The View from Lady Lake: America's pastime?

Thursday, September 12, 2019

America's pastime?

They're changing the great American sport.

And not for the better...

This is excerpted from USA Today and I couldn't agree more.

MLB lifers decry the state of the modern baseball: 'Unwatchable'

Ex-Yankees pitcher Rich "Goose" Gossage is not a fan of baseball as it's played today.

The game is still played with the pitchers’ mound 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate, the bases 90 feet apart, three outs per half inning and nine innings in a regulation game. Those are about the only constants resembling the game of baseball as we once knew it

Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon is the latest to express his fury at the baseball gods, but he’s at a decided disadvantage as opposed to the rest of disgruntled baseball lifers across the nation. He is required to sit and watch these games.

But as for the likes of Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage, all-time hit king Pete Rose, and former World Series champion manager Lou Piniella, they certainly have a choice. They can change the channel.

“I can’t watch these games anymore,’’ Gossage said. “It’s not baseball. It’s unwatchable. A lot of the strategy of the game, the beauty of the game, it’s all gone.

And if the changes to the way the game is played – more home runs, shifts, strikeouts – weren’t startling enough, Major League Baseball is experimenting with new technology and drastic rule changes in the independent Atlantic League, namely using an automated system to call balls and strikes.

These trials in the Atlantic League are part of a larger shift in the game. A new era of analytical baseball, where everything is measured, quantified and optimized by raw, heartless numbers.

There’s more knowledge and information than ever before, which is relished in the industry, but critics say it’s sucked the heart and soul out of the game.

Sweet Lou back in the day.

“All anybody wants to do is launch the ball,’’ Piniella said. “They’re making the ballparks smaller, the balls tighter, and all we’re seeing is home runs. “There are no hit-and-runs. No stolen bases. Nothing.

“I managed 3,400 games in the big leagues, and never once did I put on a full shift on anybody. Not once. And I think I won a few games without having to shift.’’

I agree with Lou. The game is over-managed these days.

I have been to a major league ball park in 20 years. The prices are ridiculous (try $ 12.00 for a friggin' beer), the games take entirely too long, and the seats hurt my ass.

...

I admit to being an idiot.

I don't watch late-night TV. I'm usually asleep (read passed out drunk?) by 9:30 or so. I just found out Johnny Carson isn't on any more. So anyway, I have never seen the Jimmy Kimmel Show (if that's what it's called) although I do know who he is. I just read up on this - pretty damn funny stuff:

Jimmy Kimmel brought the town of Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador, continent-wide attention in mid-August when he gifted the community a Hollywood-style sign installed on a hill above the town.

Soon, Canadian adult toy company Our Pleasure posted a video to Facebook featuring some of its products in front of the sign and at other locations around the town, reported The Telegram, inciting anger among some residents. "They went too far with this," said Andrew Pretty, a member of the town's local service district committee. "They had one picture right next to the playground ... it's not right."

Our Pleasure owner Cathy Daniels described the video as "more of a fun video," but townspeople don't see the humor. They are circulating a petition asking Our Pleasure not to use photos of Dildo for its advertising and social media campaigns.

...

We're going to hell in a handbasket.

Well at least the morons in San Francisco certainly are...

The inmates that run that particular asylum are quite a bunch.

Snowflakes Falling Everywhere:

Ex-cons, juvenile delinquents and drug addicts are getting new monikers in San Francisco, thanks to the Board of Supervisors' new "person-first" language guidelines.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, someone just released from prison will be a "justice-involved person"; a repeat offender will be a "returning resident." People on probation will be "persons under supervision." The under-18 criminal crowd will be known as "young people impacted by the juvenile justice system."

Those suffering from addiction will be "people with a history of substance use." Words such as "convict" and "inmate" "only serve to obstruct and separate people from society and make the institutionalization of racism and supremacy appear normal," the board's resolution reads. "Referring to them as felons is like a scarlet letter," Matt Haney, board supervisor, said. [San Francisco Chronicle, 8/11/2019]