If It's Broken...Fix It! (Three Ways To Make Major League Baseball Better)

Falling all over the place. Ladies and Gents your 2013 Chicago Cubs!

Serious and sad confession coming. I’m a Cubs fan. Having lived in Chicago for a short time when I was a kid, I fell in love with the Cubbies back in 2000. To say I had no clue what I was getting myself into is an understatement. After doing some research on the team, I found out that the "Northsiders" didn’t have what you’d call a “winning tradition.” So I had a choice to make. Stay or go. (It was kinda like finding out your fiancee was a recovering super-slut right before your wedding.)  But I figured “What the hell?” Even though I'm from Flint, Michigan and could have rooted for the Tigers, I still picked the Cubs. The Tigers weren't any good at the time, the Cubs had one of baseball's most popular players in Slammin' Sammy Sosa (Feel free to insert your own PED joke here.), I lived in the city and since I had no team, it seemed like a good idea. (So was marrying a woman a day before I deployed to Iraq. Just saying, I haven't been known to make the smartest decisions at times. Boom! Two marriage jokes already!)

My love for the team was cultivated in the early 00s when the Cubs were pretty damn good. Peaking in 2003, when the Cubs had a pitching rotation of Prior, Wood, Zambrano and Clement. (They led the league in strikeouts and all won at least 13 games.) I spent that summer watching baseball almost everyday. Watching every pitch and every hit. My TV lived on WGN as I would listen to Cubs legend Ron Santo wax poetically as the team went 88-74. Which was good enough to win the woeful NL Central. (God rest the man’s soul but Ron Santo was a horrible color man. He was dreadfully uninformed about stats, mispronounced names and completely biased toward the hometown Cubbies. Ron Santo was about as fair and objective as the judge in a show trial.)

The Cubs looked liked they were well on their way to at least the NL Pennant but we all know how that turned out. Even still, all the pitchers mentioned above were under 26 years old, the Cubs brought in Derrek Lee and Greg Maddux via free agency and they looked like the would contend for years to come, but we all know how that turned out.

Fast-forward almost ten years to 2013, the Cubs are just as bad as ever if not a touch worse. They’re no closer to returning to their former “glory” although new general manager Theo Epstein looks like he has a plan. When your team’s out of the hunt it’s always hard to follow a sport but I’ve always been able to stay engage in baseball but not this year or the past few to be honest. I’ve only watched two games from start to finish this season.

Exciting as Mike Trout is I'd still rather catch the SportsCenter Highlights than watch a full Angels game.

Watching baseball has become almost like a chore lately and it’s not just because my team sucks. The Dodgers have been very entertaining to watch as well as my "hometown" Tigers and players like Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera are "Must-See-TV", but that’s still not enough.

Being the solutions oriented young man that I am, I’m here to offer up a few ways to fix America’s pastime. The game itself on the field, as it’s played that is, is pretty close to perfection. I don’t have any "on the field" rule changes to offer up rather a three tweaks to improve the viewing experience live or on television.

1) Get This Show On The Road Already! AKA SPEED UP!

Baseball has always been terribly slow as it is, but lately the game’s been moving about as fast as a snail locked in Snoop Dogg’s dressing room. (For any white people that don’t understand the reference, it just means really, really slow.) The average speed of a MLB game is around 2 hours 55 minutes. Yankees vs. Red Sox games average around 3 hours 30 minutes. Postseason contests involving any combination of Major League teams average about the same. Ouch!

That’s too long to do anything much less watch a baseball game. (I’m sorry, but I’m only willing to do a few things for that amount of time. Most of which involve naked women and alcohol.) It's a pretty easy fix however. Cut down on all the pointless stepping out of the box from batters. They step in and out, and in and out. Adjust their gloves. Adjust their helmets. Step in the box. Take a few practice swings. Call for time and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! STOP IT! Take a few practice cuts, step in the box and try to hit the freaking ball!

Batters aren’t the only ones slowing the game up. Pitchers are even worse. The time in between pitches and the "in-between pitches routine" some pitchers have are down right painfully long. Some guys can take upward of a minute and thirty seconds. Try it right now. Wait a minute and thirty seconds.... 

Keep waiting....

And waiting....

See. Don't you just wanna shoot yourself!  Fast workers like Clayton Kershaw or Justin Verlander are way easier to watch than slow pokes like Dice-K or Barry Zito. Pitchers have more control on dictating the pace of game even more so than the umps. (More on how they're slowing down the game later because they're guilty too.) Speaking of them…

2) Stop Show-Steal Umpires

Is it just me or lately haven't the umpires become just as much a part of the action as the players? Umpires have gotten more and more “showy” and it’s hurting the game as much as the slow play.

