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Fixing Major League Baseball

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We’re a week into the Major League Baseball season (at least we are when I started writing this, with my writing prowess it could be the All-Star break before this actually gets published), and it’s time to revisit one of my favorite pieces of this blog – fixing something that really isn’t broken.

Baseball’s a phenomenal sport, and reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.  It will never overtake the NFL – well, at least not until someone dies on the gridiron and the masses flee in droves – but it’s also never going to lose its ground to the NBA or NHL.  That said, there are still some relatively simple fixes that will make a great game even greater.  Without further ado:

Expansion/Contraction

A fair number of my suggestions will require an even number of teams in each League, so we should address the expansion/contraction of teams first.  My personal opinion is that there are 2 too many teams in baseball, and the stadium situations in Oakland and Tampa Bay prove that out.  If it were up to me, we’d contract the 2 teams that have never been to the World Series – the Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals – and move the Rays and A’s to those respective cities for the sake of franchise continuity (I’m a history geek like that).

But since we know that, barring a catastrophic financial situation – like, say, the bursting of the television rights fee bubble – no professional league is going to contract its teams, so let’s add teams in Montreal and Charlotte or Portland and call it good.

On Field Improvements

Universal Designated Hitter

Major League Baseball is the only sport on the planet (i.e., in the U.S., which is all that matters, amirite?) where half the league plays by one set of rules and the other half plays by another.  With year-round interleague play (we’ll get to that in a minute), that means a team built to play with the designated hitter may have to play a season-ending series with the playoffs on the line with their DH on the bench.  And anyone who’s ever seen Justin Verlander swing a bat knows that you’d much rather have Victor Martinez batting in a big situation.

So we’re changing the rules and either eliminating the DH or making it universal.  And while we can all marvel at Madison Bumgarner’s home run hitting ability, we tend to ignore the fact that he’s a career .186 hitter, and he’s the best hitting pitcher.  The simple fact is that watching a pitcher swing the bat is generally boring and painful (Bartolo Colon notwithstanding), and it leads to ridiculous managerial decisions where a guy throwing a shutout is pulled for a pinch hitter after 73 pitches because the offense can’t put up any runs.  No, it’s time for the NL’s antiquated rules to go by the wayside and MLB to adopt the DH permanently.  The fans will love it, the players will love it (more money for aging veterans to finish out their careers), and the owners…well, screw the owners.

Pitch Clock

I’ll get push back here – and I know this because I got plenty of push back from a buddy of mine when we were discussing it on Opening Day – but for a league that’s attempting to cut the length of their games so Millennials with attention spans measuring in nanoseconds can stay engaged, the pitch clock makes too much sense not to happen.

You can’t implement the pitch clock with men on base, because there are too many variables with that baserunner to force the pitcher to stick to a clock without disrupting his rhythm or making a stupid mistake.  But when there’s no one on base, there’s no reason a pitcher (or a batter) needs more than 20 seconds to make the next pitch.  Start the clock when the catcher receives the pitch, and if the umpire determines that the batter or pitcher is stalling, they’re punished with a ball or a strike against them.

Automated Balls/Strikes

In 2017, when anyone with a smartphone has access to PitchFX that shows exactly where every ball crosses the plate, there’s absolutely no reason for a human being to call balls and strikes.  Talk to me all you want about the human element, but I don’t want the game determined because some umpire didn’t see where the ball went across the plate.  The “human element” applies to the players; fair or not, the officiating of a game needs to be as close to perfect as possible.

With so few baseball calls being truly subjective – especially now that they’ve gotten rid of the neighborhood play on double plays – I’d argue that all officiating could be automated, but let’s start with baby steps.

Overhaul Instant Replay

Aside from Screech on Saved by the Bell, there’s not a person on Earth who has ever watched a game because of who’s officiating that game.  And yet we give the teams challenges to question when an umpire might have made an incorrect call, instead of insisting that the calls just be right.  So we’re going to remove the challenge system and put a fifth (or, in the case of postseason play, seventh) umpire in the broadcast booth, and if an umpire screws up, that extra umpire is going to correct him.  We’re not going to continue to allow the umpires’ egos to determine whether or not a game gets called correctly.

Drastically Reduce Ejections

Some ejections are deserved – I’m looking at you Bryce Harper.  But in a lot of cases a batter will question a call just a little bit more emphatically than the umpire likes (although not at all egregiously), and he’s gone.  The problem is that it drastically reduces the flexibility of the manager, and if someone like Miguel Cabrera gets ejected and has to be replaced by Andrew Romine, the strategy for the remainder of the game is changed immensely.  So unless someone is risking physical harm to another player or an umpire, or truly making an ass out of himself, we’re going to keep the Umpshow to a minimum.

