Click the Pic Thank you, JoeProBono
Gary, Dropped Off by His Friend, Wends His Way Home
Follow the Exciting Adventures of Gary the Snail!
Donate Monthly
Sponsors will pony up a sawbuck
For each New Monthly Donor
Posted on 11/17/2011 4:42:02 PM PST by SMGFan
MILWAUKEE—Major League Baseball plans to revamp its divisions and playoff format with a series of moves that will have significant ramifications for at least two of its media partners and millions of fans. MLB hopes to begin some of the changes next season, with an additional wild-card team making the playoffs in each league as part of an effort to generate more television revenue for baseball and give fans of midtier teams a reason to continue buying tickets and following games through the entire season. The four wild-card teams will play a one-game or best-of-three playoff to determine who moves on to the divisional series.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Or the team with the better record. A Wild Card team should NEVER have home-field advantage.
No, the solution is expansion.
There are fewer players per 1000 available males today then 50+ years ago.
I agree entirely. At least play the weekend games in the daytime. If you must play weeknight games, then put them on at 6 or 7 so kids can watch them.
doubleheaders won't return..the teams need the gate reciepts...and the very few times they have them..usually because of make-up games after rainouts..it's two separate tickets...fans have to leave and return..
Doubleheaders were originally commonplace back when teams travelled by train..they needed the extra day of for travel..
The site where O'Malley wanted a new ballpark is going to be home to the Nets. Is KeySpan Park expandable?
The other city is Buffalo. When the Continental League folded, Major League Baseball promised to take in its 8 cities. Buffalo is the only one that never got a team. (And Montreal had one for 36 years, but lost it. I think it might do better the second time around.)
Love it.
Citi Field is modeled on Ebbets Field.
Without the DH, games are shorter and there is much more strategy. Yes, it’s more interesting that way.
The DH has led to the increase in pitchign specialization, which has led to short benches, thus less managing. Baseball is quintesentially a strategy game.
The DH has led to the increase in pitching specialization, which has led to short benches, thus less managing. Baseball is quintesentially a strategy game.
“From a sporting standpoint I have to laugh at the concept of a team that couldn’t win its division somehow becoming a ‘world champion’. Yet we see it repeatedly”
We Red Sox fans loved it in 2004.
Oh yeah: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I remember an incident around 1968 or ‘69 (ironically involving Houston) where a pitcher was working on a no-hitter going to the 9th inning, but the game was 0-0. Manager Preston Gomez lifted his pitcher for a pinch-hitter and set off a controversy for a week. With the DH, that never happens.
Managers these days manage too much “by the book.” They think if it’s the 9th, they’re required to bring in the closer. If they don’t and they lose, they’ll get crucified for it. If they do, well, he had a bad game.
Then why have divisions at all?
Wild cards eliminate the thrill of the Bobby Thomson homerun or the Bucky Dent homerun. Those are great moments.
Dispense with division races and make it a balanced schedule. Make it like the NBA and NHL where the top teams in the conference (or in this case, league) go to the playoffs. To expand the playoffs, you have the top four teams go, where one plays four and two plays three. It gets rid of division races, which have been compromised by the wild card anyway. That way it would be like the old days, except of course then it was only the top team from each league that went to the post season. In case of ties, use head to head records or one game playoffs, where necessary.
So to correct the problems posed by having second-place teams win the World Series, you propose offering fourth-place teams this chance? Yeah, that makes sense.
>>>World Series in December?
In Minneapolis - Hell yeah!!
I must confess I’m a pro-American League bigot—that is,
I love the DH, etc. Yeah, there’s “tradition” and “strategy”
but this yr as I followed the NL playoff games and the World Series games played in NL parks I HATED when the pitcher would come up, spoiling a potential rally (for Rangers in WS, for example). More interleague in ‘13? That also means less
rivalry games in the individual leagues.
I suppose they will still have more than a few Red Sox-Yankees games but adding more NL means less AL. More
no-DH games.
I do kind of want geographical purity and equality (each league having 15 teams, that is) and in some ways it makes sense to have Rangers and Astros in same league. Why not O’s and Nationals? Then again with more interleague play you’ll have more than a few of those games now.
(And one big sin of geographical heresy is in the NFC
East...I’m sorry, DALLAS? In the NFC _EAST_??? :) )
Heck then why not move the World Series to a neutral site... a dome?
“Live from the Rogers Centre in Toronto, it’s the 2012
World Series! The Philadelphia Phillies against the
Texas Rangers!” :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.