{"id":2295,"date":"2016-04-25T13:40:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T18:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2295"},"modified":"2016-04-25T13:40:11","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T18:40:11","slug":"dear-mr-manfred-major-league-baseball-commissioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/dear-mr-manfred-major-league-baseball-commissioner\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Mr. Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner<\/p>\n

It is the beginning of baseball season, and I couldn\u2019t care less.\u00a0 This is astonishing to me since I grew up surrounded by baseball.\u00a0 My mother taught me how to throw a baseball since she believed this was an important social skill for a girl.\u00a0 My grandfather taught me all the arcane rules of baseball, and I was the only one on my grade school softball team who could clearly explain the logic behind \u201cdropped third strike\u201d or the \u201cinfield fly rule.\u201d \u00a0And oh, how I loved my flannel-lined blue cotton jacket decorated with the medallions of each of the major league team\u2019s logos.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0141<\/a><\/p>\n

My mother put limits on watching TV, but never my home-town Chicago Cubs.\u00a0 I remember watching daytime doubleheaders as we sat on the old couch, idly picking the ticks off the dogs nestled beside us.\u00a0 In the long summer evenings, we would play neighborhood pick-up games of \u201c500,\u201d loping through the long grass to shag fly balls, futilely trying to corral ground balls ricocheting off the pocked\u00a0lawn.\u00a0 Our games only ended when our neighbor Mrs. Reed would signal dinner time with her signature piercing whistle, sending us rushing back home with flushed cheeks and damp foreheads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But my connection to baseball has withered away, a victim of its slow pace.\u00a0 \u00a0The last Cubs game I went to was at least ten years ago.\u00a0 At the start of the game I kept a box score, meticulously noting Ks and BBs the way my mother taught me.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it was a pitcher\u2019s duel, perhaps an intricate intellectual experience for pitchers and catchers, but I wanted a visual experience.\u00a0 From my seat down the left field line, the game looked like a bunch of players standing around waiting for something that never happened. \u00a0As my mind wandered, my box score slipped off my lap into a sticky swill of beer and coke dotted with swollen popcorn.\u00a0 I cast about for something else to do.\u00a0 My eyes lit upon Alfonoso Soriano, the left fielder, and I watched, transfixed, as he began to play with his junk.\u00a0 Finally, some real entertainment.<\/p>\n

I started a running bet with my husband, an over\/under on the frequency of a full frontal massage.\u00a0 We segued to a new game of \u201cTug-a-Lug,\u201d scoring points for different maneuvers.\u00a0 There was the 2 point \u201cJugger-Nut\u201d which involved plucking the uniform whilst shimmying to settle things down.\u00a0 The four point \u201cYanking Doodle Dandy\u201d was a discreet monkey spank. \u00a0I was able to follow Soriano into the dug-out with my binoculars and recorded the \u201cbench-squarmer.\u201d\u00a0 The five point, holy grail, winner-take-all maneuver was the \u201cclear air turbulence,\u201d a movement so totally unprovoked by any running or jostling that I could only conclude that Soriano was happily pleasuring himself oblivious to the 30,000 fans.<\/p>\n

I finished the game with an entirely different box score.\u00a0 Is this what the great American pastime has come to?<\/p>\n

I know that Major League Baseball is concerned declining interest among kids, but it\u2019s me you need to be worried about.\u00a0 I should be the archetypal die-hard fan, the one who looks forward to opening day as the eternal symbol of hope renewed.\u00a0 I am a fourth\u00a0generation Cubs fan who can still cite the starting line-up for the 1969 team, but I could not tell you one player on the current team, except I think that there is a pretty good pitcher with a bushy beard.\u00a0 I should be rummaging around the garage looking for my mitt and heading out to play catch with my children and grandchildren, weaning them off the instant gratification of their internet world.<\/p>\n

Today was the Cub\u2019s opening day, a night game out in Los Angeles, so I thought I would give your product another try.\u00a0 I settled into the couch and tried to look sharp, but I quickly tired of replays of routine fly balls and grounders.\u00a0 On many plays, the fielder did not even have to move, but even so I was shown the same motionless play from multiple angles.\u00a0 I was eager to play \u201cTug-a-Lug\u201d again, but any such dallying remained resolutely off-camera.<\/p>\n

The announcers seemed to have lost interest as well as they talked about the next day\u2019s line up.\u00a0 The camera panned to yawning players slumped in the slovenly dugout.\u00a0 I began to multi-task to fill the dead time.\u00a0 I found some toe nail clippers in the couch cushions and slowly and deliberately trimmed all ten digits, but when I was done the same batter was still up, fouling off pitch after pitch.\u00a0 What does it say about baseball that I can attend to personal grooming issues without missing a play?<\/p>\n

Mr. Manfred, please save me.\u00a0 I want to be a fan, I really do, but I can\u2019t live on nostalgia alone.\u00a0 I know that you are trying to speed up the game by limiting the time between pitches, and not letting the batter step out of the batter\u2019s box, but other time-sucks could also be eliminated – chatting at the mound, warm up pitches for the relief pitcher, the prima donna extra time base stealers demand to clean up and dust off.\u00a0 But even so you still need something bolder and I think that I have come up with the solution.<\/p>\n

In the other major sports \u2013 hockey, football and basketball \u2013 the offense and defense are closely intertwined, with defensive successes leading to offensive opportunities. An intercepted pass in football or turnovers in hockey or basketball all immediately turn into scoring opportunities.\u00a0 But not so in baseball.\u00a0 Offense and defense are totally separate.\u00a0 So here is my brainstorm. \u00a0Bring the two together.\u00a0 If a team gets their opponents out three up\/three down, they should be rewarded when they come to bat.\u00a0 I see two possibilities, either the batter gets an extra strike or one less ball, or<\/em> the team automatically gets a designated runner at first base.<\/p>\n

Mr. Manfred, you can take or leave my advice, but please consider doing something<\/em>. \u00a0 I\u2019m begging you to do something to reclaim me as a fan.\u00a0 I\u2019m yours for the taking, but time is running out.\u00a0 I need a summer sport and soccer beckons.<\/p>\n

Sincerely yours,<\/p>\n

Liza Blue<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner It is the beginning of baseball season, and I couldn\u2019t care less.\u00a0 This is astonishing to me since I grew up surrounded by baseball.\u00a0 My mother taught me how to throw a baseball … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mcsweeney-rejects","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-B1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions\/2298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}