Scheduling

154-Game Schedule

The owners will never go for it.  The players will love it.  Eliminate 8 games from the season to return to what was standard prior to expansion in 1961.  If you want to placate the owners, increase the cost of everything by 5%.  Well, everything except my beer.

Eliminate Interleague Play

Interleague play is over.  It’s played out.  It was never particularly interesting to start, and it ruined the truly novel approach that only MLB had – namely, that the two teams that met in the World Series had not met in the regular season.  MLB loved the “natural” rivalries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida, and a few other places, but they didn’t account for truly dreadful games like Padres-Mariners.  And because the interleague games all took place on designated summer weekends when the weather was nice and the rivalry games were naturally more appealing to the local fans, MLB could proclaim that interleague games were more popular than your average American League or National League games.  It’s worth pointing out that since they’ve gone to year-round interleague play, we haven’t seen proclamations about the popularity of the games, likely because that April Marlins-Orioles game is dragging down the average.

Balanced Schedule

With 16 teams in each league, a 154-game schedule, and the elimination of interleague play, you can play 10 games against each team with 4 games left over.  The remaining 4 games can be rotated among the teams on an annual basis, or you could add a series based upon where the teams finished the previous season (for example, the best team plays the second best team, third place plays fourth place, etc.).  Either way, it’s better than 19 Royals-White Sox games a year.

Holiday Doubleheaders

There are 5 “major” holidays throughout the baseball season: Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day.  We’ll throw out Mother’s Day and Father’s Day since those are Sundays by rule and thus travel days.  But every team is required to play doubleheaders on 2 of the remaining 3 holidays – one at home, and one on the road.  If that holiday falls on a Sunday, the doubleheader will revert to the previous Saturday.  The players hate doubleheaders, but we’ve just cut 8 games out of the schedule, so they’ll get used to it.

Beginning/End of Season

Every season begins on the first Monday in April.  If you want to cater to ESPN and have them air a Sunday night game the night before, fine.  But this year there were 3 Sunday games to start the season, and that’s just insane.  One’s enough as a showcase for the game.

And since we’ve cut 8 games, plus 2 additional days of game play via the new doubleheader rule, there’s no excuse to be playing games in November.

Playoff Scheduling

Major League Baseball has deduced that playing 4 straight Division Series games on a Thursday will garner more television viewers than running 2 games simultaneously.  This seems dubious to me, but I’ve tended to default to the position of, “Someone smarter than me is making that determination.”  I mean, they have to be, right?

Still, it sucks for the fans with tickets.  Because the playoff schedule isn’t set until a day or two before the games start, you could wind up buying a ticket to a noon playoff game that you can’t use because you can’t get off work.  So either show the fans that there truly are more viewers for a Thursday noon game than there are for 2 games airing simultaneously, or cut out the weekday afternoon games.

Also, while I understand that games involving teams from New York and Chicago are going to garner more viewers than Oakland or Tampa Bay games will, it’s kind of crappy when all of the Oakland League Championship Series games get relegated to the 4pm games.  So alternate the LCS games so that both teams get prime time treatment.

Playoff Determinations

Realignment

In 2015, the three best teams in all of baseball all played in the National League Central.  The St. Louis Cardinals won the division with 100 wins, while the Cubs (97 wins) and Pirates (98) were subjected to a 1-game playoff to determine who moved on.  The Pirates and Cubs were punished because they were geographically close to the Cardinals.  And just to add insult to injury, because the team with the best regular season record automatically plays the winner of the Wild Card game in the Division Series, the Cardinals were punished by having to play the a 97-win team instead of the 92-win Dodgers or 90-win Mets.  This is asinine.  The best teams should be rewarded for having a superior regular season.  So we’re eliminating divisions.  Two Leagues, 16 teams each, with a balanced schedule.

Oh, and the Brewers and Astros are going back where they belong.

Playoff Seeding

Playoff seeding is simple: the top 5 teams in each League make the playoffs.  The top 3 teams get a bye to the Division Series while the 4th and 5th place teams play the Wild Card game to move on.  There’s no reason to reward a team for being located in a geographically advantageous location.

Conclusion

I’ll admit that a lot of these rule changes seek to fix some of the quirks that make baseball “great”.  Fans love to see pitchers hit dingers and the Wild Card situation I discussed isn’t particularly common.  But the Giants can still refuse the DH to let Bumgarner hit (which they’ve already done in interleague games), and no one’s going to weep because we close a loophole to give an advantage to a better team.

And I’m not going to stop watching because these rule changes aren’t made (because, let’s face it, most of them won’t be), but we could definitely make the game better.

 

The Perfect Ending

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Sunday was the first without football since early September, and in an effort to be somewhat timely, I feel it’s important to discuss this past season before I wait 3 months to write something else in a timely fashion.

As seasons go, 2014 will go down in history as one of the worst in the history of the NFL, if not all of American professional sports.  Sure, in the League’s history, they’d probably say the strike years of 1982 and 1987 were worse.  And it’s hard to argue that this year ranks with the 1994 MLB season, which saw the cancellation of the World Series, and only Gary Bettman and the NHL would cancel an entire season.  But eliminate work stoppages, and this year’s football season was about as bad as it gets.

And the Super Bowl provided the perfect capper.

Let’s offer a quick recap.  The season really got off to its start in February, when Ray Rice knocked out his fiancee (now wife) and was caught on camera dragging her out of an Atlantic City elevator.  In July, Dictator…sorry, Commissioner Roger Goodell decided that seeing a guy dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an elevator after he’d knocked her out was only worth a 2-game suspension.  In September, TMZ released the video of Rice actually hitting his fiancee.  Shortly thereafter (as in, later that same day), the Ravens released Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.  If you think it’s problematic that the NFL suspended a guy for an offense that they’d already suspended him for, congratulations, you’ve got more common sense than the NFL commissioner and really any of his advisors in the League office.

Four days after the Rice video surfaced, Adrian Peterson was arrested for beating the shit out of his 4-year-old son.  I won’t get into the ugly details of the case, but it’s safe to say that you’d think a guy who’s 6’2″, 217 pounds and is built to handle a football in the NFL 300-400 times a year probably could’ve found a way to discipline a 4-year-old kid without ordering the kid to bring Peterson a switch.  The Vikings “deactivated” him for a game, then ownership decided they wanted him reinstated, so they sent the GM out to make that announcement (despite the fact that the GM disagreed with that decision).  Of course, the GM did it in front of a backdrop that was covered in Radisson advertisements, so Radisson decided they were going to pull their sponsorship of the team.  Ownership then stepped up and decided to “deactivate” Peterson indefinitely (never question the power of the almighty dollar) and Peterson was put on the Commissioner’s exempt list, with pay.  After he pleaded his case out, a representative of the NFL told Peterson he would get a 2-game suspension, with time on the exempt list being credited against that suspension, only to have Goodell suspend him for the remainder of the season, with no consideration for time served.

Rice and Peterson aren’t what you would consider sympathetic figures, and Peterson’s behavior after he was deactivated probably had a lot to do with his punishment.  But look at the way the NFL treated the punishment process – to say they made it up as they went along insults the people who truly are making stuff up as they go along – and left the players union out of that decision-making process paints the League in a truly unflattering light.

So as these two cases hung over the League for quite literally the entire season, the playoffs went exactly how you would expect: with no one speaking about what happened on the field and instead talking about incompetent officiating, deflated footballs and the dumbest play call perhaps in the history of the League.

In the Wild Card round of the playoffs, the Lions led by 3 at Dallas with just over 8 minutes to go in the game.  On 3rd and 1, Matthew Stafford dropped back for a pass to Brandon Pettigrew, who was both held and interfered with on the play.  The refs threw a flag, Dez Bryant ran on the field to complain, and then the refs picked up the flag without calling a penalty.  Not for the hold, not for the pass interference, not for the hothead running onto the field to complain to the refs.  It’s not quite fair to say that this one play cost the Lions the game – they scored 3 points in the second half, Jim Caldwell decided to kick the ball away on 4th and 1 instead of trusting his defense, and Sam Martin unleashed a 10-yard punt at the worst possible moment – but being in field goal range with a fresh set of downs would’ve made the Cowboys’ job a lot harder.

cowboyspi-copy

The following week, as if to prove that karma exists, the Cowboys got screwed by a bad rule (although not a bad call).  Dez Bryant made what should’ve been regarded as one of the best and most clutch catches in NFL postseason history to give the Cowboys 1st and goal inside the 2-yard line.  Instead, an idiotic rule that burned the Lions in 2010 was called – correctly – the Cowboys gave up the ball on downs, and the Cowboys lost a game that they might otherwise have won.

