Hello and good day. Here we are well into the month of February of the year 2022 and the start of the 2022 spring training has been delayed. In my estimation, Rob Manfred has failed to be the leader Major League Baseball needs and thus he needs to be replaced.
Let’s look at the man’s recent activities in relation to his job duties, shall we? Last year he spearheaded a political play to steal millions of revenue dollars from the city of Atlanta, Georgia (hey Denver, Colorado! Would you like 10’s of millions of dollars?) over a political play that was essentially none of Major League Baseball’s business. Eventually the city of Atlanta was able to recoup some of their losses by ultimately being triumphant in the fall classic aka The World Series. How did good old Rob parlay this great underdog story into momentum for the offseason? By not being proactive in the slightest and sitting on his hands for literally months whilst the franchise teams engaged in a lockout with their players’ union.
Strike one.
Manfred and his focus group of bean counters are worried about the length of games being 45 seconds too long. His fix-all solutions are to try to curtail mound visits and other insignificant rules that add about six minutes to a game. True baseball fans (aka baseball’s core customers) will watch a baseball game if it last 2 hours and 30 minutes or 2 hours and 45 minutes or 3 hours and 6 minutes. He needs to stop obsessing over the micro when the macro is fine. His agenda is letting the sponsors dictate how the game (product) is presented and portrayed. Does anyone remember when the St Louis Cardinals of the National League played the Minnesota Twins of the American League in a daytime World Series game in 1987? That was 35 years ago by my count. Stop making everything about primetime advertising leverage and trying to squeeze an extra 50 Cent, er…50 cents out of each telecast.
Strike two.
The farce that is the Hall of Fame selection process is EMBARASSING. Your all-time hits leader and all-time home run leader are not inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. Regardless of the speculative circumstances surrounding a player’s accomplishments, if their stats are in the record books and acknowledged as the yardstick for the sport, then these players are legit and should be considered on their accomplishments (period). Case and point, recently the besmirched designated-hitter David Ortiz was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. In 10 category comparisons (seasons played, hits, runs batted in, home runs, walks, runs (scored), doubles, Gold Gloves (defense), stolen bases and strikeouts) between Ortiz and Home Run Champ Barry Bonds…Ortiz only is above Bonds in one of those categories (career doubles 632 vs 601). What is missing here is the ‘good guy’ double standard MLB and its coverage crusties employ. Ortiz, despite getting caught with his hand in the performance enhancing cookie jar, is a personable and likeable personality. Bonds on the other hand was viewed as kind of a ‘Richard’ throughout the sport and thus is not given the same chance to rehab his legacy. As far as the All-time Hits King in Pete Rose Sr…he should 1000000% be in the Hall of Fame as a player. If the sport wants to permanently disbar him from the Hall as a manager, I’d support that no questions asked. As a manager, Charlie Hustle was middling at best. But as a player, competitor and recordholder (for a record that was set three dozen years ago that will never be touched again), the now 80-year-old Rose deserves to be pardoned by Manfred and enshrined.
Strike three…YOU’RE OUT ROB!
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