Changing Of The Guard: From Old School To Progressive New School In Major League Baseball

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia and Arturo Pardavila III from Hoboken, NJ, USA

under CC BY-SA 2.0 License

The dawn of the 2015 Major League Baseball season is exactly one week away!  Can you feel the excitement?!  Major League ballparks across America will be open for business once again for the next six months.  For 10 lucky clubs there is hope they will be open for business a little longer than the usual six months thanks to a postseason appearance in pursuit of a possible World Series title.

The beginning of the 2015 season, while bringing the same hope and dreams for all 30 Major League clubs, will be unlike any other we have seen in more than 20 years.  Bud Selig is no longer the commissioner.  That job now belongs to the man Selig seemingly hand picked as his successor in Rob Manfred.  Manfred will now be entrusted by all 30 Major League owners to continue the never ending mission of evolving the game known as America's national pastime.

In his first few months on the job, Manfred has not been shy about his desire to make significant changes in the game to better improve the overall product.  Count me in favor of looking at all areas for ways to improve the game even if I don't agree with every single idea being discussed such as possibly banning defensive shifts.  At least we're at a day and age in baseball where the powers that be are willing to discuss these kinds of issues.  I'm not sure the desire for improvement would have been taken seriously some 20 years ago under Bud Selig.

Tim Musick
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved    

Tim's Two Cents-January 16

Baseball Owners Meetings Took Place This Week.  All 30 owners in Major League Baseball descended on Arizona to discuss the state of the sport, among other things.

Of particular interest at these meetings was the meeting of the 14 member panel created by Bud Selig to address ways to improve the sport.  I personally don't think a 14 member panel is necessary to address various issues in MLB.

It is probably safe to say that this panel, which includes Angels manager Mike Scioscia, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, Frank Robinson just to name a few, was created in the wake of calls for expanded use of instant replay.  MLB and its umpires faced some scrutiny after a series of blown calls in last year's postseason.  With the current replay system in place, only home runs and boundary calls can be looked at, whatever that means.  You never know with commissioner Bud Selig. 

When the debate over the use of instant replay began a few years ago, I wasn't in favor of it.  I thought the umpires did a good enough job and got the majority of the calls right.  After the events of last year's postseason, I have changed my tune.  Baseball would benefit from expanding instant replay, but only on fair or foul calls and close plays on the bases.   The question is if instant replay in baseball is going to be expanded, but when?