THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9507020204
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
So, let's get this straight. Baseball wants to expand the strike zone, raise the mound, and let pitchers go to their mouths for moisture.
In other words, baseball wants to take some offense out of the game.
Baseball's goal is to shorten games by giving the advantage back to the pitchers. It wants to add strikeouts and subtract home runs.
Baseball wants to reduce the action in a sport already criticized for lacking action.
And this is going to make people like the game better?
In the American League, there's even a movement afoot among some owners to rescind the designated hitter rule.
The owners say they're doing this to shorten games, though money has a lot to do with it, too. Designated hitters are often among the highest paid players.
In any case, American League games last 11 minutes longer than the average game in the National League. The additional offense provided by the DH is blamed for this.
When it was introduced in 1973, the DH was supposed to increase excitement, which would lead to bigger crowds. Over the years, it has also allowed established stars to stick around another two or three years. I'm having trouble figuring out why this makes the DH undesirable.
Until this last strike, major league baseball attendance over the last 20 years was on the rise. The DH may not have been the reason, but it hasn't kept people away from the park, either.
There is nothing wrong with offensive baseball. Offense is good. Americans love offense.
I thought baseball figured this out three-quarters of a century ago, when Babe Ruth walked off the pitcher's mound and stepped into the batter's box on a full-time basis.
With the passing of the dead-ball era, baseball boomed. Given a choice, people prefer slugfests to pitchers' duels.
Now, baseball is trying to tell us that scoring is bad simply because it takes too much time.
A sport that killed the World Series and kept its fans waiting three extra weeks for the new season to open is suddenly hung upover a few minutes here and there. Talk about missing the big picture.
It's nice that baseball wants to start innings 40 seconds sooner, but it's not important. Less time between innings is not going to make people change their impression of baseball.
The problem with baseball isn't long games. The problem is that people don't care about the players anymore.
Not as much, anyway, as they care about NBA players or NFL players.
In October, nobody will complain about the slowness of the games. By then, people will be interested in the wild cards and playoffs and World Series. Baseball will seem OK in October.
But right now? Well, July has arrived and sports fans are still talking about pro basketball. They are discussing the just-completed draft.
Give these fans another three weeks, and their talk will turn to pro football training camps.
Baseball has lost its grip on the American psyche. So what are the owners and players doing to remedy their massive image problem? They are reducing the time between innings. They are keeping batters from stepping out of the box between pitches.
Such a big deal.
By next year, baseball will have a higher strike and a taller mound. Pitchers might start throwing spitballs. Scoring will be down. And in the American League, the DH may be replaced by an automatic out.
Well, now. This ought to bring the fans back in droves. by CNB