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KRIEGER: Fixed site for World Series makes sense

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 28, 2008 at 9:10 p.m.

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Every time someone justifies baseball's reluctance to embrace modernity on the basis of tradition, I think of interleague play, the proliferation of playoffs and the All-Star Game determining home field in the World Series.

Whenever it's in baseball's financial interest, it smashes tradition as if it were a hanging curveball.

And, look, if tradition is so important, where did the new rule come from that there is no such thing as a rain-shortened official game in the World Series? Don't get me wrong, that's a good call, but it's definitely not traditional. Games called due to rain after five innings have been official and final forever, which is why so many assumed that would be the case Monday night, adding to the confusion.

Consider this irony:

Football, a game played proudly in bad weather, insists on conducting its championship game in near-ideal conditions - warm weather sites or indoors - which is why cities like Denver can't get a Super Bowl. For all the romance associated with the Ice Bowl, the NFL has never awarded a Super Bowl to Green Bay.

Baseball, a game they stop all summer long when it rains, routinely plays its championship in cold, wind and rain. Monday night's Game 5 might have been the first World Series game suspended due to bad weather, but the Series is routinely contested in temperatures better suited to ice hockey.

Why?

Tradition.

Baseball's tradition calls for the Series to be played in the home parks of the contestants, while football tradition calls for the Super Bowl to be held at a neutral site. Is there some divinely inspired reason for these different traditions? No, there isn't.

Just as it tossed tradition to establish interleague play, baseball can toss it to dramatically improve the quality of play in the Series, whether it goes to rotating warm-weather and indoor stadiums, like the Super Bowl, or a fixed site that becomes a tradition of its own. What a boon for the recovery of New Orleans, for example, if the Superdome became the permanent home of the Series. It would develop into a vacation week to rival Mardi Gras.

The proliferation of playoff rounds has pushed the Series too deep into the calendar to continue holding it in outdoor, northern parks and expect suitable conditions. What should matter most to its caretakers is the integrity of the game. In three of the past four Series, Chicago, St. Louis and Philadelphia hosted games in conditions that made just gripping the ball a challenge.

Nor is that the only tradition that needs to be tossed. Almost as disturbing as the playing conditions has been the quality - or lack of it - of the umpiring. If you've watched, you don't need me to enumerate the bad calls, but there's been one or more every night.

In Game 5, Fox did fans a service by revealing home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg's distinctive strike zone through the use of technology that measures the zone by the rules rather than the subjective view of a man leaning over the catcher to sneak a peek.

When baseball was young, that human was the best method available of judging balls and strikes. That was before video, before instant replay, before the technology that produced the Hawk-Eye system tennis now uses to check and sometimes overrule line calls made by the human eye.

Tampa's Scott Kazmir was forced from Game 5 after walking Pat Burrell in the top of the fifth. Balls 3 and 4 to Burrell were both low strikes, according to Fox's technology. By contrast, the Phillies' Cole Hamels got credit for high strikes that were actually balls, according to that same technology. You could see Kazmir shaking his head on the mound. And the fact is, he was right.

When TV viewers know more than your umpires, your sport is risking its credibility.

In fairness to baseball, it's far from alone in this reluctance to embrace technology. The NBA, an otherwise thoroughly modern organization, has been similarly slow to put the emphasis where it belongs - on getting the calls right.

In both sports, tradition seems to be the main justification for failing to raise officiating standards. But there is more at stake in these games than there used to be. Team revenues, player salaries and fan interest have all mushroomed over the past generation. Sports are now a major American industry, subjected to television's microscope every night of the week. The old seat-of-the-pants supervision doesn't cut it anymore.

What we have now in the 2008 World Series, in the name of tradition, is a 31/2-inning shootout that could decide baseball's championship. That's not tradition. That's an unintended consequence of circumstances that have morphed out of control.

Tradition is nice. Keeping faith with the integrity of your sport is nicer. Baseball is still a sublime game. Perhaps it will take a new generation of leadership, but eventually, it needs to take its present as seriously as its past.

Comments

  • October 29, 2008

    8:20 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Penpal writes:

    How about playing summer's game in the summer? I know it's radical, but say, a 154 game schedule, no wild card and a late September series, when God intended it to be played. A-Rod might have to take a pay cut to only 15 mil a year, but he'd get to play more golf.

  • October 29, 2008

    9:59 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    motorcityhitman writes:

    Some good ideas; but I seriously doubt that the owners or the fans would ever go for a neutral site for the World Series. Start the season earlier. With the conditioning programs of today, spring training doesn't need to last as long.

    Maybe every team needs to add a retractable dome to their stadium. Just kidding...

    The umpiring behind home plate has been very erratic, but I don't see how any kind of instant replay would work here.

  • October 29, 2008

    12:12 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Nate6 writes:

    Eliminate the home plate umpires. Let's just rely on Fox trax to call balls and strikes.

  • October 29, 2008

    12:36 p.m.

    Big_Bank_Hank writes:

    (This comment was removed by the site staff.)

  • October 29, 2008

    12:57 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    1somelikeithot writes:

    Shorten the season, get rid of the All Star game and the Wild Card games and have September WS.

  • October 29, 2008

    10:22 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    troopermsu writes:

    If neutral site play is seriously considered, then instead of the World Series being played at a neutral site, I say that the first 2 weeks of the regular season should be played at neutral sites. Move the season back by 2 weeks. The Series should be over no later than Oct 10. Weather would not be much of a factor.

    All the changes of recent years - interleague, home-field to All Star winner, wild card, expanded playoffs, through in performance enhancers too - have combined to make baseball less interesting to me. I watched less than 9 innings of the Series this year. I'm 42 and I feel as if Baseball doesn't want me as a fan.