Get ready to have your mind blown

by The Crushinator on Dec 17, 2008 11:37 PM EST Comment 33 comments

Ok check this out. When I was growing up in New Jersey I was always a huge hockey fan, played it, watched it, and fought about it. In this area of the country, as some of you hillbillies may or may not know, there are three hockey teams, the best being the Devils and the worst being the Rangers. Being a smart kid, I noticed pretty early on that the Devils usually trailed the Rangers in the standings early in the season, not because they were losing games, but because the Rangers for some reason would front load their schedule and usually have 5 or 6 more games played through the first half of their season. Now being a smart young adult this had me thinking about baseball. A bunch of teams can’t compete with team salaries being the way they are, so we even the playing field by getting rid of the 162 game season. There will be no game limit. If you can schedule it you can play it. This would blow the whole lid off the system! A good team may decide they only need to play 100 games and keep their guys fresh, and maybe has a three man pitching rotation. Teams like the Royals may keep rotating people from the minors to the majors and try to run up 180 games. It would be a completely new era in strategy, teams would get extra attendance, we’d get more baseball.

Everything would be perfect…

I think it’s a fantastic Idea……

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by Red Menace on Dec 18, 2008 12:09 AM EST reply actions 2 recs

i really don't liek this but it is too late to go through all the reasons why

but I think we have discovered that teams can compete despite small payrolls. Minnesota, Oakland, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, etc have shown that it takes more than money to win. Where as Baltimore (not so much now), LA, and the 2008 Yankee’s have shown that teams can spend a lot of money and lose. The Reds aren’t a bad team because of a limited payroll. They have lost because Brett Tomko is the last starting pitcher they developed who had any sort of major league career, and Tom Browning is the last good starting pitcher they developed.

"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word."-Andy Jack

by justin007000 on Dec 18, 2008 12:22 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Oh I know

But if we played 200 games and had an army of scrubs, not only would we close in on 90 wins you could probably pitch.

No bees? Then who will sting me and walk on my sandwiches?

by The Crushinator on Dec 18, 2008 12:52 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i can run it up there faster than jch

i can hit 60.

"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word."-Andy Jack

by justin007000 on Dec 18, 2008 8:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hey now

I have a sheet of paper (from the Reds no less) saying I hit 66 not too long ago. If warmed up, I bring the heat at 70 with movement. Sign me up now!!

"Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est."

by jch24 on Dec 18, 2008 9:41 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Whoa, that's Danny Ray Herrera range!

We Are ... Marshall!

by Thundering Turtle on Dec 18, 2008 10:00 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

You can get some extra hockey in

If you close the store early for a game on the roof.

by ken on Dec 18, 2008 6:48 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

But then your ex-girlfriend will show up.

And have sex with a dead guy in the bathroom.

Everybody's a jerk. You. Me. This jerk.

by andromache on Dec 18, 2008 8:59 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Biggest pair you ever seen!!

"Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est."

by jch24 on Dec 18, 2008 9:41 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Extra attendance?

Some teams can’t put buns in the seats now.

There’s also the union. Teams are supposed to have one day off every 21 days (I think). That would make it hard to add more games, unless you do a lot of doubleheaders. And it would make it nigh impossible to make up a game that was rained out.

And letting teams make their own schedules doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me. Teams would naturally want to avoid playing good teams. Fans, however, want to see good teams play each other.

I’d rather have football-style revenue-sharing.

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

by BubbaFan on Dec 18, 2008 7:08 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

How about the Reds play one game, win it,

and have an unbeatable winning percentage of 1.000?

We Are ... Marshall!

by Thundering Turtle on Dec 18, 2008 10:01 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Unbeatable, sure

but not untieable.

I’d like to go on record saying that this idea is very bad. In hockey, unlike baseball, standings are based on points. The math involved is beyond my hillbilly capabilities, but there are no ties in baseball. I haven’t watched a pro hockey game in a very long time, but I think I’ve heard that they no longer have ties. Even so, I think that you get more points for winning a game outright than for winning via shootout. Begs the question if winning in extra innnings would be less points than winning in 9. After 10 innings would we just have a homerun derby to decide the winner? If so we should’ve never traded Hamilton.

Would you have to schedule major league teams? Would anyone play the Red Sox or Cubs? Would you have to have home-and-home agreements like in college football? Could you buy your way out of them like Ohio State did with UC? How many times would Dusty have led off with Corey Patterson if we played 237 games last year?

Bruce Bonser? Boone Bonser? Boot Bonser? BOOSE BONZER?

by Lakeman on Dec 18, 2008 10:13 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Soccer still has a points system with ties

and that wouldn’t work unless all teams play the same amount of games. To make sure the best team makes the playoffs, the teams need to be compared on the same level (i.e. playing the same amount of games against the same teams). Otherwise, how can you figure out who the best teams are? This is such a bad idea.