In the conference title game, the Packers collapsed, blowing a 12-point lead with just over 2 minutes left in the game to send Seattle to the Super Bowl.  Meanwhile, the Patriots destroyed the Colts, winning 45-7, but the big news became the fact that the Patriots were using footballs that were deflated to less than the NFL’s minimum requirements.  The fact that the NFL used properly inflated balls for the second half of the game, a half in which the Patriots outscored the Colts 28-0, seems to be irrelevant.

(I saw an interesting theory prior to the Super Bowl that the Lions’ curse contributed to the Seahawks making the Super Bowl.  The theory went that the curse transferred from the Lions to the Cowboys on the pass interference that wasn’t, then from the Cowboys to the Packers on the Dez Bryant catch that wasn’t, then from the Packers to the Seahawks on their last-minute collapse.  Considering how the Super Bowl ended, it’s somewhat difficult to disagree with this theory.)

After the Wild Card round we talked about officiating.  After the Divisional round we talked about stupid rules.  After the Conference title games we talked about deflated balls.  So it’s fitting that the Super Bowl ended with a terrible play call and a brawl.

The general discussion surrounding the NFL for the past few years has related to things happening off the field.  Concussions, domestic violence, the general incompetence of the Commissioner.  Very few discussions have included the play of the players.  The only real discussion related to the play on the field this season became whether or not Tom Brady has cemented his place as the greatest quarterback of all time.  It’s not a ridiculous discussion, but it’s interesting that we probably don’t have that discussion if Pete Carroll calls for a handoff to Marshawn Lynch instead of having his QB throw it over the middle.

It hasn’t changed since the Super Bowl.  On top of the Pete Carroll play call, we’ve heard about a texting scandal that could bring about fines and suspensions to the Cleveland Browns, not to mention the year-long suspension of their star wide receiver and the story that their supposed QB of the future is in rehab.  Oh, and four more players have been arrested this week, on charges ranging from drug and gun possession to assault to animal cruelty.  The NFL is nothing if not consistent.

There’s nothing to suggest the NFL is going anywhere.  The viewership hasn’t changed, attendance isn’t down, and no advertisers have walked away.  So as bad as this season has been, not much will change.  But if we see many seasons where the discussion isn’t about what the players did on the field but rather what they did off the field, the number of kids playing the game might continue to drop.  There was a time when boxing and horse racing were on par with baseball; now they’re niche sports.  Is it realistic to think that the NFL is headed that way?  Probably not.  But stranger things have happened.

Let’s just hope that there aren’t many more seasons like this to help advance the NFL’s demise.

Why Sports?

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As a lot of you (translation: my dad) have noticed, I haven’t written in a while.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Work doesn’t like it when I spend time writing for my personal blog, I like to drink, TV has some really cool stuff going on, I like to drink and I’m also pretty damn lazy.  Also, I like to drink.  But in reality, it might come down to one damning thing.

Sports just aren’t as fun anymore.

Let’s do a little history lesson.  First off, I didn’t get “big” into sports until my dad had moved away to Illinois.  This isn’t any criticism, but there really wasn’t any history of me sitting on the couch watching my dad get pumped up about the Bears, so a lot of my loyalties have varied and the start of my histories with certain sports tie in to when local teams were good.

Now that you know that…

I got off to a good start.  My first sports memory was the 1984 Tigers winning the World Series.  I didn’t have much of a memory of that team, but I do remember the end of that final game.  From there it was on to the ’85 Bears, whom I picked up with my dad and will still argue are the best team of all time.  In ’87 Michigan State’s football team went to the Rose Bowl for the first time in over 20 years.  In ’88 the Pistons should’ve beaten the Lakers in the NBA Finals, and in ’89 they did.  That same year Michigan fired their basketball coach then won the NCAA basketball title (at that age you could switch collegiate loyalties as often as you changed underwear, so at least once a week).  In 1989 the Lions drafted the greatest running back not named Jim Brown; in 1991 they were a win away from the Super Bowl.

And those were just the local teams.  For some reason I liked Jose Canseco, so I watched the A’s win the Earthquake World Series in ’89.  That same year – as with all summers from the time I was 10 until I was 16 – I spent the summer at my dad’s place in Illinois and watched the Cubs on WGN every afternoon.  They went to the playoffs that year and I’ve been a fair weather Cubs fan ever since.  I loved Joe Montana, and I watched the 49ers win Super Bowls 23 and 24 as Montana cemented his legacy as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.  My brother picked up hockey and the New York Rangers in 1994, so I learned the sport along with him (while wondering why Chris Osgood left the net).  And perhaps the biggest “betrayal” for any Michigan sports fan: in 1993 I discovered my dad was a Bulls fan and picked them up when the Pistons were down.  I stuck with them through the 72-win season in ’96, although the Dennis Rodman pickup helped me justify that one.

