Since rooting for the Mets in the mid ’70s, often being babysat by the color TV watching daytime Mets games broadcast by Bob Murphy, Ralph Kiner, and Lindsey Nelson, I’m become more jaded about baseball. Some might even say a curmudgeon. Some would be right.
So the “millionaires fighting billionaires” offseason is over. We can now look forward to the Chico’s Bail Bonds, err, NY Mets uniforms being donned by our boys in blue and orange, and black because the owner liked them, and pink on Mother’s Day, and fatigue colored on Veteran’s Day, etc. play American League baseball. Looking forward to it, especially the commercial patches on uniforms allowed by the new CBA, because after all, you can never have enough commercial advertisements at Shea Citi Field.
But wait, the CBA also has us “looking forward” to seeing the full time use of designated hitter, because MLB is run by genius businessmen who understand that even though the National League outdrew the Junior Circuit for each of the last 10 seasons that allowed paying customers, what we really need is a designated hitter. That’s a great idea, because it’s not like home runs were up or anything the last few seasons. In addition, the designated hitter will work very well with the “speed up the game” mantra of the commissioner, because DH’s work so much faster than a pitcher bunting.
But the Mets are poised to come in first this year of the unbalanced schedule, right? Well, doesn’t really matter. Because having two Wild Card teams wasn’t enough, we now can see an action packed September of racing to be the sixth-best team in the National League. What a joy that will be.
The best part as an old curmudgeon is that I don’t have to worry about pennant races anymore. I can catch up on my sleep not needing to see where the Chico’s Bail Bonds Mets are in the pennant race, because the regular season is just so utterly useless. I actually think MLB didn’t go far enough in allowing 12 teams into the playoffs. I know the brilliant owners wanted 14 to save on giving participation trophies out, but what really would appease everyone is to have 30 teams make the playoffs. They could pay each other 162 times in the new playoffs and then the two best teams at the end of the playoffs could play in the Hunk of Metal competition.
Now that we can bet on MLB faster than we can reach the bathrooms, who wants to make book on the first season a team with the 12th-best record in baseball wins the Hunk of Metal World Series? You’ll make a lot of money with a winning bet on that, but probably not as much as you’ll make selling your old, now impossible to duplicate, ticket stub collection because you can’t get into the stadium without your cell phone on since ticket stubs have gone the way of the double switch.
Ahhh, no more ticket stubs. Sometimes life isn’t fair. Just like baseball. While the Nationals will continue to play the Orioles in their regional game, the Mets can play the Yankees. Yeah, that seems fair. Maybe we can allow the Yankees to bang on the trash cans? Just trying to keep up with the time.
What have they done to the game?
Comment below. Let’s go Bail Bonds.
