Seattle Mariners, 2001 world champs

Bud Selig took the wrong approach when he decided to have the All-Star game determine home field advantage for the World Series. This is no secret, and sports columnists and fans have thorougly addressed the wrong-headedness of this decision over the past several years. Making the game 'count' (in the sense that a sporting event can 'count' because it has meaning in a larger context, like a team's record for the season) has not changed the manner in which the rosters are conceived or the manner in which the game is played. Your Mark Redmans of the world (5.27 ERA) will still make the team, because of the at-least-one-per-team rule, and middling players from the high profile, large market teams will benefit from ballot stuffing. (I'm looking at you, Red Sox and Yankees.) And most of the starting line-up is gone after a few innings, so as to provide cameos by the backups that barely register. If Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are nattering on over footage of an earlier play, you might miss the single at bat by the guy who actually is the best player in the league at that position that year.

So I would like to suggest a completely different perspective on the games that take place outside of the context of the regular season. Instead of trying to make the All-Star game count more, fuzzying the line between 'exhibition' games and games that 'count,' let's view the entire post-season as a long exhibition as well. When someone refers to the Diamondbacks as the 2001 World Champions, do you honestly believe that they were the best baseball team that year? (Seattle was pretty good that year, I believe.) Whether or not the best team wins in the post-season does bother me, but a merit-based argument on that topic is a different subject for a different day. No, I'd like us all to take this viewpoint because the post-season will continue to be on Fox for another 7 years, at least, and I wish to pout about it.

Of course, there is more to the games than the way they are presented to us on television. But as the entertainment they are, the games are supposed to live with us in real time, not just as box scores the next day. And I feel that if the games can't be presented to me in a fashion that I find watchable and entertaining, I'd almost prefer to pretend that they don't 'exist,' that they don't 'count.'

The corny broadcasters, led by, but not limited to, McCarver and Buck are the most obvious part of the Fox baseball problem. McCarver can't broadcast forever, true, but I don't have faith that the aesthetic of their sports packaging will have substantially changed in say, 2035. It seams like every talking head they have is less charismatic and credible than your local UHF channel's 10:00 news crew. Correct me if i'm wrong about this, but I could swear that I heard Steve Lyons call Chuck Knoblauch a 'gladiator' during the 2000 playoffs. And my favorite McCarver quote, regarding Bernie Williams in the same era: "A powerful swing, from a powerful man."

Their attempts to pander to the 'family' demographic with excessive graphics and the like are so condescending, I can't imagine any young kid smart enough to take to baseball to actually be wooed by them, however well intentioned they may be. The 8:00 PM intro had Americans from all walks of life staring at the sky as stars - get it? - rocketed across the continent to Pittsburgh. And did they still have that talking computer graphic baseball? I slept through part - and by part, I mean most - of the game.

So instead, I'd just like to focus my attention on the regular season and leave it at that. Instead of pretending to care who wins the All-Star game, I'm going to pretend to not care who wins in the post-season, especially because I have to watch Fox to see the games. (Note that I can't committ to not watching the post-season. I'm just saying I'll hold it in low regard.) Whoever has the best record at the end of the season is the true champ, I will insist, if only to myself!