Your Jose Lima Update

Now, which of the following points amazes you the most about our man's indie ball comeback...

1) Jose Lima is still employed to pitch at any level

2) Garry Templeton (yes, of "If I'm not starting, I'm not departing" fame)is employed as a baseball manager

3) Lima is still married to a woman with a Show-level rack

4) The presence of Mrs. Lima ensures that Mr. Lima will continue to be more than blog-worthy for the foreseeable future

5) Long Beach, CA seems to be the repository of all of Teh Crazy in the sporting world

Breastpaw

Eri Yoshida is 17 years old, 5 feet tall, 114 pounds and female. She is also the first female, assuming that one does not think unkind thoughts about Hideo Nomo, to pitch against men in a Japanese professional league.

Friday in Osaka, she made her debut, walking the first hitter on four pitches, giving up a stolen base, and then striking out the next hitter before being replace. She throws a sidearm knuckleball, which can't be something that most people have much experience handling, and wants to emulate Tim Wakefield, which can't say much about her future offers to pop her top for skin magazines. Yoshida is said to have been pitching since she was in second grade, so that gives her a solid decade of throwing the knuckler.

Now, there is the usual question as to whether this is a publicity stunt (of course), and the Lemur's Rob Neyer asked the particularly obvious and insensitive question as to how she's handle a bunt, or what she'd do on a 3-0 count. Um, Rob... what makes Yoshida's plight in that situation any different from, say, Chad Bradford? And did being a lot shorter than most of his opponents stop Tom Gordon from having a 20-year career? I don't remember too many people worrying about Pedro Martinez not being able to handle himself out there despite being half of the size of some of the hitters. Hell, Pedro was a headhunter. Plus, he beat up Don Zimmer. That has to count for something.

The simple fact of the matter is that baseball is an individual sport with a ton of physical outliers, and if Yoshida gets people out -- and I'm thinking that any 17 year-old person that can strike an adult out, by any means, is something of a prospect -- she'll have a job, regardless of whether or not she sells tickets. And, of course, she will. Teams have employed utter reprobates like Ugie Urbina, Denny McClain and Dwight Gooden; the job is to get outs, and if you can do that, nothing else really matters.

I am convinced, and have stated before on this blog, that during my lifetime, a woman will pitch in the major leagues. Yoshida has just the kind of novelty act that could break through, and if it's not her, it will be someone that can get the ball up to 90 mph.

Particularly if she's left-handed. And cute. (What, you think there won't be some ticket sales involved?)

Hugo's Not Gonna Like That

Re-enacting the same kind of vibe as when the least Dutch looking group of athletes ever knocked off the Dominicans, it's the South Koreans taking down my pick to win, the Venezuelans. The Koreans go to the finals, and will either face the Japanese or Americans.

You'd like to wax rhapsodic about the scrappy Koreans, but really, Hugo Chavez's team lost this one when Johan Santana claimed an ouchie and went home. Carlos Silva is one of those guys that "pitches to contact", and that's right up there with "knowing the system" and "being a game manager" in the list of compliments that you want to avoid as an athlete. Someone with the name of Yoon Suk-Min gave the Koreans a quality start, Bobby Abreu continued his long slow slide into obsolescence based on awful defensive play, and over 40 thousand people paid to see this in Los Angeles. All was right in Commissioner Bud's world.

Are the Koreans really ready to be our new baseball overlords? No, of course, not, because that means the WBC actually has some consequences or isn't a complete joke. But who knows, maybe this will mean Silva a spot in a Caracas jail on some trumped up charge from the Hugonots. That's something that Seattle Fan could also really get behind...

A Small Note to the Lemur's Coverage of the World Baseball Classic

Yes, it's amusing, shocking, amazing or all of the above when Team USA loses on the mercy rule to Puerto Rico. (And yes, kids, this officially puts me deep in the black of finding things to fill the bloghole with today.)

No, it doesn't mean that there is something wrong with us as a country that we're not giving this august experience the prestige and importance that it deserves. And the same goes for the Olympics, or the Little League World Series, or any other short-series experience that you can name.

