Baseball still in trouble

Is the dog wagging sports tail?   This week the S. F. Giants are playing the fall classic against another California team called the Angels. Baseball should be happy and enjoying this California battle but they are not. This could be the first year an African American will win the Fall Classic. San Fran. Giants Manager Dusty Baker could be in the Hall of Fame after this year if the Giants win the Series. This year we will see the 28^th man to win a Series as a manager and a player. This should have people so excited and wanting more but it just not true. 

 Baseball is still struggling just like the other sports in this nation. Baseball big wigs want a big market team to draw attention to their beloved game. Well they did not get it this year in fact the final four only had one team in the top ten in revenue spending, the New York Yankees.  

The Yankees, Mets, Braves, and Diamondbacks are all watching TV like the rest of the country. The American public is turning their collective noses at this California battle. Everybody east of the Rockies are turning off the television sets after the 5^th inning. Why? Because the lords of baseball refuses to change the game. The lords do not want to bring the game into the modern era like basketball and football have done. 

The Los Ang./California/Anaheim Angels are 27^th ranked in revenue spending out of thirty teams; The Oakland A’s are 21^st ; The Minn. Twins 24^th ;And the San Fran. Giants are 17^th this year. 

This year Yankees were ranked 2^nd and were ushered right out of the playoffs the first round this year. For the first time in many years money did not mean a thing. Money could not win the world title this year.  

Baseball television ratings are down to there lowest since the New York Subway Series two years ago. The American public is tired of high priced, high-maintained teams winning the title year after year. Many fans wanted a strike this year. They wanted a work stoppage because many baseball fans think the game is out of control; baseball is not currently in the realm of reality.

Baseball needs to balance itself; baseball needs to clean its house before the American public returns to the game. Baseball fans want to truly believe that in April their team can win a division title. That there team can play in the conference finals. Their team can play in the fall classic. But ladies and gentleman, we all know that this is not true.  

Tell me a Chicago Cub fan has the same confidence that a New York Yankee fan. Tell me a Tampa Bay Devil Ray fan knows they will be still playing in October like most Atlanta Braves fans think and believe. It just does not happen and the American public is throwing in the towel. 

Fix the game, please, no more three and four hour games. Stop letting pitchers play around on the mound and stop letting batters step out of the box after every pitch. This slows the game down.

Hire the best man for coaching and managing their teams; do not continue this old boy network system that has plagued baseball for years. I would love to see more Latino, Asian, and African American managers. I would like to see a minority owning a team. 

Time will tell if baseball can turn this wonderful game around. 

Have at least one or two-day games in the World Series for the children of America. Hey listen that’s how I got interested in baseball and the World Series at the age of six. All the kids listened to it on their way home from school. We use to watch the game in school because the teachers wanted to see the game too. Now people have to take no-doze to even see the end of these World Series games, which end at midnight on the East Coast. Every mother will tell her male child that tomorrow is a school night and you have to go to bed.  Every game will be played at night because the game of baseball gets higher advertising rates at night. Too bad for the young baseball fan who did support the team the whole year, now he cant watch the most important games of his favorite team. This is a tragedy because sooner or later the younger fan will not watch the game of baseball. The younger fan will leave the game for other sports because they feel left out in October. 

The question remains, is making money more important then gathering new young fans? Do you Mr. Baseball want to bring children into the ballpark? Mr. Baseball you have to do a much better job then what you have done the past five years.

A true and complete salary cap so that every team will have a chance to play in the fall classic. 

Let Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame, you have drunks, bullies, and racist in your hall already. What difference does it make? So maybe he did gambled on baseball games It’s twenty years ago. Give this issue a rest. Mr. Rose has many hitting records and he belongs in Cooperstown. The fans have spoken when they voted Mr. Rose hitting record one of ten best moments in the game. 

My fellow Americans its time to hire a commissioner outside of the game. A commissioner that will seriously look at the game from the players and fans point of view and not the owners. A commissioner that can take this wonderful game into the future. LIKE MR.BETMEN HAS DONE FOR THE GAME OF BASKETBALL IN THE 1980’S AND PETE ROSELL DID FOR FOOTBALL IN THE MIDDLE 70’S. 

We would all like to see America fall in love with baseball again. But lords of baseball, you have to make these changes or we might be witnessing the slow death of American’s game. BASEBALL