Kuzul

Realignment is a fascinating idea, but one that I believe will lose out to another adjustment: playoff expansion. 

Expansion will drive more revenue to the game and keep the fans enthralled for an extended period. 

Realignment is entertaining when you think about it. Then again, an extended playoff system seems more justifiable at this point. Extending the playoffs with a wild card team worked before, and it will work again. 

There are a few scenarios to this new situation.

• Will the team with the best record earn a bye to the next round?
• Will the two wild card teams battle each other in a best-of-three, best-of-five, or perhaps a one-game sudden death playoff?

All those aside, why even think about bringing in an extra team? Is baseball on a collision course with watering down the regular season the way the NBA and NHL have with over half of the teams eligible to make the playoffs (16 of 30)? 

In my opinion, not even close.

According to the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal, playoff teams generate $17.7 million in additional revenue.

“The Angels reported $12.1 million in revenue from hosting five first and second-round playoff games in 2009 and nearly $4.4 million for hosting two first-round games in 2008, according to the reports published by Deadspin.com.

“The Rays made almost $17.7 million in revenue on the six postseason games they hosted in 2008. Having two home games in the World Series helped boost those results”

And for the small market or second-tier teams like the Oakland Athletics and Baltimore Orioles, $2.2 million per home game sounds pretty decent.

From the fans’ perspective, there is nothing more entertaining/dramatic than a good ole’ fashion pennant race to end the season. And being a Braves fan myself, every game was life or death during the last two weeks of the 2010 season.   

Commissioner Bud Selig recently talked expansion with NBC Sports and NY Daily News, meaning the wheels are most certainly in motion. Unfortunately, it looks like the expansion will not happen for at least two seasons. As you know, there are always a few obstacles.

“Selig would not rule out expanded playoffs as soon as next season, and the new format could include two new wild-card teams. Wild-card teams in each league could play an opening round, either one game or best-of-three”

“But any changes would be subject to collective bargaining, and Rob Manfred, MLB’s executive VP for labor relations, said Tuesday that putting any changes in so soon would be too difficult. So any playoff expansion is more likely for 2012, if at all.”

Two wild cards teams suggest that franchises that usually pack it in by the all-star break do not necessarily become sellers; they can keep their stars. On the other hand, they do not necessarily become buyers unless it is absolutely essential.

Teams like the Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays to name a few, are stuck in the same cycle of selling off their players or regrettably seeing themselves out of the playoff picture, not mathematically, but realistically by July every single season.

The addition of the second wild card does give these clubs some extra hope where it never existed before. Some teams, like I mentioned, can keep their home grown talent instead of trading them for some future prospects that continue to keep said team three to four years away from competing.

Building a roster and building a solid fan base that will continue to see their hometown team compete with home grown talent is what we are all hoping for. At the same time, clinching a playoff berth leads to additional advertisement revenue and an increase and retention of season ticket purchases and the reputation as a legitimate contender.

This new playoff system will succeed. It will allow the growth and popularity of the sport to blossom.

Not all change is bad in a sport that we all know for its familiarity.

Devon is the founder of The GM’s Perspective

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Turn back your clocks a little over a year ago to the 2009 American League Divisional Series between the Yankees and the Twins. The Yankees had home field advantage and were heavily favored. They swept the series three games to none, but largely thanks to a disturbing phenomenon down the left field line at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees won Game 1 by a score of 7-2. But, for any team starting a playoff series away from home, the Twins had one objective: just win one. Going into Game 2, a day removed from a trip to Minneapolis, that seemed very possible. And when the Twins were leading 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth, things looked pretty good.

The Yankees scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth, tying the game at three. The game went to the 11th-inning still tied at three. In the top of the inning, however, the course of baseball history quietly changed.

Joe Mauer led off the inning with a line drive down the left-field line. Mauer would have easily made it to second, but Phil Cuzzi, whose only job was to make that exact call, missed it. The Twins followed with two straight singles, one of which would have surely scored Mauer. However, no runs scored, and the Yankees won the game in the bottom of the 11th inning.

