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Playoffs are a sports fan’s heaven. It’s the time of the season where players push their injuries, excitement and intensity of the sport build to a climax, and fans pay up the nose to catch a glimpse of the action. So more of a GOOD thing must be a GREAT thing, right? Wrong.

Major league baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires after next season. With the expiration approaching, there’s talk and support, even amongst the players’ association, for expansion of the MLB playoffs. Currently, 8 teams out of 30 qualify for the playoffs every year. The discussed proposal would call for additional teams to qualify as well as expanding the initial Division Series to a best of 7 games (it is 5 games currently).

Bud Selig, the so called innocent baseball commissioner that was completely unaware of the rampant use of steroids in the 90’s and early 2000’s, is heading the movement, "I'm intrigued by that and we'll talk about it," Selig said on ESPN Radio. "We only have eight teams, the least of any sport, so even if we went to 10 teams, we wouldn't be abusing anything."

Abuse? How did we get to talking about abuse? Shouldn’t Selig be pushing and selling this to fans as a grand, innovative tweak instead of a defensive front? In business language, Selig was saying this, “There’s more juice left in this orange. It’s not as pure as the rest of the juice, but since it’s not unethical, given today’s business practices, we’re going to squeeze it some more and sell it.”

Without a doubt, baseball is a for profit business. And yes this will lead to additional revenue. But is it the smartest move baseball can make even from a financial standpoint? I believe it is not.

The change doesn’t lend itself to meshing well with the average sports fan.

More isn’t always better. Ever been to a Super Bowl party? Of course. Ever been to a World Series party? Probably not. Why? You might say well Football and Baseball are different sports, you can’t compare the two and Football is more popular. But why is Football more popular? And if it is, shouldn’t Baseball try as much as possible to imitate Football?

Fantasy Football is the most popular fantasy sport. Why? Because it’s only once a week and that day is on a weekend. As I once heard someone say before, “it takes away the aftertaste of church.” The point being here, in this age of technology, people have poor attention spans. Look at me, I’m writing this while in class. Baseball gets complaints about being too slow of a game. The fact that the World Series will extend into November this year is ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong. More baseball, I’ll watch. But if baseball is going to grow it has to attract a larger fan base. There are diehards with every sport but catering only to them is a bad business decision for the sport overall.

A salary cap is the next step Baseball needs to make. Having the Yankees in the World Series every year may not be BAD for TV ratings but it’s BAD for the growth of the sport which should be the ultimate goal.

- MB

Labels: Baseball, expansion, MLB, playoffs, wild card, Yankees

These Things make me happy. I guess it took New York media and ESPN's full blown coverage and over celebration of K-Rod's "dominance" and "historic season" for America to finally realize what a major league prick that Francisco Rodriguez actually is. The article goes on and on about how dominant K-Rod is and that him and Putz will close the door at the end of games... blah blah and more mumbo jumbo proving ESPN and their employees know nothing about baseball and that saves still rule the world.

But whoever takes the mound for the Mets will eventually hand the ball to J.J. Putz in the eighth inning, followed by K-Rod in the ninth.
Love him or loathe him, Rodriguez has made this much clear: He refuses to be ignored. The world (and the Phillies) will be watching.

Yup. Because I'm sure everyone in NY is more worried about a couple jerk-off 8-9th inning guys that play for the not-so-miracle Mets of 2009 as opposed to the $250M plus that was just spent and the front end rotation repair of the Pinstripes and the bagillion dollar Yankee Stadium that's set to open in April. All eyes on the Mets though, sure thing guys. Give it a month of K-Rod's antics and a couple blown saves and every ESPN writer will be critiquing the Mets for signing him. Good work, guys in Bristol.

Sidebar:

It's been a long time since a "True Yankee" reference, but let's see if Sabathia and Burnett fit the mold that Jeter once created (that A-Rod clearly does not fit for some odd reason) and bring the Yanks back to the playoffs. If Sabathia goes 25-0 with 490 K's this year but starts Game 1 of the ALCS and goes 6 innings and loses 3-1, with Jeter hitting the only solo homerun of the game, expect all hell to break loose in Yankee-town.

Labels: K-Rod, Mets, Yankees

Lebron James was seen at Game 1 of the New York Yankees/Cleveland Indians series wearing a hat to show his allegiance to the team he loves. The problem? The Cleveland Cavaliers star was sporting the black and white of the Evil Empire, the New York Yankees. This gesture, unsurprisingly, pissed off quite a few Cleveland fans.


Having been to Cleveland earlier this year, I can attest to the fact that the Quicken Loans Arena is literally right outside of Jacobs Field. It's just outside the gate behind left field. Sitting from my nosebleed seat behind home plate, it was a prominent feature of the skyline. One couldn't help but think of Lebron. He is the Cleveland Cavaliers. He is Cleveland.

But now he's wearing a Yankee's hat? How utterly, frustratingly, irritatingly...

No big deal.

