Alan Greenwood

Typically Major League Baseball needs to be roused from its chronic coma to make even the simplest change in its methods of operation.

For instance, consider the designated hitter rule. When the American League adopted it in 1973, the National League scoffed at such an institutional mutation.

That was fine. There were American League players and National League players, American League fans and National League fans, creating a healthy tinge of resentment. One league could comfortably scoff at the other because the two leagues were independent of one another.

After spring training, the leagues’ stars shared diamond for an exhibition game in July. In October the leagues’ best teams met in the World Series, during which AL pitchers complained about NL umpires’ strike zone and vice vera.

You knew who was calling balls and strikes immediately as the AL umpires used the old balloon chest protector (which was big enough to serve as a carport) and the NL used inside chest protectors.

The first hint of the coming homogenization came when young American League umpires started wearing inside chest protectors. When the last balloon chest protector landed in the Smithsonian, you knew there was treachery afoot.

By 1997 the leagues commingled for a few regular-season games. By 1999 there were no longer AL umpires and NL umpires, they were all MLB umpires.

From there the leagues morphed into what are known as conferences in the NFL, NBA and NHL. There is an American Conference and National Conference, and there are reports that even those designations are approaching the end of their shelf lives.

While a few codgers, like the one hunting and pecking his way through this essay, may yearn for the good old days, the reality is that baseball needs to modernize. Since the Players Association will never agree to ditching the designated hitter, at some point in time it will be universal. Interleague games stopped startling people years ago. The same goes for multi-tiered playoffs.

If there are ball games this summer, MLB has shown its long-hidden innovative side. Try anything and everything during an abbreviated, asterisk-ridden 2020 season. Except for one thing:

A playoff field of 16 teams.

MLB should be tackled before taking that step toward the NBA and NHL.

Adding the Division Series to baseball’s postseason format was annoying, but understandable. Tossing in an extra wild-card team so two could meet in a one-game play-in has actually provided some entertaining moments.

With only occasional exceptions, a ballclub still has to have at least a decent year to play even one game in the postseason. Derelicts with sub-.500 seasons are told to go home and try to get better.

Now some of them may be allowed in the no-longer rarified air of the playoffs.

If MLB feels compelled to add fluff to its postseason in these worst of times, OK.

If MLB sees a 16-team playoff field as a vehicle to move it forward forevermore, they will discover how subtraction by addition works.

Contact Alan Greenwood at 594-1248 or agreenwood@nashuatelegraph.com.

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