Somebody Help: Baseball is Boring the Bejeezus out of Me

Perhaps I'm being overly diagnostic or simply reactionary here, but something has got to change in the game of baseball.  I cannot watch it anymore.
 

It could be that my favorite team, the Brewers, are fulfilling their annual rite of summer by playing out the string of meaningless games and marching to a sub-.500 record.  The thing is, I should be accustomed to that.  It never used to bother me, or should I say, it never made me lose interest in the entire sport.  But this year I just cannot get into it, can't take the plunge, and I'm left to re-assess the game.

The term "pennant race" seems to be a bit ironic, perhaps even inaccurate.  "Race" seems to imply some kind of speed or urgency.  Even though the tortoise won, he competed against the hare; at least somebody in that competition was moving.  Baseball is like a race between the tortoise and…the other tortoise.
 

Can we really be on the edge of our seats yet?  Despite the fact that the Yankees and Rays are baseball's best two teams and share a division, I'm not exactly quivering in anticipation of a "race" that still has fifty games left to span and countless twists and turns yet to navigate.
 

The season is just too damn long.  162 games.  Should those games be spaced out over a full calendar year, teams are playing just about every other day.  I'm not interested in my own life every other day.  How can I watch a multitude of teams, most of whom are toiling in mediocrity, march towards another empty October?
 

The single game has no worth in baseball, which is to say, nothing separates one day from any other in this marathon season.  There are no particular games with heightened anxiety and anticipation.  Everything must be viewed as a whole and with the perspective that each game counts for less than one percent of the team's end of season record.  The NFL has 16 games (maybe soon to be 18 but I, for one, hope not).  Compared to an MLB season, losing one game in the NFL is equivalent to a ten game losing streak in baseball.  That is part of the problem, a baseball team can go on a ten game skid and it is essentially meaningless.

Another element in my baseball-induced coma is the style and pace of the game itself.  Any sport in which Manny Ramirez can survive and thrive is moving a bit too sluggishly.  One could reasonably argue (and I would agree) that the NBA season is too long.  But still at 82 games, the NBA plays half as many games as baseball and the games themselves are played at a fast pace.  The players' athletic abilities are so aesthetically pleasing; each NBA game is a chance to see something you have never seen before, whereas every home run looks about the same and every web gem a little bit repetitious.  Baseball lacks the flare and individuality of football and basketball, and without the heightened meaning of an individual game in a condensed season, I am left uninterested.

I don't mean to be all gloom and doom though.  I am a man with a plan, with the solutions for baseball's insufferable season.  It is a five step plan, and here we go:

1. Shorten the season: Games cannot be so worthless.  The Red Sox and Yankees have been playing for three centuries now; I cannot get hyped up just because they are playing each other yet again, for the fifteenth time this year.  Rivalries only work if there is a true desperation to them.  That is why postseason baseball is so fun, because games really matter then, where the pace of the game becomes less laborious and more artistic.  Purists will argue that this will skew the numbers game, but that's bogus.  Any time baseball changes its rules, there's an uproar.   In this day and age steroids have skewed that conversation even further.  So in short, shorten the damn season so I can watch through the fifth inning without having to drink so many beers that the game either becomes fascinating or I fall asleep.
2. Let more teams into the playoffs: No sport has as great of a dichotomy between haves and have-nots as baseball.  The Yankees have twenty-seven championships while the Pirates are working on their eighteenth consecutive losing season.  Yet, in a single series, anything can happen.  Baseball's playoffs are an exclusive VIP club.  You could almost hear the establishment groan when the Rays crashed the World Series party a few years ago.  But now the Rays are established and will be welcomed to the postseason like kings.  If baseball would merely open its door a little wider, the playoffs could provide more excitement, diversity, and surprises.  More magic.  Let six teams from each league in, and give two teams a bye.  That way the postseason expansion is not dramatic, but it's enough of a change to engage the slumbering masses.  Adding slots to the postseason would help solve the riddle of the meaningless regular season as more teams, more cities, and more fans would feel the excitement of a possible playoff trip.
3. Let the teams with the best records into the playoffs regardless of division: You can keep the divisions, and the rivalries, but simply take the six best teams and put them in the playoffs.  Doesn't it just make sense to have the most proficient ball clubs play each other?  If this change were made we could have the Red Sox, Rays, and Yankees all in the postseason together.  That would add such fun, such rivalry, such marketability to the postseason.  And, with six teams making the playoffs, each division would still likely have a representative regardless.
4. Write the unwritten rules: I am so tired of hearing about the unwritten rules of baseball.  I realize it is part of the charm of our national pastime, but nobody seems to really know what these rules are, where they extend, and how they should be adhered to.  Let's stop allowing teams to clear benches when somebody gets thrown at either intentionally or innocuously.  I don't need to see the least athletic athletes in professional sports charge off the bench and then stand five feet apart pretending that they might actually fight each other.  (However, if we could have an annual replay of Pedro Martinez throwing Don Zimmer away like a rag doll I would be willing to reconsider this proposal.)  Make the rule that if you bean somebody you are suspended for your next start or appearance so that we can actually see who is just having control issues and who is trying to take people's heads off.  It is unsafe to have 100 mph fastballs hurled at player's heads just for the sake of some unwritten and misunderstood rule of retaliation.
5. Put some kind of salary cap measure into effect: Now, I don't mind dynasties one bit.  I'm a Laker fan for crying out loud and my happiest days were those cheering for the 49er dynasty (at least I think so as I was about seven the last time they won the Super Bowl).  But both pro football and basketball have benefited from a little bit of parity.  I don't want all teams to be equal, but I want the playing field to be leveled to some degree.  Organizational intelligence has to matter somewhat.  Sound personnel moves, quality scouting, well-timed decisions, the sustainability of your financial distributions: these things have to bear some weight.  Without a salary cap though, teams like the Yankees and Red Sox can spend themselves out of any problem they get themselves into.  The Brewers, Pirates, Padres, and other small market teams have to wait for a perfect storm of accumulated young talent, affordable veterans, and blind luck to make the playoffs once in a decade.  I don't want to destroy the financial landscape of baseball, just tweak it, to make things just a bit more equitable.

These are my half-baked, dream world proposed changes.  Take them, leave them, I don't care.  But until something changes in baseball, I really can't care.  I have no time for baseball, because to really enjoy it, I would need all the time in the world.

--from Adam