March Madness Goes OctoberMajor League Baseball needs to re-invent its playoff system... NOW.
Stop praying and use just a little genius Bud and give all us sport crazies a second March Madness. Just thinking of filling out a bracket twice a year sends thrills to parts of my body that have long ago lost feeling. A single elimination tournament, a match race, call it what you want but it sure beats the hell of watching a month long crawl to crown a winner.
If I were Commissioner:
- These games are played on weekends - Saturday and Sunday. I don't give a rats ass about going up against College Football and the NFL. Baseball is the National Pastime, start acting like it.
- These games start at 1:00PM...Period - For the Kids and for all of us you can't stay awake past 10:00PM
- No Fox - How about asking NBC to get back in the game. They damn well helped to invent the World Series. And we use local team announcers. Let's have a little fun with the local yahoo's in the booth. They know these teams and players a lot better than pretty boys sitting in a booth like Bob Costas.
- We seed these teams just like they do with the real March Madness. Use HOF's as a selection committee. And it doesn't have to be an even split of AL vs NL. If the AL has six of the best teams one year, so be it. Best teams get to play and bad teams go home.
- Pitchers hit. And we also use the DH. That's right we are now batting ten. Sort of keeps the lineups humming and at the same time allows managers to tinker.
- No Replay. If we need to use a dozen or so umpires to get it right then that's what we do
- Finals are played at a neutral site. Big doings. This allows us to make this an EVENT, something those bigwigs at the networks drool over. Bet they can even come up with a snappy new name for the World Series. Insures the best pitchers are on the mound.
- Here are my seeds: 1.Rays, 2. Angels, 3. Red Sox, 4. Cubs, 5. White Sox, 6. Mets, 7. Brewers, 8. Yankees (did you think for a minute they wouldn't make the cut).
I'm sure there's plenty more that I'm forgetting, so all you bloggers, send me your list of what you'd do if you were commissioner for a day.
5 comments:
Why does my gut tell me these wouldn't be your thoughts if the Yanks made the playoffs this year?
You have the Rays as the number 1 seed and they may not even make the playoffs.
I'm commissioner for the day and I can arrange the pieces the way I want. Besides, who has the best record in baseball?
Papa John, your New York roots are showing! The Yankees?? They might almost earn a lifetime ticket into such a playoff, but, nah, not this year. Took the family to Bean Town in August to see a real team. Big Poppy hit two out in the first inning that game and still had to come back to beat the Rangers after leading by 10 after the first inning. Grudgingly, I felt obliged to drop in at Yankee Stadium on that trip to see a game (they lost, bases loaded, 9th inning, wait til next year, etc....) before they tear that house down. Hard to believe they're doing that but George always gets what George wants. You and Kevin make a good point though on how the best division in baseball might be drastically mis-represented come October. Some tweaking may be in order. Be careful about dissing college football though. You best keep "religion" out of the blog topics...
@john b
You bet my NY roots are showing...but not for much longer. No October baseball for me this year. Glad you read the blog and please keep reading. In fact tell others.
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