Normally, at this time of the year, I would make my picks for the upcoming Major League Baseball season as I have on this blog from 2017 through 2022.
But I will not being doing so this year as the 2023 MLB season commences tomorrow. Nor probably for that matter next year or the year after that and beyond. The truth of the matter is that I no longer derive any pleasure from Major League Baseball in its present form.
I began to sour on the game in earnest during the COVID shortened 2020 MLB season. I thought it was irresponsible to play and generally didn't care for the intrusion of politics into the game. But most of all I despised the way the game had changed with the imposition of the ghost runner during extra-inning games.
For the uninitiated this means each extra inning begins with a runner on second base. How did that runner get on second without reaching first? Not by way of a single, double, walk, hit by pitch, wild pitch or passed ball, stolen base or throwing error. Nope, MLB just puts a runner at second base in the hope a cheap hit up the middle will end it all and penalize the pitcher who did nothing to allow the runner to get to second in the first place.
Now, as of this forthcoming season, the ghost runner has become a permanent feature of the game. Add the pitch clock and bases the size of a small continent and I cease to recognize the game I once loved. Frankly, I have watched very little baseball and cannot justify heeding any of my attention.
That doesn't mean I'll stop writing about baseball. However, this will most likely be confined to writing about Hall of Fame inductions and deaths of prominent figures in baseball. In other words, my baseball writing will be confined to the past instead of the present and the future.
The only things which might get me interested in following baseball in 2023 and beyond is either if someone takes a serious run at Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak or if someone has a chance to become the first player to hit .400 in a season since Ted Williams. Both of these occurrences took place in 1941 (the year my Dad was born).
Mind you, for me to pay attention, someone has to hit safely in at least 40 consecutive games or being .400 after Labor Day. The last serious challenge to DiMaggio was when Paul Molitor had a 39-game hitting streak for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1987. To give you an idea of how long ago that was the Brewers were still an AL team. The last serious challenge to the .400 mark was when George Brett hit .390 for the Kansas City Royals in 1980. Yes, Tony Gwynn finished the 1994 season hitting .393 but that season ended because of the players' strike in August. Who can say what Gwynn would have been hitting a month later had the season been uninterrupted.
Needless to say, I am reasonably confident that neither of these things will come to pass. But even if they do then one must wonder if the larger bases come into play. Maybe Molitor could have extended his streak had he beat out a few extra groundballs. Ditto for Brett in his pursuit of .400. So even if someone eclipsed DiMaggio or joined Williams, we might just have to give them an asterisk.
Certain other things might pique my attention. If someone hit 5 HR in a game, matched Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters, if the NL won another All-Star Game or if the Montreal Expos were reborn. Again, I don't expect any of these things to come to pass.
I plan to acknowledge the winner of the World Series but won't dwell on it at length. There might be some smidgen of interest if its something out of left field like a Baltimore Orioles-Pittsburgh Pirates World Series and we can party like its 1979. Or if the Cleveland Guardians have a chance to win their first World Series in 75 years. Even a New York Yankees-Los Angeles Dodgers World Series would be interesting as this matchup hasn't occurred in 42 years after taking place 11 times between 1941 and 1981. But it would be but a mere footnote.
What happens if the Red Sox win the World Series? Would I attend the parade? Perhaps in the same way I attended parades when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011 on a beautiful June day or when the New England Patriots made their improbable comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. But I won't have the same enthusiasm for it when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years back in 2004 much less 2007 or 2013. I left Boston during the Red Sox' World Series run in 2018 and have not been to a Red Sox game since that season. My desire to attend a Red Sox game much less watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio is simply ot there anymore. Ditto for any other MLB game or even minor league baseball which is constricted by these rules.
For this I have MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to thank. Manfred has the attention span of a 4-year old. He thinks the game is too slow. Thus he seeks solutions in search of problems of his own making. Of course, Manfred won't be Commissioner forever. But I doubt his successor will roll back these measures. This is the way Major League Baseball will be played for as long as I shall live. In which case, Major League Baseball can go on without me and I shall go on without Major League Baseball.
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