What it means, really, is that Baseball Is A Funny Game, prone to all kinds of low sample size weirdness. If the worst team in baseball somehow found itself into the World Series against the best team, it would win a third of the time.

And that's just factual, really; it happens every year in MLB with top teams struggling against crud teams. Greatness is determined over time and at bats and innings and lots of them, and while jumping to conclusions is fun, it also leaves you looking real silly real fast. Consider the case of the mighty Cubans, who were being written up as clearly the best team in the WBC before today, when they went down meekly, 6-0, to the Japanese. I caught their act today, and it looked like they didn't have a single player who was at all interested in working a pitch count. (It also doesn't mean that Japan, with their 0.79 team ERA, is a clear next best pick; that's a lineup that's utterly devoid of power.)

Are the Americans prone to treating the WBC as Spring Training in different uniforms? Of course; they should. Will there ever be a truly meaningful international event in baseball, a la the soccer World Cup? Well, maybe, but if so, it won't be an annual event that happens in March; it'll be a lot more involved than that, because it will have a heckuva lot more countries involved.

And if you need to rail against a country and their culture for what happens in a short series sports event... well, that just says more about the writer than it does the event. It's not such a good thing, either.

Your World Baseball Classic Scouting Report

Did you know that we were just 17 days before China and Japan tee it up for the World Baseball Classic? More importantly, could anyone on this earth give a good God damn?

Anyway, it's coming like the onset of gout, gray hair and new music that you will hate, so let's focus on why each team can't win, just to see if I can get some foreign nations to provide me with cheap traffic heat.

Australia: Their best known pitcher was last seen pouring gasoline on the D-Rays World Series hopes (Grant Balfour). Their next best known guy is Ryan Rowland-Smith, who used to be Ryan Rowland until he got married. There are no current MLBers in the position players. And all Australians are closet cases, given the criminal genetic past. But other than that, they're golden.

Canada: Somehow, I'm not seeing Rich Harden being healthy enough to make his starts. Jeff Francis as the #2 isn't terrible, but after Jesse Crain, there are no known pitchers in the bullpen.

They also currently have eight catchers on the roster, which I'm presuming is part of some communist government works program (seriously, they have more catchers than infielders).

They've got some outfielders (Jason Bay, Mark Teahen, Aaron Guiel), but they're also employing Matt Stairs, who clearly sold his soul for that NLCS homer. And in the final equation of things, they're Canadians, aka the people who are too nice to ever win anything. It's a wonder we were able to keep them from apologizing the Allies to defeat in WWII.

There's also this: they have Stubby Clapp on the roster. How are we sure this entire team isn't just an elaborate hoax?

China: They've got two Yankees, but neither of them have ever been heard of. The country's single child policy means that all of their players are convinced that they are special little snowflakes, so there won't be any team spirit to speak of.

Since the games won't all happen in China, they will also be struck down by the presence of actual oxygen in the stadiums they play at. And since the world's economy is in free-fall, they'll all be too depressed over the bath they are taking on their Western investments. (See? There *are* bright sides to economic collapse!)

Chinese Taipei: There are 10, count 'em, 10 members of the Brother Elephants on this team. How can that possibly be good for team unity, when 2/5ths of the team are worried about secret Elephant Tusk shakes and getting frozen out by the Brotherhood?

But on the plus side, a china-Chinese Taipei bean-ball war could trigger thermonuclear holocaust. You always knew Bud Selig would be responsible for the End of Days, didn't you?

Cuba: With the thaw in US-Cuban relations following the election of Barack Obama, many observers feel that there will be an eventual normalization in the hostilities between the two countries. Which means, of course, that nothing like that will happen, and the players on the Cuban team will blow it for everyone by emigrating en masse. It's a little hard to execute a 4-6-3 double play when the shortstop is making a run for it over the left field wall, and the first baseman is trying to look gringo in the opposing dugout.

Besides, Elian Gonzalez isn't on the team (yet), so there are no magical players to overwhelm all media coverage and allow the rest of the team to win the tournament on the sly.