The series was now 2-0 going to Minnesota. The Twins were deflated, and the Yankees were on a roll. Who knows what would have happened if that call was changed.

Simply put, instant replay would have prevented that incorrect call. But a failure on the behalf Major League Baseball has prevented that idea from every becoming a reality. Why doesn’t Major League Baseball have a desire to get the calls right? That is the one question that has never been answered.

I was very happy today to see a tweet from ESPN’s Jayson Stark noting that Commissioner Bud Selig left a meeting with his on-field committee feeling “more open [to expanding instant replay] than he’s ever been.”

Hopefully, this will end something long overdue and no longer worth avoiding in any logical sense.

Bud Selig has been quoted numerous times saying that he concerned about “the pace of the game.” That concern, in my perspective, is ridiculous.

First, consider how things usually unfold nowadays: the ump gets the call wrong, and then the television broadcasters show that it was clearly a mistake. The manager storms onto the field, and we watch for two or three minutes as the two opposing sides bark at each other. The call, however, is never changed.

It is also possible that the umps will have one of their very effective meetings. For another one of two minutes, the umps come together in the middle of the field and talk about who knows what. Regardless, the umps usually still get it wrong.

Now consider what it would be like if Major League Baseball had instant replay. Here is a script of what would happen:

Ump: [Makes incorrect call. Questioning himself, he signals to the crew chief to make a call to another official sitting in a booth, watching the TV broadcast.]

Crew chief: [Picks up phone] “Safe or out?”

Official in booth: “Out.”

Crew chief: [Signals out.]

That’s it. 45 seconds at most. No argument from the manager, no disputes. Just a quicker, cleaner game.

I never criticize umpires for getting calls wrong. Their job is very hard, and they need all the help they can get. We have the technology available—right at our fingertips—to get these calls right, so why not use it?

Watching a game on TV, the typical fan knows the correct call within 15 seconds. Why should the fan be able to see evidence that the umps cannot? Not to mention that the manager and umpire are usually arguing as the fan watches the replay.

Another argument Mr. Selig has made is the following: our officials are still investigating the issue, therefore we need more time. What’s to investigate? How many people really want to know the right call? 

I commend Major League Baseball for implementing replay on home run calls. That’s a big step. But there is nothing more ignorant to say about baseball than “home runs solely affect the outcome of the game.” We need to get everything right, not just home runs.

Enough procrastinating. Why are we so afraid to change? Instant replay would make games faster, reduce the amount of arguments, and, most importantly, make the calls more accurate. 

What are we waiting for? Lack of instant replay has already taken a huge toll on the game, and it will continue to. Just think that with replay active, the Yankees might only have 26 championships.

Listen to Jess on What’s on Second: The Seamheads.com Radio Hour Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET. Follow him on Twitter @jesskcoleman or send him an e-mail at jess@jesskcoleman.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Major League Baseball is poised to add an extra wild card team for both leagues beginning in 2012.

The playoff expansion was reportedly met with very little friction among GM’s during this week’s General Managers Meetings, and the debate is expected to continue December 7th when executives from all franchises convene in Orlando for the Winter Meetings. Commissioner Bud Selig was quoted as saying, “We will move ahead (with the process) and move ahead pretty quickly.”

If/when this expansion is finalized, which could be as early as the Owners Meetings in Paradise, AZ on January 12-13, it will be music to the ears of every MLB franchise, even the New York Yankees (who would have benefited from the proposed expansion in 2008). Almost every year, there is a team or (in some cases) multiple teams in a very competitive division that win more games than a team in a much less competitive division who won that division— yet still get snubbed from the lone wild card spot because there was only one other team who performed better. Let’s take a look at instances of this flaw in the past 8 years:

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Major League Baseball could adopt Commissioner Bud Selig‘s proposal to expand its playoffs by two additional teams as soon as 2012, according to an AP report. The report cites multiple general managers and owners at this week’s GM Meetings in Orlando who said the plan has enough support to easily pass whenever Selig proposes it to the owners.

