What's wrong with Baseball

 World Serier final game summary.  Phils brought out the big bird, Schwarbler who hit a homer.  Desperato Alvarado pitched to Alvarez who hit it a mile and pitching all around was almost unhittable.  All runs come via home runs. Greatest mystery was if Dusty Baker uses the same toothpick all game long of it he goes for a new pick each inning. But I was happy to see the Strohs win.

            As a 70-year baseball fan, I must lament that baseball has become boring.  Batters work on homer hitting since that excites fans, makes the replays, and brings mega salaries.  Nobody bunts. Few stolen bases.  The squeeze play is so rare the broadcasters would have to look it up in the history books. Otherwise pitchers throwing hundred mile-per-hour fastballs rule.  Teams stock numerous relief pitchers so the pitch count doesn’t get too high for the starter.  Batters can’t hit very much.  When they do get a single, outfielders trot to retrieve the ball usually with no resolve to make a spectacular play.  The result is a game dominated by long at-bats as pitcher attempts strike-outs on junk pitches. Home runs make most of the scores.  It begins to look like a hockey game or soccer where you wait 3 or 4 hours to see a run and batting averages of .300 are rare. 

            They have tried all kinds of solutions and baseball is losing fans every year.  I’d move the pitcher back 6 or10 feet so that the batters would have a better chance to time those lightning pitches.  That would mean more hits and the increased spacing would encourage the ancient art of bunting once again. The pitch time would increase fractionally and give base stealers more of a chance.  With more hits, great fielding would become a premium more. Then move the fences back about 15 feet which may be as simple as fencing off the lower 4 rows of outfield binocular seating.  No home runs less than 400 feet. Then playing the outfield would be more of a game.  Use robotic ball-strike calling to get rid of the absolutely wrong pitch calls. Finally, we now have 12 of the entire 30 teams competing in playoffs. It means that one mediocre team can get hot and beat everybody. Which leaves fans wondering if there is any reason for playing a regular season. If that is the intent, then stop the regulation season at 154 games as of old, midway through September.  Have all playoff series be best of 7 games long, none of this 2-and-done stuff.  Baseball is always a game of probability and an extended series is needed to derive a champ.