Dominican Republic: Ah, here's a favorite. With a roster that's entirely made up of MLB talent, the island that has single-handedly populated MLB with talented Ramirezi should be the front-runners, but there's already chinks in the armor with Albert Pujols bailing out, Pedro Martinez turning 60, and Carlos Marmol becoming useless in advance of his flameout year in the Cub bullpen.

Add in the ticking time bomb that is Francisco Liriano's elbow and the overall lack of experienced relievers, and there's more than enough reason to see a DR D Feat. But if they do win, no one shake hands with Moises Alou!

Italy: No, seriously, Italy has a team (and no, there isn't a single MLB-owned player on it). Considering they haven't been good at baseball since before the color barrier was broken, and that their national history in warfare tells me that if they are behind in the fifth inning, they all switch to the other team...

I could go on. But there's too much traffic to this blog from guys in North Jersey who work in, um, "construction"... so I'll just let this one stay where it is right now, before I wind up hung from my toes. (For those of you counting Mussolini's Death references, this now gets the blog up to six. It's something we're all very proud of.)

Japan: Seven MLBers here, all of them reasonably competent, sprinkled amidst a ton of Ham Fighters, Golden Eagles and Yakult Swallows. This blog tries very hard to not go for the cheap humor of The Gay Joke...

But we're not made of stone, people! (Or wood, for that matter.) The team from the Rising Sun goes down in a fit of adolescent giggling and towel-snaps.

Korea: Jung Bong Is Back! The best name in MLB history rolls his own for the LG Lions these days, which means that in the off-season, he's making your appliances. Between him and the immortal BK Kim (current MLB affiliation: Please, Dear God In Heaven, Not My Team), I'm not seeing their pitching as being quite at the championship level.

(Oh, and for heaven's sake, BK's lost his passport. This man needs his own reality show.)

There is also this: there are 10 Lees on this team, and five of them are outfielders. No chance for them not having a crippling batting out of order problem... every single damn inning.

Mexico: Half of this team is on an MLB roster, but when the best of these players is Jorge Cantu, you're not living in fear of their talent level. Can Oliver Perez fail on an international level under pressure, when he's shown himself to be such a rock for the Mets in pressure situations?

Ah, now I've given you all a reason to watch now, have I? Dammit. I know I should have just stayed with the cockfighting and illegal alien jokes.

Netherlands: Who knew the Netherlands played baseball? I did, but only after getting thrown against a wall by the 6'5" Marlins RHP and de facto pro wrestler Rick VandenHurk. If you want to run against the forces of VandenHurkamania, you're on your own.

(Oh, and seriously? Winning baseball can not be played in wooden shoes. This team can go finger a dyke. Hey-oh!)

Panama: Two current MLB pitchers and no infielders means an awful lot of pitching around Carlos Lee, and being from Panama means that no one has paid them any mind since the elder Bush was in the White House.

And since I have nothing else to say about them, let's close with a gratuitous insult to Colorado closer Manual Corpas. I want my corpses automatic, dammit.

Puerto Rico: What gives? You people are part of the United States, dammit. Giving you your own team is like giving Florida it's own team, only less competitive.

True, there's a load of MLB talent here and multiple Molinas, but there's no way that a team with such questionable sovereignty can win so prestigious a title as this. (Ah, sarcasm. Your key to filling a bloghole.)

South Africa: There's no way to get out of this one with my advertisers intact, is there? Nope. Nor is there a way for a team with no front-line MLB talent, not to mention the very worst nation karma in the field -- seriously, China's looking cuddly next to you folks -- to pull off a win in our lifetimes.

But on the plus side, they get to go home and get a close look at Zimbabwe.

USA: These spoiled SOBs? Forget it. Who on this roster is going to so much as break a sweat for their mother country? Every single player on the roster is on an MLB roster, with guaranteed money ahead of them and a team at home that is just waiting for them to get hurt -- which would be the very fast end to this stupid little timewaste.