So he's a Yankee fan, get over it. It's a different sport. He fights for the people of Cleveland night-in and night-out, even brought them an Eastern Conference Championship, but now we're going to tell him who to root for in a sport that he doesn't play or have any stake in? As much as he may represent the city, it doesn't matter. It may have been a bit of a jerk-move to prominently display his Yankee love, but really, who cares?

I'm sure Lebron grew up loving the Yankees, and just because he now plays for the Cavs, he has to support the Indians. It'd be like if any of us Southern Californians, Angels fans, were drafted to play a sport for the city of Toronto, now we've got to be Blue Jays fans? I don't think so.

So, Cleveland, get over it. You're winning the series anyway, which is great. So long as Lebron doesn't blot Cleveland for New York because of all this, I'd say his actions were just fine.

Labels: ALDS, Cleveland, hat, Jacobs Field, Kevdog, LeBron, Yankees

Many things have been going right for the Yankees in the past month. After an abysmal start in which many questioned whether the Yankees would finish over .500 or whether they'd even have a shot at the wild card, the Bronx Bombers have pretty much turned it around. While they still trail the AL East leading Red Sox by 7 games, they find themselves just 1 back of the Mariners in the Wild Card race and in position to make a final-month push. Alex Rodriguez keeps on swinging with his major league leading 43 home runs and 123 RBIs. But, there's still one veteran Yankee who isn't pulling his weight.


Mike Mussina appears to have lost his starting job after his third awful outing in a row Monday night. The righty gave up 9 hits and 6 runs, all earned, in just 3 innings pitched against the Tigers. The Yankees lost the game 16-0. This comes on the heels of a worse performance against the Angels last week, in which Mussina suffered through just an inning and two-thirds before exiting with 7 earned runs under his belt. I watched as the Yankees lost that game 18-9. Mussina moved to 8-10 on the year with a 5.53 ERA.

In his last 3 starts alone, he's given up 19 earned runs in 9.2 innings pitched. Pretty awful for a guy who has won 247 career games and appeared in nearly 500. Manager Joe Torre says that Mussina is being replaced by prospect Ian Kennedy in his next start. How permanent the move will be is unknown. I get the feeling that the veteran Yankee won't be gone too long, as Torre and the Yankee organization tend to prefer the Mussina types over the Kennedy types. I can tell you one thing, though. I'm dropping him from my fantasy team.

Labels: A-Rod, Baseball, Kevdog, Mussina, Yankees

Our journey began on Saturday with a 6 hour drive from Arlington, VA to Cleveland, OH. A little traffic, a stop for lunch, and a stop in Pittsburgh to pick up tickets for our Monday night Pirates vs. Giants doubleheader, and we arrived in Cleveland about 4:30 for the 7:05 game. Blasting "Cleveland Rocks" (of "The Drew Carey Show" fame) on the iPod, we drove through downtown, by Lake Erie and past the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We parked and headed towards Jacobs Field. On the way was Quicken Loans Arena, where LeBron and the Cavs just surrendered their chance at the NBA Championship to the San Antonio Spurs. After a stop in the Cavs team store, we headed to the baseball game.

We arrived at Jacobs Field to pick up our seats from Will Call in the left field bleachers. The instant we walked into the stadium, I was a fan. We went through the gate in the "Toyota Home Run Terrace" to watch batting practice. After a few chances at grabbing a home run ball during BP, we walked around the stadium before heading to our seats.


It felt a lot like PetCo Park in San Diego. Very clean and new looking, despite opening in 1994. There's a big bar area in Centerfield, which was packed throughout the game, as well as a "Marketplace" food court area out there. There was also a gaming area with a radar gun to try out your pitch speed in right field. If I remember right, Michael threw 63.

We headed up to the nosebleeds (see picture below) to our seats to watch the game. The Yankees were in town, which was pretty entertaining to see. One look around the stands, and it was easy to see that there were more Yankees fans in the world Cleveland than there were Indians fans. Chants of "Let's Go Yankees" were prevalent, while only about 3 people even put forth an effort of a "Let's Go Tribe" chant.


A Victor Martinez sacrifice fly gave the Indians' fans something to cheer about in the first inning, but a 7-run second inning for the Yankees shut them up quickly. Yankees fans were loving it, and it was pretty entertaining to see. Paul Byrd got ripped on, as A-Rod hit 2 homeruns in the Yankees 11-2 victory. The first 2 innings had that sort of playoff atmosphere at fans jeered back and forth at each other. Then, the Indians fans were forced to simply shut up.

As for the ballpark itself, it probably ended up being my favorite of the trip. It didn't quite have the location as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati did (right on the water, more on that later), but the stadium itself was the best. A restaurant with big glass windows in left field was a nice touch, as well as the bar area in center so Indians fans could drink away their sorrows and have fun after the game still in the park was pretty sweet too. Also, the Indians Hall of Fame in center was fun to see.

All in all, a cool city and a great ballpark.

Labels: A-Rod, Byrd, Cleveland, Indians, Jacobs Field, Kevdog, Road trip, Yankees