This is happening why too much this season.

Umpires have been mouthing off at players, taking their masks off and walking toward the mount like their ready to fight or something. I saw the Tigers catcher have to physically hold back an ump the other day. Really? Come on! You can’t say anything to these guys. Umpires are apparently about as sensitive as a pregnant woman in her third trimester. (I got two kids and trust me when I tell you this. Never, ever, ever argue with a woman when she’s at that stage of her pregnancy. Just politely nod, say “Okay honey” and go fetch whatever crazy food she's craving that day.)

The reason the umps are so out of control is because they don't seem to be accountable for any of their actions. They can say and do pretty much whatever the hell they want. If the players can be punished, so should umpires. They're on the field and they're performing a job just like the players. If a player's performance can be questioned so should an umpire's. And don’t even try to get an ump to admit it when they blow a call. You’d have an easier time trying to convince a Tea-Party Member that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

3) Replay, Replay and MORE Replay!

Baseball’s biggest underlying problem (Besides some of their biggest name players taking  Pac Man “power pills” that is.) is the lack of replay. This is 2013 damn it! There are HD cameras all over the field! Fans at home can see every little thing and so should the umpires. I’m not sure if the umps have gotten worst or the technology has just gotten that much better. Either way, replay is an absolute must at this point.

The umpires say they want to get the calls right and if that's true umpires should be screaming from the mountain tops for expanded instant replay. I know some of you just “love” the human element but I say screw that. I’d rather them get the call right. Hell, I'd have them put robots on the field if it meant they could do a better job of calling the game than humans.

 

Trust me guys! He was out by a mile! - MLB Umpire

Sure, watching your favorite manager run onto the field and raise a little hell over a blown call has a certain amount of entertainment value, but that goes back into what I was saying about slowing the game down. The manager or player can piss and moan all they want, but the call never gets changed. I guessing it feels good to give the guy an ear full, but I'm sure players and manager would rather have the visual evidence to support whatever they’re arguing about. Adding an umpire in the booth to look at close plays at homeplate as well as close plays on the base paths should do the trick. Don’t give me crap about “pace of game”. Because if you cut out all the arguing, the pitcher’s in-between routine and batter’s doing stuff like this, then there’s plenty of time.

I really like baseball. I really do. Those summers going to Wrigley Field were some of the best of my life, but even if my team was in it I’d still find baseball hard to watch. Baseball really needs to fix this. The younger generation is pulling further and further from the game, in favor of football and basketball. I’m afraid if they don’t fix it, they (MLB) really will be America’s PAST-TIME.

Thanks for reading! Join the discussion by leaving a comment below. Agree or disagree? Let me know. Follow me on Twitter @ParisLay, subscribe to the blog and as always ENJOY THE VIEW!

The Storm Is Coming...

It was all good just a week ago... Dwight Howard with Jim Buss when he joined the team last summer

How long has it been? Really think about it. How long has it been since the Los Angeles Lakers have truly looked lost? As in, there is no real, clear vision of what the future holds for the team. Now, I'm always a "glass half-full" guy when it comes to my Lakers because I was so in denial last season that I wrote this. And this. Being only 26 years old, I’ve only really known the Lakers one way: winners. I "kinda" remember the early 90’s Lakers teams middling their way through seasons right before and after Magic Johnson retired. (LA even managed to get to the NBA Finals in 1991 acting as a "sacrificial lamb" for Michael Jordan as he started his road to becoming the greatest player of all time. It's the reason why my first memories of Mike aren’t too fond.)

At least back then the team had nice young and exciting pieces like Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos and Eddie Jones. (Right now, the team is a basic who's who of old overpaid All-Stars and second rounders that should be on the bench... in the D-League!) Even with the young talent those teams had, it was the trust in the front office that truly comforted Lakers fans. We had the best front office. We had the Lakers front office and the trust in them to make all the right basketball decisions. Dr. Jerry Buss and Jerry West had proven over the years that they could make all the right moves to make the team championship contenders again and again. It wasn’t long after those middle of the road seasons that LA acquired Shaquille O’Neal in free agency and made a draft day trade for a high schooler named Kobe Bryant. They were smart enough not to waste their (Kobe and Shaq’s that is) talents with the wrong coach, so they quickly hired Phil Jackson and the rest is history. Hell, they were even smart enough to hire Phil again after his second retirement, but if you’re wondering what happened the third time around I can tell you that it’s all about the new ownership.