So expect a level of effort that would shame a front-line NFL player in a July mini-camp, and a shameful national defeat... that will be forgotten about within a week, because any team can win in a short series, and no one in this country could care about this.

Venezuela: Viva Hugo! Here's your winning team, boyos, behind the startling arms of King Felix, Johan and Big Z, and the Miguel Cabrera / Magglio Ordonez offense. Hey, if it was good enough for a 74 win Tiger team in 2008, it's good enough to be the best in the world in a trumped up tournament that no one cares about...

No one, that is, except for the Venezuelans, who will be, how shall we say, motivated by the rather strong leadership of El Hugo. Who needs to win this the most? Why, the friends and families of the national team's players, of course!

FTT Book Club: The Entitled

When I was but a wee teenager and searching for a purpose / occupation in life, I gravitated to sports writing. Eventually, I discovered that I wanted to dress better than a homeless man outside of a sports merchandise clearance store (seriously, the profession as a whole is so much about The Free, it's terrifying), and eat something more than Bottom Ramen. There was also that pesky matter of college loans to take care of.

But anyway, before I thought better of it, I wanted to be a sports writer. One of the reasons why was Frank Deford. On a whim, I bought his recent novel, "The Entitled."

The book concerns itself with the inner workings of a fictional Cleveland Indians team where the manager, a longtime minor-league coach who sacrificed family for career, is about to be fired, presumably for not getting the most out of his star outfielder... when the outfielder is a suspect in a rape case. A case in which the manager may have seen the victim.

Deford is able to move the point of view among his various protagonists and make them all believable. He's also able to make his baseball scenes seem real without making them overly complex; it's the kind of book that you can read, then share with a non-fan. It's also fairly intriguing in that none of the characters are without sin, and Deford trusts his audience enough to make the ending less than airtight.

The book's blurbs make it sound like it's "Eight Men Out" or better; it's not. But Deford has a lifetime of good work behind him, which means a little hyperbole is to be expected, and he really can write. It's worth a read.

Parents Ruin Everything

A quick h/t to longtime friend of the blog CMJ Dad for this one... a story of Jericho Scott. That's him to the right. He's nine years old and throws too hard for Little League, so the league is going to fold his team, rather than let him pitch. No, seriously.

You see, facing some other kid's 40 mph heat when you are a beginning player is too scary for beginners. And yes, there's conspiracy theories afloat that he's being blackballed for not joining the league champions. This is a libertarian wet dream of a movie deal right here.

So the other teams, rather than, um, play and try to hit the kid, just quit. It's the safe thing to do, and much more accommodating to the long-term goal of having the kids enjoy themselves while playing ball.

The obvious knee-jerk response to this is to commence the face and head slapping (yours, then with more luck, theirs), but I'm going the other way on this. I played one year of Little League, stunk on ice, and was afraid that some kid was going to kill me pretty routinely.

The lessons that I learned from that experience were priceless, and those were that I sucked at baseball, and that it would be better for all concerned if I found something better to do with my time. (Namely, hockey, the sport for people who have no vertical leap, depth perception, or fondness for one's shins.)

Look, as a parent, I can understand the desire to shield your kids from crushing failure, but the parents for this place need to embrace the opportunity. By getting shamed and stoned at age nine, they stand to save years of Little League fees, and help to break little Chase and Aston of their unrealistic dreams early. Goodbye, private college. Hello, plumbing school. Scott's parents should farm him out as a service...

Minor Amusements

Tonight in Trenton, the Shooter Family went to its first minor league baseball game, a walkover from the first-place Trenton (a Yankee outfit) over the last-place Reading Phillies.

I'd tell you more about it, but short of the forgotten Victor Zambrano shutting down the feeble Phils, there wasn't much of the game that made an impact on me. Instead, it was more the surroundings (I was in a luxury box thanks to a blogging companion who shall remain one of the guys from Hugging Harold Reynolds), the nice little place that is Trenton's Waterfront Park, the inflatable kids' play area, and the post-game fireworks.