Crushinator, how baked were you when you came up with this?

"My wife ain't never ran and got me no pheasant." - Fistbands

by BK on Dec 18, 2008 10:16 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

hold up there, partner.

I know there is no CRYING in baseball. Never heard anything about no ties, though.

I asked Bud about it, and he started to cry.

by bbjones on Dec 18, 2008 12:13 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think you should be more careful

Calling people hillbillies and talking about how smart you are…..
You just advanced the idea of adopting NHL methods to raise ticket sales and viewers for baseball.

-Don`t people in New Jersey smell like microwaved NYC leftovers?

by Reynard on Dec 18, 2008 10:11 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Makes sense

The bad teams would play more games, and the good teams would play less. How could this not sell more tickets and make for an exciting product?

Bruce Bonser? Boone Bonser? Boot Bonser? BOOSE BONZER?

by Lakeman on Dec 18, 2008 10:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hillbillies?

I believe the term is Appalachian Americans, thank you.

We Are ... Marshall!

by Thundering Turtle on Dec 18, 2008 1:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

"Sons of the soil"

by Brendanukkah on Dec 18, 2008 1:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

More like Trailer Trash - TT

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Sir Winston Churchill

by Madville on Dec 19, 2008 12:43 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Am I wrong here?

I thought every NHL team played 80 regular season games. Now granted, I rarely if ever pay attention to hockey.

"Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est."

by jch24 on Dec 18, 2008 11:23 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

No, I actually think you're right there

"My wife ain't never ran and got me no pheasant." - Fistbands

by BK on Dec 18, 2008 11:28 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, it's 82 games, but you're right.

"My wife ain't never ran and got me no pheasant." - Fistbands

by BK on Dec 18, 2008 11:29 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

People still play hockey?

That’s nice.

by ctnyc on Dec 20, 2008 2:55 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

after the fights get boring.

Reds fan for 40 years!

by gejoe on Dec 21, 2008 8:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i am for reducing the number of games in a season

the teams with a lot of money win because they have a lot of depth, depth which is necessary because of the long season. small market teams can’t really afford to have a ten million dollar bench player.

150 games – start a week later, end a week earlier, and make the schedules balanced so that you aren’t playing one team 16 times and another (who is competing for the same wildcard) six times.

Yes We Did!

by Daedalus on Dec 18, 2008 12:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

This isn't a bad idea

But no one wants to go back to the asterisk days of statistics.

"Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est."

by jch24 on Dec 18, 2008 1:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I do...sort of

I think it would be a great PR move for baseball to return to the 154-game schedule. No longer would the single-season accomplishments of PED-centric Bonds, McGwire, and Clemens be a major part of the touchstone of statistical comparison. Instead we will return to folks trying to match or best Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs and Hank’s 755. Add 2 more games to the first round of playoffs, subtract a few from the head and tail of the season, and you are there.

The owners won’t go for it because of lost revenue, but I believe it would be the in the best interests of baseball.

While we’re at it, I also like the Paul White (Sports Weekly, and Baseball Weekly for those of you older than 6) concept of moving the Astros to the AL West. This would create 6 perfectly balanced divisions (unlike now) but would force 2 teams on any given day to either play an interleague matchup or have an off day. This hasn;t happened because some feel that the interleague games are more marketable and exciting if scheduled in bunches and in conjunction with other teams’ interleague games. I disagree. This would allow us to return to a more balanced schedule that had us playing the out-of-division teams twice as often, while it would also be important to schedule the lesser teams to face each other at the end of the year (i.e. KC should face the Pirates in their last series), but we already do some of that; the Red Sox never play KC to finish out the year. This also creates additional revenue for the Astros and Rangers, as their in-state rivalry will increase attendance, interest, and ratings, while decreasing their travel time and putting more away games on the air during their local prime-time television schedule, further increasing revenues.

Anyone think Paul White’s plan is a good one?

I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats. - Bill Veeck

by PeteyHendrix on Dec 18, 2008 3:37 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think you could accomplish the same thing

By having each team schedule a double-header (or two) a month…that way, the owners would not lose any revenue if they wanted to schedule day-night double headers, or some of the small market teams could use the doubleheaders as a marketing tool and sell them the same way the minor league teams do.

"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball" - Pete Rose

by Officer Dibble on Dec 18, 2008 4:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hey, we agree for once!

The 154 game schedule is the best way to avoid the November World Series debacles. I also like the idea of doing it by scheduling a lot of double headers. Marty would be very pissed.

by Red Menace on Dec 18, 2008 4:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

correction

Marty ~~would be~~ is always very pissed.

We’’re in process of trying to a guy with a trade record of working with pitches

by Slyde on Dec 18, 2008 4:45 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

And poofy.

I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats. - Bill Veeck

by PeteyHendrix on Dec 18, 2008 5:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs