He has labor peace, Congress off his back, a new stadium opening this year for a team he once threatened to contract, and another in the works for the perennially bereft Florida Marlins.
So it's understandable that Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is now focusing on some of the nuts and bolts aspects of the on-field product. On Thursday, baseball owners gathered in Paradise Valley, Ariz., and among other things, they unanimously ratified a five-year contract with umpires (doing away with the caveat that umpires could not work consecutive World Series). The owners also heard from a 14-person committee struck to examine on-field matters.
Funny thing about Selig and his predilection for committees and "blue-ribbon reports." His critics roll their eyes at them, Selig uses the bully pulpit to adopt their recommendations -- and generally they work. That's why this committee bears watching. That's why when people like Mike Scioscia -- a committee member -- start publicly mulling over the designated hitter, it pays to listen. This is no make-work project.
So I'm going on the record right now as saying the DH not only ought to stay, the National League should be forced to adopt it. The genie is out of the bottle. It can't be put back in so it's time the NL adopted it too, so we can end this charade of its use/non-use in the World Series.
I know the DH is a hobbyhorse for traditionalists, but give me a second. As somebody who cut his teeth covering the National League, I too had the smugness inherent in believing that the DH was some kind of abomination. That changed, however, when then Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou -- whose sensibilities for the game, I soon learned, exceeded his considerable managerial acumen -- dismissed the whole idea that having the pitcher bat was somehow a strategic wonder.
To paraphrase Alou: What strategy is there in sending up a guy who can't handle the bat? (Something I think of every time the Blue Jays John McDonald comes to the plate.) Frankly, the value of a golden arm and the impact it has on a game ought not to be jeopardized while dropping a bunt. DH's don't lengthen games; pitchers who can't throw strikes or umpires who let Derek Jeter step out of the batter's box after every pitch or the idiots who produce Fox's World Series telecasts lengthen games.
And know what? Sometimes a hitter's just locked in and keeps fouling off good pitches. You don't like it? Go watch hockey, I hear it needs fans.
Not that I'm in favor of the status quo. Upon further review, I can live with further review, and my sense is the people in uniform are ready to embrace video replay, too.
After some wobbly moments during the early playoff rounds, rumors were rife during the World Series that on-field umpiring crew chiefs were receiving some "signal," whenever there was a call that needed overturning after discussion.
I don't know if that was the case, but I do know that within baseball there has been some thought to giving the crew chief an audio hookup with a another umpire who would be in a booth on the press-box level and have access to instant replay. Replay would be used only for fair/foul calls or home runs or at the crew chief's discretion for plays at the plate. That would be a logical move. It would leave the game in the hands of the umpire but also err on the side of integrity, especially important as long as the game's network partners insist on playing World Series games into November.
Giving managers one or two replay requests a game -- like the NFL -- is an insipid notion because it interferes with the flow of the game. Besides, no game is improved artistically when coaches are given a chance to exercise more authority. Coaches only get in the way.
So by all means let's expand video replay beyond home runs. And let's hope that Selig's public preference for afternoon playoff games -- including weekend World Series games -- comes to fruition.
Expand the playoffs? I could go for that, although Selig seems against the idea. Any change to the DH, of course, must be okayed by the Major League Baseball Players Association.
At any rate, I take it as a good sign that Selig is comfortable examining the guts of the game ahead of the next round of collective bargaining. His critics get hung up on style -- the infamous All-Star Game tie, the whole weather thing in the World Series in Philadelphia two years ago -- but when it comes to the working of the game, he has usually erred on the proper side. Here's hoping he listens to what the committee says.
And if they ask for the DH to be pushed aside, here's hoping he thanks them for their time and declines.
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