Everyone had a good time, and Trenton's got a very nice honor role of past alumni, and you can't help but be charmed by the simple pleasures of minor league baseball. A half hour before the first pitch, we were taking a service elevator up to the luxury box, and the elevator operator told us to listen for him during the game, in that he was doing color for the first three innings, play by play in the fourth through sixth, and color through the close.

I also have T-shirts older than him.

You can see why people like this, and it's not a good idea to underestimate the economics. Two dollar parking is a smile-inducing moment in comparison to the MLB gouging, ten dollar tickets are even better, and all of the merch was cheap, too. Concessions were similar in price to MLB, and the kid area set me back a bit, but in terms of a 3.5 hour night out with the family, you couldn't do much better.

Oh, and the Shoooter Youngest likes fireworks, and yelling. "Baseball!" a lot. So, there's that.

(Oh, and for the record, I remain opposed to the idea of baseball games where the wins and losses don't matter very much, and dream of a world where there are no minor league affiliations, and relegation for teams that tank to AAA. Moving on...)

Do Not Crowd The Plate In Japan

Actual commercial from the Land of the Rising Insanity. I'm still amazed that we won WWII, given that Crazy Strength is a serious problem to overcome. Imagine what these people would be like if they really got into the NFL?

As A Sports Blogger. I'm Required By Law To Mention This

So two people at a high school basketball game in Connecticut (shocking, no?) were ejected after not standing up for the National Anthem... and are now contemplating... wait for it... legal action!

Now, every blogger in the world will make the obvious point that the spectators are tools; that's guaranteed, of course, if for no other reason than they made the game more about them than the players. But what if this someone gets the Yankee Gestapo to stop doing the 7th Inning Retch? Or maybe even gets us to the point where a million bad celebs can't torture the anthem with their own special artistic visions?

Well, then these people might be the greatest American patriots of this, or any other, generation. It makes me want to find and salute a flag just thinking about it, really...

Brain Versus Eyes

Twenty years ago, I'm pretty sure that I was reading the Bill James Baseball Abstract in preparation for a fantasy draft, devouring as much of his faintly patronizing but obviously persuasive arguments with zeal. And just like any number of baseball geeks, I was convinced I was in on the first whispers of a Revolution.

While the game was obviously still stuck in hidebound traditions with bonehead management, eventually the free market of better offensive and defensive players would win out, and the sabermetric virtues -- patient hitting for power, with a studied indifference, if not contempt for little-ball sacrifice strategies, and avoiding defensive errors while having provably good range -- would prevail. We'd enter a glorious new age where swing at anything meatheads would be recognized for the production holes they were, and the game would make more sense on every level.

Well, that's more or less what happened. The Red Sox hired James, and he's been in their organizations for both championships. The Yankees signed Jason Giambi to a monstrous deal for his hyperactive on base percentage, and at the time, no one thought that was a bad idea. Guys like Matt Starks and Scott Hatteberg have managed to have long careers, despite not looking like the kind of people that would keep finding at-bats in their old age. People think Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu are worthy of big contracts, rather than cowards who were too selfish to swing the bat in a clutch situation. When a flashy player with questionable strike zone judgment (I'm looking at you, Jeff Francouer) comes up, people talk about how he needs to work on that, and shy away from really embracing him as a new star. Bad on base percentage, which was ignored by people who voted for Andre Dawson as an MVP in the '80s, is cited as the main reason why he's not in the Hall of Fame now. By the glacial standards of baseball -- a sport that after thirty five years, still hasn't figured out how to resolve the fact that it's two leagues play a fundamentally different game with the DH -- that's positively breakneck.

And yet, I can't help but feel that when we get to our final destination, the game is going to be, well, tough on the eyes and buttocks. Imagine if every hitter were judged on the telling statistic of how many pitches he used per at-bat... and that his compensation was directly linked to it. Somehow, I'm not thinking that his every at-bat will be captivating. For a game that's still the worse for wear thanks to the one-batter late-inning strategies of Tony LaRussa, this is not good. (And don't get me started on the death of casual base stealing. The days of heady but not fast players swiping 10 to 15 bags a year, just because that's what base runners should do, rather than just standing there and waiting for a home run? Gone baby gone. Welcome to Lardass City.)