Glory days of Shaq and Kobe.

Once Dr. Buss stepped away from the day-to-day operation of the Lakers, things seem to have gotten worse and worse each season. Lately, the basketball decisions in LA are about as smart as they would be if you were having Stevie Wonder fix a Japanese car from the future. It’s just a job you need sight for and Jim Buss doesn’t have the sight to run a basketball team. If he did, the following three things would have never happened.

 

I still don't know why Phil isn't back yet.

One, he would have rehired the greatest coach in the history of the sport when he was asking to come back. That’s like being a movie producer and having Martin Scorsese interested in taking over your picture, but you decide to hire M. Night Shyamalan instead. The two best players on the team (One that had one you five titles (Kobe) and one (Dwight) that was an impending free agent no less.) wanted you to hire Phil Jackson. The fans wanted you to hire Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson wanted you to hire Phil Jackson! It seemed like the Lakers were headed for a breakaway slam-dunk to "win the game" when they quickly fired Mike Brown but they instead pulled up for a half-court Hail Mary three pointer… at the opposite basket… when they hired Mike D’Antoni over Jackson. Buss let his ego get in the way of making the correct basketball decision.  (But hey, if the one dude I was “suppose” to hire was treated like a son by my father and I'm talking treated like a “the son I wish I had” son and if same said dude was boning my sister, I’d be little anxious about hiring dude too. Talk about awkward Thanksgivings.)

Two, “Lil” Buss should have traded Dwight Howard on the trade deadline. This is the new NBA, so if a superstar player doesn’t want to sign an extension and wants to hit the market then trade them ASAP. (Cut to: Cleveland fans kicking the screen.) The money you can get paid is set in stone. The days of "playing the field" so you can "drive up" the price are over. (At least for the “max level” guys. The lower and middle of the road guys can still get teams to bid and overpay them. Cut to: Gerald Wallace laughing and counting money.) The team that you’re heading into free agency with always has an edge nowadays because they can pay you more than any team you’d look to go to. So, with that in mind, why EVER let Dwight hit free agency?

Three, he should have never let this happen:

Yeah, I saw that yesterday morning on my way to breakfast. (Needless to say it ruined my whole morning.) LA didn’t put up “Stay KB8” banners when Kobe Bryant was a free agent. And if they did, he had at least won titles in LA for God’s sake. They didn’t do it with Shaq and he was coming off one of his best seasons and NOT back surgery. Dwight Howard had one “okay” season and he gets a billboard all over the building and all throughout the city?! Dwight Howard?! The Lakers don’t beg players to come here. Players want to be Lakers. Players want to play in LA. But with the flux in front office leadership, players aren’t so hot on LA anymore. And that’s the problem.

Unlike most Lakers fans, I’m not mad at Dwight Howard. Shocking, I know. You see, I think he actually made the right basketball decision and I’m a total supporter of players making the best decision for themselves. I’m mad at the Lakers for not doing with Dwight what Orlando had the good sense to do; trade him. Grant it, you were never going to get equal value back, because much like the one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind, Howard is the “king” of the big men in the new small ball NBA. I’m also not one of those fans that’s going to say, “dude can’t ball". Howard did comeback way sooner from surgery than he was suppose to and even with a bad back and nagging shoulder issue he still managed to lead the league in rebounds. I lived in Orlando for 3 years and I know firsthand what he can do when he's focused, happy and healthy. (Before you get upset and say "I would've rather had Andrew Bynum", google what Philly got out of him this season…. I’ll wait… oh yeah that’s right, HE NEVER PLAYED!)

Look, even with Howard LA barely made the playoffs and much of the heavy lifting was done by Kobe before he was ran into the ground by D’Antoni, injured. Without Kobe, and with Dwight still being misused under D’Antoni, who’s to say LA wouldn’t have been even worse off. To play devil's advocate farther, you could make a real argument that, A) Howard peaked 3 or 4 seasons ago, B) he would never be able to handle the pressure of playing for a team with yearly title or bust expectations and C) he could possibly never recover that athleticism that made him such a dominant force. (Although that is the only reason I wanted him back. To see how he performs with a full off season’s rest and recovery from his surgery.)  So if you’re a fan of the team, relax but get ready. Must you forget the Lakers won titles BEFORE Howard, they won a title OVER Howard and they WILL win again. LA has a long list of problems and trust me, I get pretty far down that list before I get to “Dwight Howard”. The question isn't if LA will win again it's “when” but that could be a long time from now. With that said, Laker Nation I leave you with these immortal words from Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman.

