little while when I saw my face on Page A4 with the other pundits.
“Made it ma, top of the world,” as Jimmy Cagney, one of my favorite actors, pronounces in the film White Heat right before a gas tank explodes and kills him.
(Irrelevant aside: Did you know that Jimmy Cagney died on Easter Sunday and Humphrey Bogart was born on Christmas day? Now you do.)
But the feeling of accomplishment over my promotion didn’t last long. It never does really.
Pretty soon, I started to feel a like a third grader who had wandered into a strip club. And since I decided to offer an opinion on the Roe v. Wade, the column made some angry. C’est la vie, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell.
So, this week I decided to get back in my lane and leave the philosophizing and advice giving to the adults.
That is if I still have a house in the sports section. I noticed that another columnist had moved into it last week.
That said, it’s time to get back to baseball, something I still understand . . . at least for the time being.
I’ve read that baseball is considering several changes, including a move to robot umpires in 2024.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN that “the automated ballstrike zone system, or as its commonly called, robot umpires, will likely be introduced. One possibility is for the automated system to call every pitch and transmit the balls and strikes to a home plate umpire via an ear piece.”
Seriously?
Why stop there? Just have a Skynet Terminator T-1000 behind the plate and let the beer-bellied umpires retire to Florida.
The Terminator T-1000 would also shorten games by eliminating on field disputes. No one would want to have their heart torn of their chest on the pitcher’s mound. Plus, no manager in his right mind would challenge a call made by cybernetic assassin made entirely of liquid metal.
Games would no longer be affected by human frailties. All shall be complete and total perfection and absolute fairness. And a completely inhuman sport I don’t want to watch.
Manfred also wants a pitch clock in order to shorten games, although such a thing was clearly described as blasphemy somewhere in the Bible, the book of Ruth I believe, the one who played for the Yankees and hit all those home runs
Baseball is supposed to be a pastoral game, free of time limits or suddendeath penalty shots. If you want to shorten the games, make the hitters stop tightening their batting gloves. Better yet, just ban them altogether.
If we hopped in the Way Back Machine and traveled to July 4, 1985, we can witness one of the most bizarre baseball games ever played, one that truly did need shortening . . . and I don’t mean Crisco.
This was a game that started at 9 p.m. after an hour rain delay and didn’t end until 4 a.m. the next morning.
Pitcher Rick Camp, who had a batting average of .060 and had never hit a homerun, belted one out of the park in the bottom of the 18th inning to retie the game the Mets had led 11-10 with two outs.
That’s the beauty of baseball. You never quite know what’s going to happen.
The planned fireworks proceeded after the game despite the hour, and Atlantans thought South Carolina had seceded from the Union again, sparking a second Civil War.
Manfred also wants to add two more teams, which would then probably make the MLB divisional structure look like the NFL. I bet Charlotte gets a team and they will wind up in the MLB South with Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Miami. We will lose the Mets and the Phillies as rivals and that troubles. I still miss playing the Dodgers and Cardinals more than six times a year.
The baseball commissioner said he is willing to listen to Pete Rose present his appeal to be reinstated, but I don’t think he has the guts to let Pete back in.
“Rule 21, the gambling prohibition, is regarded as the most important rule in baseball,” Manfred moralized to ESPN.
Well, so was the prohibition against Black players in baseball until somebody had the courage to stand up against it. Pete was stupid, and he knows it. But he is also the all-time hits leader. The HOF now needs him more than he needs it.
And all this coming from a man who moved the All-Star game from Atlanta to Colorado to punish Gov. Brian Kemp, which would he like me doing donuts in your front yard because your next-door neighbor gave me the finger.
So, do me a favor Rob, don’t mess with baseball. Or Barrack Obama’s famous quote about Joe Biden may well be applied to you.
Selah.