There is, actually, something to the idea of what the scout's eyes tell him about a player. The name of this site aside, five tool players are actually fun to watch, and fun to watch is a player that's memorable... and given that only fans of MLB+ teams seem to be enjoying this era, it's kind of important to find enjoyment anywhere we can.

Which brings me to a late and lamented farewell to Jeremy Brown, the unexpected star of Michael Lewis's "Moneyball." Brown was, for those who haven't had the pleasure of reading the book, a college catcher who was the A's ideal of an undervalued talent -- cheap to sign, but a percentage monster with power and plate discipline. Like the vast majority of first round picks, he didn't set the world on fire, and he announced his surprising retirement a few weeks ago, a footnote to a good book, but nothing much as a player. (I also can't help but think that he's the end note to the Billy Beane Era of genius, too. I love the man and what he has accomplished in Oakland, but when you punt on a year before it even begins, you make me wonder why I'm rooting for the team at all.)

So give me wild-eyed Vlad Guerrero wannabees, and rifle-armed shortstops who try to make every play, no matter how many balls wind up in the stands. Give me relief pitchers with quirky deliveries who actually get a little bent when the manager comes to take them out after one hitter. In short, give me baseball, a game played by emotional and short-sighted man-childs, rather than an exercise in percentages played by guys who seem to have been cross-bred with chartered accountants. Or robots.

Because the five tool player can be honed and taught to play the percentages, but the percentage player will never be anything but a percentage player. And if the game matters to you beyond the numbers, how the player plays it is actually kind of important. (And who knows, maybe if that catches on, enough MLB+ teams will go back to making bad personnel decisions and free agent signing based on tools, and we'll regain some semblance of competitive balance. Also, while I'm wishing, I'd like a pony that craps money.)

Screwing Tony LaRussa: For The Good Of The Game

FTT is eagerly awaiting the start of the baseball season, so that we can get back to doing what we do best – infuriating the rest of our fantasy league with our startling genius. (Seriously, our track record is a championship last year, a 2nd place in 2005 and 2003, and some wins in offline league way back in the mumble mumble. As Tim Hardaway would say, we got skeeellllzzz. But we’ll talk about that later.)

But while we wait, here are some rule changes that the sport should undertake, seeing how it’s so quick to made, um, one rule change (the DH) in the last 34 years. These will happen fast.

1) Limit the number of pickoff attempts that a pitcher can throw to a base.

Let’s go for three per plate appearance. If you throw a fourth time and the runner gets back, they’re awarded second base, and it counts as a steal.

Day to day impact: Relatively minor, but it would probably speed up the games a bit, especially in the NL.

Potential playoff impact: Huge. Closer on the mound. Base stealer on first. And there’s a finite number of times the pitcher can go to first. Drama, baby.

Justification: If the pitcher throws a pitch out to try to control the running game, it’s counted as a ball. Four of them, the runner is on second. So it matches.

People this hurts: The Oakland A's, who I root for, but so be it. Pitchers that can’t hold runners on, and attempt to just wear the runner out with persistence. Everybody hates the latter group. Screw ‘em.

2) Every pitcher who enters the game has to pitch.

It’s the 8th inning, close game, men on base. In trots the lefty from the pen to face your team’s left-handed hitter. But oh ho, your team’s manager goes to a right-hander. And now the lefty is leaving, and a new right-hander is in… and the excitement is rivaled only by particularly long review challenges in the NFL.

FTT blames Tony LaRussa, the opera-loving freak, for all of this. Let's take a good look at the man who introduced open-air dentistry to the late innings, shall we?


For the relatively small (and in some cases, possibly illusionary) gain in percentage, everyone in the stadium has just watched the players stand around for, at the minimum, five minutes. If that doesn’t seem like a lot to you, please stare at your computer clock now, and wait for five minutes to elapse. See? Too damn long. Boy, you are a patient person.