I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It! (Episode 16 PT. 2)

Case study for violence and stupidity. Aaron Hernandez.

In the wake of the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, my brother Zeph and I have a discussion about violence in sports and why so much seems to come from the NFL. We talk about the factor money plays in the violence, what can the NFL do to limit these problems, why does the NFL seem to get a "pass" from incidents like this, does this black-eye hurt the league's image and where do the Patriots go from here as far as on the field. This is part two of a two part mega podcast. Click this link to hear part one, where we talk about the biggest topics in the NBA. Subscribe, share and join the debate by leaving a comment below. You can follow me on Twitter @ParisLay and you can follow my brother Zeph @NeecySon81. Thanks for listening and enjoy the view!

I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It (Episode 16 PT. 1)

We talk about it all today!

If you guys listen to the podcast, by now you know how my brother Zeph feels about LeBron James and the Miami Heat. Due to a lot of traveling, on my part near the end of the NBA Finals, Zeph and I haven't had a chance to talk about it. So here it goes.

We talk LeBron's legacy versus Michael Jordan's legacy and the new age of NBA superstars joining forces. We also discuss the Los Angeles Lakers "courtship" of Dwight Howard and the new look Celtics Brooklyn Nets. This is part one of a two part mega podcast. Click this link to hear part two, where we talk Aaron Hernandez. Subscribe, share and join the debate by leaving a comment below. You can follow me on Twitter @ParisLay and you can follow my brother Zeph @NeecySon81. Thanks for listening and enjoy the view!

I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It! (Episode 15)

No, you're not dreaming, this IS REAL!

After the Lakers put up a billboard, basically begging Dwight Howard to stay in Los Angeles, I had to enlist the help of a Lakers historian to help me break it all down. (I was living in Orlando when they did this for him and it's even more pathetic now. The only thing that screams "I'm thirsty" more than the Lakers "Stay D12" billboard is Ray J's "I Hit It First".)  For the first time, I'm joined on the podcast by my father Zeph Jones. (In my family, my brother, actually Zeph III, is called "Lil Zeph" and my father, Zeph JR, is "Big Zeph" and he's the only person, that I know, that has a better knowledge of the game than my brother.)

We talk about the Lakers past season, Dwight Howard's free agency, Kobe Bryant, the historical greatness of LeBron James is UNBIASEDLY explained, Miami Heat's similarities to the Showtime Lakers, why he thinks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, not Michael Jordan, is the greatest player ever, what the Lakers must do to win again and much more. Honestly, this one is in my top three podcast ever and it's probably the smartest basketball conversation you'll hear in awhile. (That's 100% because of my father by the way.) Subscribe, share and join the discussion by leaving a comment below. Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter @ParisLay. Thanks for listening and enjoy the view!

I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It! (Episode 14)

LeBron James and Tim Duncan both rose to the pressure of Game 6.

Like I said in the last podcast, if I said I knew what was going to happen in this series, I'd be lying to you. Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs, will go down as one of the best Finals games in NBA history. From Tim Duncan turning back the clock, to LeBron James going legendary in the forth, to Ray Allen's game-tying/overtime forcing three and Chris Bosh's big block to seal the victory. I'm joined by my brother Zeph and special guest Evan Barnes, a sports writer and good friend of mine back in Los Angeles.

We break it all down and discuss whether or not the Spurs can come back and win Game 7 in South Beach. Share, subscribe, and leave a comment below to join the discussion. You can follow me on Twitter @ParisLay. You can follow my brother Zeph @NeecySon81. You can follow Evan @evan_b. Also, check out Evan's writing by clicking this link. Thanks for listening to the podcast and as always, ENJOY THE VIEW!

I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It! (Episode 13)

Big 3 versus Big 3!

This is just unreal at this freaking point! Death, taxes, and the winning team from the previous game losing the NEXT game in the 2013 NBA Finals are apparently the three certainties of life. Even though I called it, including Manu's big game, I was still genuinely shocked. My brother Zeph and I breakdown the San Antonio's victory in Game 5. We also have a big discussion on LeBron not stepping up, his legacy, (And I'm starting to change my mind on him.), Danny Green as the Finals MVP and why I can't root for the Spurs or Boston Celtics. (Even though I really, really respect the Spurs. So much so I wrote this about Tim Duncan.) Share, Subscribe, Feel free to join the discussion by leaving a comment below. You can follow me on Twitter @ParisLay. You can follow my brother on Twitter @NeecySon81. Thanks for listening and as always ENJOY THE VIEW!!