Never underestimate the power of stupidity when it comes to the folks in charge of America's "grand old game". These are the sort of people that would design a one-way road tunneling through a mountain -- and put a stop light half way through. Boneheads.
Consider some of their "genius" ideas over the years.
Long ago, they decided pitchers had become too dominant, so they lowered the pitching mounds. I'll get back to that.
One league (American) has a designated hitter and the other (National) does not. Aren't they supposed to be playing the same game? So why are the rules different? Wouldn't that be a bit like teams in the Eastern Conference of the NBA having the 3-point shot available, while teams in the West had to settle for 2 points on an equally long shot?
And when inter-league play, much less the World Series, rolls around, the rules flip back and forth depending on which team is playing at home. How dumb is that?
Former Commish Bud Selig once let an All-Star game end in a tie. Not because it was pouring down rain or incoming nukes were detected, but because both teams were running short on pitchers. Countless millions of dollars were spent to put that game together and players traveled from thousands of miles away to be there. But he called it off with no winner because it might put undue hardship on the "poor" dears from the 1-percenter club to play for another 15-20 minutes? Bull****. Out of pitchers? Bring in a position player to pitch. Sure, the hitters would rock him all over the park, but that's the point. Runs would be scored. At least the game would have had a winner. Only a bonehead like Selig would think a tie was a good result, while millions of fans that had watched on TV for hours threw up their hands in disbelief.
Now they're talking about changing the strike zone -- again. Evidently, even with the lowered mounds mentioned above, run production is down. The pitchers are dominating too much -- again.
But the strike zone itself over the years is another example of MLB being boneheads. It was once supposedly from the shoulders to the knees, but never called that way. No batter could hit a shoulder-high pitch other than maybe a pop-up. Then it was lowered to the "letters", or roughly armpit level to the knees, but it wasn't called that way either. Any pitch above the waist was deemed "high". So why set official strike zones if they weren't going to be called as such anyway? Seemed dumb.
Even a pitch at the waistline was most times called high by the umps. The strike zone had morphed into roughly crotch level to the knees. It was shrinking -- again.
And recently it's changed yet again. It's become lower. Pitched balls clearly below knee level are being called strikes. Regardless, MLB wants to see more hitting so they're considering altering the strike zone, yep, again. It might just be that, before they're done, only a pitched ball over the middle of the plate at mid-thigh level will be considered a strike. Great for hitters. Not so good for pitchers.
But by doing so, MLB, in their infinite wisdom, will find themselves in quite the dilemma. It's no secret that games have become much longer and the league wants to speed things up. Yet how can they do that if they want more hitting which, by its very definition, means more baserunners and longer innings? Only boneheads could come up with such logic. Mr. Spock would likely disapprove.
However, there's a much better way to solve this dilemma and it would make the game far more exciting as well.
Forget tinkering with the strike zone. Every ump calls it different anyway.
Bring back the 'roids. Tell me you weren't caught up in the era when the juiced brutes were walloping moon shots all over parks, and I'll tell you I don't believe it. Of course it was exciting.
And if the players want to put things in their bodies that they know will make their heads explode in a few years for the sake of short-lived fame and fortune, then who are we, or MLB to tell them they can't?
I say go for it. For the most part they're just a bunch of grossly overpaid dumb jocks anyway. Another batch will come along, so who cares?
Thus, ergo, and ipso facto, as the founder and CEO (Completely Eccentric Oddball) of the Bonehead Files, I do hereby induct MLB, from new Commish Rob Manfred on down to the air-headed ball girls they deploy along the sidelines, into our hallowed Hall of Incompetence.
They've earned it over the years and show no signs of their collective light bulbs going on anytime soon.
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