By 1997, the Red Wings had gotten off the schneid, beaten the shit out of the Colorado Avalanche, and would win 4 Cups in just over a decade.  The Pistons got over the teal era, and won one of the more unexpected titles in NBA history while going to 6 Eastern Conference Finals in a row.  The Tigers got over 13 consecutive losing seasons – including the worst year in American League history – by going to the World Series on a walkoff home run by Magglio Ordonez.  Michigan State’s basketball team capitalized on sanctions at Michigan and went to 4 straight Final Fours and won the national title in 2000 (my collegiate loyalties were locked in when I decided to go to East Lansing to study journalism for 6 weeks before I found out what journalists make).  The Spartan football team became a power and we’ve won 10+ games 4 times in 5 years, won a Rose Bowl, don’t measure our success on whether or not we beat Michigan, and talk about national titles without being called delusional.

I even gave up on the 49ers and shed my fair weather reputation when they fired Steve Mariucci and became a full-time Lions fan.  Then the Lions hired him and I completely understood what the 49ers were doing.  But while the Lions went through a stretch that would rival or even exceed the stretch the Tigers put us through, they weren’t contracted or moved, they didn’t have the Thanksgiving game taken away from them and they’ve even made the playoffs.

Things were good.

But dig deeper and it’s not hard to poke holes in the facade.  For a sporting society that lives on the idea of “Second place is the first loser”, a 4-team city (not counting the 2 Big 10 schools in the area) that hasn’t won a title since 2008 – with no teams that scream out that they’re favorites to win anytime soon – doesn’t leave a fan happy.  The average title drought for the teams in this city is over 26 years (the Lions surely don’t help that average), and within those droughts are some painful sporting legacies:

  • Tigers: David Ortiz’s grand slam in the 2013 ALCS, six total runs scored in 2012 World Series, pitchers forget how to field in 2006 World Series
  • Lions: only team to go 0-16
  • Pistons: team wide mutiny after starting 37-5 in 2006 Eastern Conference finals, destroyed by LeBron games in 2007 ECF, utter disaster of Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon deals
  • Red Wings: blew 3-2 lead to lose 2009 Stanley Cup Final

But that’s not it.

Should the Tigers have won a World Series by now?  Probably.  Should the Wings have repeated in ’09?  Possibly.  Could the Pistons have won more than 1 title in their 6-year run?  Definitely.  Should the Lions…hmm…um…

Every city’s got one of those teams.

And yes, these things start to wear on fans.  This isn’t the World Cup where a tiny country can be thrilled that not only did they qualify, but they also played a powerhouse to a scoreless draw.  Or the Olympics, where we watch a guy almost drown while simultaneously celebrate his ability to complete.  This is America.  We don’t just go to enjoy the games, we pull for our teams to win championships and we know exactly when the last time it happened for all of our states (1957, 1984, 2004, 2009).

But no, it’s not the woulda-coulda-shoulda that takes the fun sports.  In fact, to a large extent that’s exactly what makes it fun.

But it’s not that either.

Everyone in America watched the Great Home Run Chase of 1998.  We watched as this man who seemed destined for years to break the most hallowed record in American sports fought off a personable upstart, and then hit the magical mark of 70, a mark that seemed almost as unbreakable as the 60 that Babe Ruth hit in 1927.

Then 3 years later someone else hit 73.

I, like everyone else, was blinded to the fact that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds were chemically enhanced when they broke the record.  And as the years went on I didn’t much care, because it turned out that everyone in the game was juiced.  I care that it was clear that those chemical enhancements cheapened that magical summer, that 73 isn’t anywhere near as romantic as 60 or 61*, that there are many who still believe that 755 is the home run record.

But no, that’s not quite it either.

It’s who I’m giving my money to.

As I’ve said before, I believe sports owners to be among the most despicable people on earth.  The history of professional sports is littered with stories of owners doing whatever they could to pay the players – the people the fans are coming to see – as little as possible, to treat them as chattel, to restrict their rights, to control what they wear.  It continues to this day, with the NFL fining players $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones to mandatory post-game press conferences.  “Guys, we know Beats is the big thing now, but we’ve got a contract with Motorola which, believe it or not, is still in business.”  And yet somehow the fans paint the players as greedy whenever there’s a work stoppage.

But no, we’re still not quite there.

No, it’s the fact that these people I give so much money to – and I’ve given a ridiculous sum of money to professional sports owners over the years – not only don’t give a fuck about anyone to whom they’re responsible (fans, players, employers, families, etc.), but they think we’re stupid enough to buy their shit.

That’s it.

I started thinking about this post as I boatgated before the first game of the Lions’ season.  It was that day that the infamous video of Ray Rice knocking out his now wife went public.  The Ravens acted quickly, cutting Rice.  The NFL was in a bit of spot, because they’d already determined that watching a guy dragging his unconscious fiance out of an Atlantic City elevator was only worth a 2-game suspension.  Nevertheless, the League suspended him again, a suspension that has been reversed because it turns out that you can’t suspend a guy for the same action when the only thing that changed was that the whole world saw what you’ve already clearly known.

Over the next few weeks I watched intently as Roger Goodell insisted they hadn’t seen the tape when they clearly had.  As Vikings ownership suspended Adrian Peterson for beating the shit out of his 4-year-old son, then activated him, then suspended him again when advertisers yanked their support.  As the NFL somehow made people who had beaten their wives and children into sympathetic figures.

Sports just didn’t really feel great anymore.

That was over 3 months ago.  I sat there watching that video thinking to myself, “Do I really want to support this company anymore?”  When does the NFL become Wal-Mart, or Apple, or GM?

Including that Monday Night game, I’ve been to 4 NFL games since then.  I am the problem.

The NFL handed out painkillers and steroids like they were tic-tacs until Lyle Alzado died of a brain tumor and went public believing that the two were related.  They fought the disability claims of players who were living in their cars with dementia caused by constant helmet-to-helmet collisions.  They ignored the somewhat obvious fact that concussions could have long lasting impact (you know, beyond the 3 plays that the NFL thought they had), despite the fact that concussion issues were a plot point in Varsity Blues, which came out in 19-freaking-99 (thanks Bill Simmons…asshole).  And now they’re trying to convince us they’re concerned about domestic violence while giving a 2-game suspension to a guy who knocked out his wife and then dragged her out of an elevator.

Hell, we can’t even escape politics on the field.  When players throughout the country have expressed their Constitutionally-protected right to express their opinions (whether the venue for those opinions were appropriate is for everyone to decide on their own) about high-profile police killings they’ve gotten shot down by fans and police spokespeople.  Never mind that it was members of those police departments that led to the demonstrations in the first place.  No, it’s the young black man – and it’s always a black man – expressing his opinion who’s the problem.

And yet through this entire mess, the NFL has lost not one single viewer.  Not even me.  The only Lions games I’ve missed this year were because there were more important Tigers games taking place at the same time.  And until they start losing viewers (and, more importantly, money), what the NFL does about these public relations disasters won’t matter.

Sports have just gotten less enjoyable.  I’ll get enraged by people at the bar who have differing opinions about trades the Tigers have made.  I’ve had the text message equation of a knock-down, drag-out brawl with a friend of mine who suggested I had gone off the deep end because of how I felt about Brad Ausmus’s bullpen usage.  I was genuinely afraid he was going to have a stroke, which leads me to believe he’s got a mindset about sports not far off from mine.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post.  Why sports?

And then I think of this picture.

2014-10-26 16.42.24-2 (2)

That’s what sports is.  That’s a picture taken after the Lions had beaten the Falcons in London on a last-second field goal in October.  My friend and I hadn’t been getting along all that great, mostly because I’ve got thin skin and take things personally.  But after that game, we just celebrated and chatted with foreign (wait, I guess we were the foreigners) football fans in a magnificent stadium.

It’s an excuse to travel to see  faraway friends, like the friend who moved to Germany for business.  That’s why we were in London in the first place.  Without the Lions, I don’t know if we’d make that trip.  You’d like to think that friendships survive thousands of miles, but you don’t know.  Having your teams to talk about makes it easier.

It’s complaining with your dad over text about our football teams.  It’s a bit hard to be sympathetic to his plight.  As bad as the Bears have been, they still have 1985.  While I haven’t been a full-time Lions fan since birth, geography has required me to follow them since I’ve been watching football.  We don’t talk on the phone much anymore – why bother when texting and email is so much easier – but every Sunday we text about our teams.

Talking to strangers has always been an issue for me.  I can’t talk to women.  It’s a crippling issue that has kept me single far longer than I’d like.  But I can inject myself into a random conversation about the 2002 Fiesta Bowl or whether Roger Clemens belongs in the Hall of Fame like it’s nobody’s business.  I spent a long chunk of my life feeling weird about myself, and being involved in a sports conversation makes me feel normal.

So I guess that’s why sports.

Fixing Team Names

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The NBA regular season is over, and since I’m somewhat (completely) fair weathered when it comes to pro hoops and the Pistons don’t just suck but are a complete and total embarrassment to the city, there’s only one thing I care about…and it ain’t LeBron or the Lakers.

The New Orleans Hornets are no more!

It’s always bothered me when teams move to a new city – and have to rebrand anyway – and they don’t go through the trouble of changing the team name.  So we get ridiculous names like the Utah Jazz, Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma SuperSonics…oh, wait.  Theoretically team names are supposed to reflect the culture of the cities they play in, but the closest Grizzly Bear to Memphis is either in a zoo or 1300 miles away, and let’s not even talk about a style of music that is predominantly black providing the nickname for a team in the whitest state in the country.

So I’m fixing that.

Here’s the rules:

  • We’re only changing the nicknames of teams that have changed during the respective sport’s current “eras”.  For baseball, that’s the expansion era (1969-present).  For the NFL (1970), NBA (1976-77) and NHL (1979-80), this refers to the time since their mergers.  So teams like the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Lakers lucked out, even if their names make no sense.
  • Team names stick with the city (a la Cleveland Browns, Seattle SuperSonics, etc.).  If a second team comes to that city, they are eligible to adopt that moniker.
  • They haven’t moved, but we’re going to address Native American names, which means that the Redskins will be getting dealt with.
  • I don’t have a problem using a nickname that is currently in use in another sport.

That’s it, it’s that simple.  It should be noted that while I tried to research some of the cities’ histories in their respective sports to come up with names, but in the end, I’m an accountant with no creativity, and my buddy Jeff came up with a bunch of these names.  I think you’ll like them.

MLB

There’s literally no corrections to be made.  Only three baseball teams have moved during the expansion era: the Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, and the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Good on you baseball!

NFL

Not a ton of movement, but enough that teams require some adjustment.  In fact, only one team that’s moved recently has done it right and rebranded themselves, and even that was after the Titans spent 2 years as the Tennessee Oilers (interesting fact: the Oilers nickname has since been retired by the NFL…I have no idea what that means, but I find it interesting).

Also, I’m not addressing the Raiders, since they were originally the Oakland Raiders.  And since the San Diego Chargers were originally the Los Angeles Chargers, they can keep their name when they move in 2 years.

  • Arizona: There are a lot of opportunities here.  Vipers, Cobras, Wolves, Rattlers and Pythons all work, but they’d seem to be redundant with the Coyotes and Diamondbacks.  The Roadrunners would be an utterly fantastic tie-in with the Coyotes, but I can’t imagine it would ever fly with the stodgy NFL.  To me, there are two options: Firebirds (it continues the bird theme from the Cardinals) and Apache/Apaches.  And since Arizona is the Apache State, we’re getting permission from the tribe and calling them the Arizona Apache.
  • Baltimore: Theoretically they’d get to revert back to the Baltimore Colts when they stole the Browns from Cleveland.  But in a way, that would be a reward for doing the exact same thing to Cleveland that they spent years bitching to Indianapolis about.  Plus, Ravens is a better name and tie in better with the city.  They’re staying the Baltimore Ravens and will be the only team in this exercise to keep their nickname.
  • Indianapolis: There are two options here.  One, stick with the horse theme (Mustangs, Stallions, Thoroughbreds, etc.).  Two, you go with the racing theme, which is really the only thing Indianapolis is known for (Racers, Fuel, Turbo, Wings, Spoilers, Aeros, etc.).  But again, the Pacers already cover that, and I don’t feel like those nicknames really fit with the boring standards of the NFL.  So we’re going with the Indianapolis Stallions.
  • St. Louis: this one’s simple.  The Los Angeles Rams are the second (third?) incarnation of the St. Louis Cardinals. ‘Nuff said.
  • Washington: They moved from Boston in 1936, but that’s not why we’re addressing the elephant in the room.  Let’s face it, you can’t do a post about changing sports team nicknames and leave the Redskins out.  If the Redskins’ history weren’t so sordid, maybe they’d get a pass on the most blatantly racist team name in sports.  But they had to be forced to integrate by the federal government, they proudly played as “the South’s team” for years (back when the South was opening fire hoses on blacks marching for civil rights), and they intentionally changed their team song to reference Dixie instead of D.C. (thank God that’s been changed back).  This team’s history sickens me.  Let’s just do this quick and easy, change the team name to the Washington Pigskins and be done with it.  Tradition is no excuse for bigotry.  I’m glad this team is run by an unlikeable prick like Dan Snyder.