Anyway, if the pitcher has to stay in to face at least one hitter, maybe we start to rein in the cancerous LaRussian timewaste tumor that has infected baseball in the last 20 years. Next time he’s behind you in a line, please waste at least 5 minutes of his day talking about his motivation. Then, make it 10.

Day to day impact: Depending on the time and the league, games lose something like 10 to 15 minutes of absolute dead time. Some relievers get overworked without the one-out guys taking as much of their time, but probably not by an incredible amount.

Playoff impact: Huge. Strategic decisions are amplified, late innings move faster, everyone starts to like baseball again, and FTT is nominated for the Nobel Prize in Baseball. (There’s no Nobel Prize in baseball? Damn. We had a speech ready and everything.)

Justification: If baseball was meant to have situational substitutions with vast numbers of players who never got a real chance to play, the rosters would be a heckuva lot bigger than 25 guys.

People this hurts: Prancing Tony. He’s got a ring, he won't care. The immediate families of borderline platoon-only relievers. (Nearly) Everybody hates these guys. Screw ‘em.

3) The hitter can refuse an intentional walk.

The intentional walk is nearly unique in American sports: a defensive capitulation that is, theoretically, in the defense’s best interests, and can not be refused by the offense. Think about that – the defense isn’t good enough to risk facing the offensive player in question, so they’ll take a smaller penalty and be rewarded for their cowardice. Do you have an out like this at your job? We didn’t think so.

So after four wide ones are thrown, the hitter has a decision to make. Drop the bat and walk to first, or stand in and go again. If he works another walk, he takes second, and all base runners move up 180 feet. But if the hitter stays in the box, the pitcher can be replaced, while the hitter can not.

Day to day impact: It’d be like going for 2 on the PAT in football – rarely done, but something that will make you move to the edge of your seat. It would also have serious repercussions in the hitter fails. And it would be one more thing to hiss Barry Bonds for, and we all could use that.

Playoff impact: Huge. Strategic decisions amplified, late innings get more dramatic, everyone starts to… oh, we already wrote that? Well, ditto. Times two.

Justification: People spend a lot of money to see the best hitters in baseball. Taking the bat out of their hands, without an option, is poor customer service.

People this hurts: Pitchers who don’t have the stones to face the best hitters. Everybody hates these guys. Screw ‘em.

4) Blow up the Hall of Fame and start over.

We’ve been to Cooperstown; it’s great. And it deserves better than the current Hall of Fame.

Not for Mark McGwire, or Pete Rose, or Shoeless Joe Jackson, or any of the other people that have their own constituencies. Not because of the weirdness involved in the “No 100%” sportswriter nerds. And not even for the dozens of marginal Veterans Committee types that got in thanks to Frankie Frisch’s homerism.

Instead, do it for Buck O’Neill. Because there was absolutely no justifiable reason for the institution to do what it did to him, and there is no justifiable reason for it to continue after that.

When you start over, induct only a small and fixed number of players for each decade – ten will do. Instead of arbitrary stats that become skewed with different eras of baseball, simply ask this question: who were the very best 10 players in the game for that decade, the ones that you could not tell the history of the game without.

Disregard all morality, since that’s not germane to what happens between the lines. (The fact is that you can’t tell the story of baseball in the 1910s without Jackson, the 70s and 80s without Rose, and the 90s without the Roid Boys. Fame includes warts.) Layer the voting so that players, sports writers, historians, broadcasters, and even the fans can have input. (The latter get to pick the single player from their team for top consideration for the decade. This will also be good fun for the rest of us, as we watch Yankee and Red Sox fans kill themselves squabbling over who should go.)

Then, we’ll have a place where the standards aren’t always under attack and in transition. A place where everyone knows why someone was there. And the Hall of Fame will never again have people in it who don’t belong.

Justification: It’d be, well, a true Hall of Fame.

People this hurts: The friends and families of guys who get disinterred, and the sports writers who enjoy their stranglehold on the game’s highest honor. For the latter, at least… well, you know.