Selig oversaw the implementation of the Wild Card system in baseball in the first place, as a younger and greener commissioner in 1994. The system, which expanded the playoffs to twice its previous size, met with resistance in its early years but has become an accepted part of the baseball landscape.

Now, however, Selig wishes to expand the playoffs from eight teams (four in each league, with three division winners and a Wild Card entrant) to 10 (five in each league, with the two Wild Cards playing a very brief three-game series for the right to take on the strongest division winner). There seems to be little opposition to the idea. Rather, owners and GMs seem only to wonder how it will be put into place.

On its surface, the idea may sound appealing: More playoffs, more excitement. That is certainly the formula for the NBA and NFL, and for collegiate athletics, where postseason tournaments and spectacles generate a huge portion of league revenues. Baseball does less well in terms of capitalizing on the drama of October, so perhaps this proposed addition would improve their playoff visibility.

Not so. Selig and company are overlooking major flaws with this idea, and if it becomes protocol at any point in the near future, it will only serve to further diminish the integrity and profitability of the game that was once so firmly America’s pastime.

For starters, the season needs no expansion. Baseball begins in late March or early April, and for two straight seasons, it has run into November. For fans whose lives are even more complicated once fall arrives (and for baseball, whose fanbase is overwhelmingly composed of white families, that is a sizable demographic), a certain fatigue sets in over such a long year.

The NFL season runs only five months, ESPN’s obnoxious year-round obsession notwithstanding. The NBA begins in late October and ends in mid-June, but its playoffs (protracted and crazy as they often are) take place as the school year winds down and ends.

Secondly, baseball ought not to run from itself this way, merely in the name of increasing its transient popularity. This is the same mistake made by both political parties in recent national elections: They seem to think that their present struggles are because they have become too entrenched in their ways or too inflexible to public demand.

In reality, though, the public’s demands are much more pliable than the public cares to believe, and when an entity like MLB beings to lose popularity, it is more likely because they are not observing tradition closely enough.

Baseball has always been unique for the value it places on its regular season. There is beauty in the long and painful roller-coaster ride of a 26-week season, especially when only the teams who display consistency and intensity every day reach the playoffs.

The NFL plays only 16 games, which makes the race toward the playoffs a crap shoot; anyone can get in with a hot streak in November and December. The NBA, in which over 50 percent of the league reaches the playoffs, separates the wheat from the chaff only once the playoffs begin.

Baseball has a higher integrity in this regard, and they ought not to surrender it.

Thirdly, the best ostensible reasons for this expansion would be to capitalize on playoff revenue streams and to keep the highly provincial fanbases of baseball more engaged as the season progresses. The second premise may be sound; the first is flawed. Baseball’s postseason has been a ratings and attendance disaster over the past five years, primarily because there is already too much playoff baseball.

Like the early rounds of play in the NBA, baseball gets relegated to cable (and not even to the powerful cable signal of ESPN, rather to a TBS signal on which few naturally look for sports) simply because the networks (even FOX, who currently carries some playoff baseball) do not have space for seven-game series that railroad their top programs. Thus, the playoff bump that the NFL and (especially) the NBA get does not rise as high for MLB.

Selig’s legacy in this game will be that he always sought to make the game more marketable to the masses, but failed to serve the pure baseball fans’ best interests—and often never got the grand following he hoped for in return. If this expansion goes through before his term expires, that stain will grow darker and blot more of the many forward strides he has made during his tenure.

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Last week, Doug Glanville of ESPN.com posted a piece about Barry Bonds new opportunity to be an ambassador for Major League Baseball. 

Glanville basically discusses the idea that with the Giants having won the World Series, the stage is set for Bonds, to rise to the spot light. The man who holds the two most notable baseball records—home runs in a season and career home runs—could now use his presence to do good things.