NBA

The NBA is just a disaster.  The only reason Oklahoma City became the Thunder is because of the public relations disaster that happened in Seattle (again: Oklahoma City…Seattle…Sacramento…do unto others what has been done to you).  Let’s just start, because there, I think some pretty good ones.

  • Brooklyn: theoretically the Nets are just in keeping the nickname, because they were the New York Nets when they came over from the ABA.  But that’s no fun.  What sucks is that Brooklyn Kings would be a really cool nickname, especially because Brooklyn is in Kings County.  But the Kings nickname belongs to Kansas City where the current Kings played before they moved to Sacramento, and we’re not changing the rules.  Besides, with the “cool” factor that is Brooklyn and the fact that a rapper helped move them there from New Jersey, we’re calling them the Brooklyn Ballers.
  • Charlotte: Wait a second!  The Bobcats have broken none of the rules.  They entered the league as the Bobcats.  Why change the name?  First, because Bobcats is boring, and it’s rumored that the team was named after the original owner, Robert Johnson.  Plus, now that the Hornets nickname has been abandoned, and the Hornets name dates back to the Revolutionary War in Charlotte, we’re giving the name back.  We’ve got the second iteration of the Charlotte Hornets.
  • L.A. Clippers: There are tons of problems with the Clippers, starting with their racist owner who would never spend a penny to go through a massive rebranding effort.  But let’s ignore that for now.  The first problem with the Clippers nickname is that it’s a great nickname for when they were in San Diego, where there’s a massive sailing community.  In L.A. it makes no sense.  But the other problem is that by just changing the city name, they’re going up against the Lakers, and you’re never going to top the Lakers in L.A.  So we’re taking the Los Angeles out of the Clippers and coming up with a name so awesome that there’s no way I could’ve possibly come up with it myself (and I didn’t).  Can you imagine how many units a Blake Griffin Hollywood Stars jersey would move?
  • Memphis: Memphis Soul and Memphis Blues would be cool nicknames…way cooler than having a name that made more sense in Vancouver.  However, we’re sticking it to David Stern with this one.  Back when the Grizzlies were planning on moving, they explored the option of selling the naming rights to the team (not just the stadium, the entire team).  One of the options was for the team to move to Louisville and be called the Kentucky Colonels (sponsored by KFC).  The other would’ve had them moving to Memphis and being sponsored by FedEx.  Stern put the kibosh on that, to which I say fuck that.  The Memphis Express will be the first team to sell the naming rights to the team (most assuredly not the last).
  • Sacramento: Theoretically we should ignore the current Kings since they’re likely to move to Seattle next year and become the new Seattle SuperSonics.  But that’s no fun, is it?  Plus, I think Sacramento has one of the coolest names my buddy came up with.  Sacramento, much like San Francisco, was a boom town during the California Gold Rush, so we’re going to call them the Sacramento Prospectors.
  • Utah: Changing the team’s name is a no-brainer, because if you ask any sports fan in the country what team name needs to be changed the most, Utah Jazz is going to be second (see: Redskins).  The tricky part is figuring out what to go with.  Saints would be a good shout out to the importance of the Mormon faith in the state, while Miners would be a good marker of an important piece of the state’s economy.  I said we would use nicknames that were in use by other teams, but I didn’t say it was required.  And the fact that there’s already a Saints team out there means we’re calling them the Utah Miners.

NHL

The NHL generally does things right.  The Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche, the Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets, etc.  There’s one small exception.

  • Calgary: The Calgary Flames started out as the Atlanta Flames and kept the nickname when they moved north.  I wonder why a team named after the city burning down didn’t work out in Atlanta. How well do you think a team named the Detroit Riots would do financially?  If Calgary hadn’t been relatively successful, I’d say the team name was cursed…then again, they did lose the Stanley Cup to the Tampa Bay Freaking Lightning and then the sport did shut down for a year.  So maybe.  Sorry…digression.  There’s only one thing of note in Calgary, and that’s the annual Stampede, which is one of the world’s biggest rodeos.  I know there’s already a CFL team named the Stampeders, but (a) that’s the CFL, and no one cares, and (b) the CFL once had teams named the Roughriders and the Rough Riders playing at the same time.  They can deal with having a hockey team called the Calgary Stampede.

Wasn’t that fun?  Tell me you wouldn’t prefer those names over at least some of the ones we’ve got now.