Posted on 04/02/2022 9:14:08 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Joe Maddon selected an adjective usually applied to a gallon of milk. Then again, for all the romance that surrounds the sport, baseball is a consumer product too.
“Once you eradicate National League rules, then everything becomes homogenized,” the Angels manager said.
With the adoption of the designated hitter in both leagues this year, and with the expansion of interleague play next year, Major League Baseball is giving their consumers what the league believes they want.
The National League dates to 1876, the oldest surviving professional sports league in the world, according to MLB historian John Thorn. The American League dates to 1901.
The time could soon come to retire the leagues. They have outlived their usefulness.
For almost a century, the two leagues had a distinguished and at times bitter rivalry. Never did an NL team play an AL team, aside from the World Series.
Each league president determined his own discipline. Each president’s autograph was stamped upon the baseballs used in his league. The umpires in each league wore different equipment.
For generations, fans and players anxiously awaited the All-Star game, the result of which would be trumpeted as the determination of the superior league. Stars played all nine innings, for the glory of their league.
That’s all gone now. Interleague play turns 25 years old this season.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The end of AMERICAN baseball happened when they flooded the rosters with third worlders who are not deeply rooted in the culture and institution of American baseball. You can’t change the demographics and preserve what was. The operable word being ‘was!
It ended for me when professional sports decided that they were no longer an escape from the cares of everyday life, but a platform for shoving a political agenda down the throats of their fans.
Sad. It was very cool that each league had its own history and traditions. I can remember radio sportscasters in the ‘70s and ‘80s talking about the American League as “the junior circuit.” You’d also hear fans say things like, “I’m a National League guy. I prefer that brand of baseball.” With it all homogenized, the league distinctions are utterly meaningless.
There’s no point in having Leagues anymore, just have regional conferences.
I recall stories of the great rivalry between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Rivals in the same city, or region being in the same division, could create such big rivalries again.
Imagine if the New York Yankees and New York Mets were in the same division, playing each other many times each season.
Ditto Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles, L.A. Angels and L.A. Dodgers, S.F Giants and Oakland A’s, if the A’s stay in Oakland long term.
You are so right. The DH never should have been introduced. We’re the fans ever consulted? It’s like Joe Biden and the southern border. Just do it-right?
The hard-core fans don’t count. It’s all about expansion. They’ll be happy to go that route until people stop attending. The NFL still makes big money despite the wokeness so we’re all gonna accept it. Until we don’t.
The NFL competition committee meets every year. They have to. The game needs constant adjustments. Baseball if perfect but for some reason they can’t leave it alone. Could be capitalism. Sell you the rope to hang yourself.
It’s not baseball anymore. It’s beisbol. And for most Legacy Americans it’s dead.
I agree that it was cool that each league was different. I didn't like the DH rule in the American League but I could respect it because it was one of their rules. Now with the National League adopting the DH rule, I think the game sucks now. My opinion.
Bingo.
Eh. It’s always been kind of silly that baseball is organized into “different” leagues with slightly different rules. Especially once interleague play became part of the regular season. Nobody else does that. Ending it is no big deal.
I think that is why the Japanese love baseball. They have the right mindset. It is also why they make good cars and cameras.
Baseball ended when they expanded the playoffs. The 162 season meant something because only a couple or a few made it in. Then came the Wildcard and now the new expansion.
Why a 162 Game season? There is no reason.
The National League waited a couple of decades though. They could probably have done the DH rule 20 years ago. But they knew that the hard-core fans will revolt so they did not dare to go through with it.
Today? Now it's 2022. Millennial fans are not interested in the game itself. They show up for the atmosphere so they do not mind buying expensive tickets and rip off prices for concessions.
The hard-core fans can stop watching. Not a big deal. MLB will write them off as the cost of "progress".
Yes,the league distinctions have faded.
At one time, there were distinct identities for the old AFL teams and original NFL teams, which they tried to continue by having the American Football Conference and National Football Conference.
But nobody talks about that much anymore. How many people make note that the Chicago Bears were an NFL team before the merger? Or that the Patriots were an AFL team?
Then with expansion, teams such as the Carolina Panthers were never part of the pre-merger alignment.
The owners want to expand the playoffs even further so something like half of the teams will make it. Sort of like the NBA. Players are against it because it will depress their salaries because they figured that if there's a 50% chance that their team will get into the postseason, why would their owner get into a bidding war for a marquee player?
All the pointless strikes by millionaire players didn’t help either.
That’s true and that’s also around the time when they started really looking south for the next generation of players.
I agree. With so many teams making the playoffs, they should shorten the regular season.
The season is too long anyway, considering you run into bad baseball weather in much of the country at either end of the season.
In some years the World Series goes into early November. That’s a real roll of the dice as far as the weather we will see for those games. You hate to see the most important games of the season played in bad baseball weather.
But to play 162 games just to see close to half of teams still make the playoffs, seems like a long slog just to jockey for playoff positions.
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