The problem is that Barry Bonds is positioned about as well to be an ambassador for baseball as Don Imus is to be the spokesperson for NOW.

Here are five reasons why the canonization of Barry Bonds won’t happen:

1. The league doesn’t like Barry Bonds

There are two ways to define “the league”.  There is the franchises that make up Major League Baseball.  Then there is that face and voice of the league as a business entity; Bud Selig.  Whichever you use, the truth is the same—Barry Bonds is not well liked.

The league basically ignored him the season after he left San Francisco. He was a free agent with not just a big bat, but the biggest bat ever, who got zero job offers.  Even from an AL team who could have used him as a DH.

Selig has looked upon bonds the way Ford Frick looked upon Roger Maris, only Selig had much better arguments.  Selig despised the idea that Bonds was the one to beat the career home run record of Hank Aaron, a man that Selig is close to. 

Also, whether deserved or not, Bonds represent the steroid era more succinctly than perhaps any player other than Mark McGuire.  Baseball should and will pick its own ambassadors and Selig won’t pick Barry Bonds.

2. Bonds has a court case looming

Whether innocent or guilty, Bonds is about to be embroiled in a federal perjury trial, the outcome of which could require jail time. 

Bonds’ testimony in 2007 regarding BALCO is in question and a guilty verdict will not only cement Bonds’ reputation as a juicer, but also define him legally and practically as a liar.

Perhaps if he comes out on the other end of the court case with a verdict of innocent there might be a chance of his personal marketability, but certainly not before.

3. Barry Bonds and the press don’t get along

Over the time that Bonds was a Major League baseball player, he developed a relationship with the press that was tense at best, venomous and vitriolic at worse.  Barry treated the press like the villains in his romantic biography, a group of liars and connivers whose only goal was to destroy Bonds.

It would be safe to assume that a baseball ambassador would not only have to open himself up to the press, but actually embrace them as a tool to accomplish… well, whatever he wished to accomplish as the poster boy.

4. No Hall of Fame, no ambassador status

For the man holds the career home run record, if you are not in the hall of fame, if you are still only a visitor when you show up, you are not the spokesperson you want to be.  Now, if after his obligatory five years, if Bonds is inducted, it will be a different story.

The idea is not that you must be a HOF member to be a face for the sport.  The issue is more that Barry Bonds should be in the HOF, based on his on-the-field exploits. More than that, if you only look at his play, he should be a first ballot hall-of-famer.  The fact is he will not get in on his first ballot. Perhaps because of his off-the-field exploits, he’ll never get in at all. It’s a sticking point standing in the way of his public relations standing.

5. Barry Bonds is the ultimate anti-spokesperson

Take away the steroid allegations.  Pretend for a moment that there is no such thing as “The Clear” or BALCO, and that there is no upcoming perjury trial as a result.

Without that large elephant in the room, you still do not have a persona worthy of what Glanville suggests. 

Bonds has a history of distrust with the media.  He has been accused of tax fraud.  There have been stories of his having been an adulterer.  For as big a star as he was at one point, he never did things to bring his fans closer (One example being his disallowing use of his name in any video games that the players association endorsed.)

Once Bonds focused on statistics and stopped just being a great player, his play suffered.  There were no allegations of slackening play early in his career, but in the late years in San Francisco, Bonds was one of the new group of prima donna players who didn’t need to run hard to first if they didn’t feel like it.

If you think of all these things like pieces of a collage, it’s hard to imagine an arrangement that would look appealing to the world at large—especially one that is skeptical of Major League Baseball.  Isn’t that, after all, why the game might need an ambassador in the first place.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

On April 20, 1986, Michael Jordan nonchalantly scored 63 points against the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Many NBA fans can tell you that, and I’m sure 100,000 people claim to have been at the Boston Garden that day.

What is little-known about Jordan’s 1986 Bulls, however, is that they are statistically the worst playoff qualifier in NBA history, managing a 30-52 mark and .366 win percentage during a regular season in which Jordan played just 17 games.

In fact, the San Antonio Spurs, who finished last in the Midwest Division, qualified for the playoffs that same year.

How was this possible? Back then, eight teams still made the playoffs in each conference, but this was prior to the last wave of NBA expansion, so only seven of 23 NBA teams failed to make the playoffs in 1986.

MLB has never seen a sub-.500 team make the playoffs, let alone one that won fewer than 40 percent of its games, but the detractors that cried against the Wild Card expansion in 1994 may be up in arms again following Commissioner Bud Selig’s declaration that he is open to the idea of expansion.

“The pragmatism is what’s most difficult,” Selig said. “The question is how do you do it and what form does it take? A lot of people have different opinions.”

Luckily for Mr. Selig, he needs to go no further than this article to answer that question.

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The baseball world got their wish: the New York Yankees are not in the World Series and parity played its part.

The San Francisco Giants with their 11th ranked payroll ($96,277,833), play host to the 25th ranked Texas Rangers ($64,810,570). 

It is great to see new blood in the playoffs; however the ratings do not support that fact.  Game 1 pulled in a rating of 8.9 (approx 15 million viewers).   

Compared to the lowest-rated World Series, Philadelphia Phillies-Tampa Bay Rays, that’s a drop off of 3 percent, and a 25 percent drop from last year’s New York Yankees-Phillies series (also Game 1) 

To make matters worse, the ratings from Game 2 were not any better. 

Game 2 pulled in an 8.5 or nearly 14.5 million viewers—still a 26 percent decrease from last year’s Game 2. 

According to an article published in USA TODAY, Bud Selig still has high hopes for the remaining games:

“MLB commissioner Bud Selig told Sirius XM Radio’s Chris “Mad Dog” Russo Thursday that Giants-Rangers will draw ‘great ratings’ if it can build to a competitive five-game, six-game, or ideally, seven-game series.”

I have to sit on the fence on this one.  On one side, this is great for baseball—new players and more exposure. On the other hand, the Yanks and the Boston Red Sox are nowhere to be found and it does make it feel quite empty this October. 

Sure there are great players: Josh Hamilton, the once untouchable Cliff Lee, “The Freak” Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and the ageless Edgar Renteria continuing to perform after 15 seasons. 

There are also great teams: The Texas Rangers, who found themselves in dire straits financially, but stuck it out through 162 games; and the San Francisco Giants, looking for their first World Series title since 1954. 

With all that said, for the viewers to be entertained and the ratings to increase, something magical needs to happen, and happen quickly.   

Games 3 and 4 have to be ones for the ages.  If Game 3 is a blowout with the Giants up 3-0 heading into Sunday night’s game, competing head-to-head against Sunday Night Football, the numbers could be very, very unflattering.

This article can also be found on The GM’s Perspective

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Major League Baseball wants its playoff cake.

And to eat it, too.

Commissioner Bud Selig, The Man Who Destroyed Division Races As We Used to Know Them, is at it again. Selig wants more playoff teams, and he wants them now—as early as next season.

The players union has indicated that more postseason teams in 2012 might be amenable.

“We haven’t abused our allotment,” Selig told reporters this week. “We only have eight out of 30 teams make the playoffs.”

Selig points to the NFL, which has 12 of its 32 teams make the playoffs, and the NHL and NBA, which each allow 16 of their 30 teams into the postseason party. Then he looks at MLB and sees but eight out of 30 teams qualify, and apparently Bud wants some of that playoff action for his sport, too.

This isn’t a debate about whether there should be more playoff teams in baseball. Sadly, Selig and his owners squashed that like a bug when the Wild Card was introduced in 1995, which has since rendered a lot of divisional races as moot as a Brett Favre retirement announcement.

No, the ship has sailed that allowed intelligent discussion about the pros and cons of a Wild Card. It reared its ugly head again this year in the American League East, when what should have been a heart-pounding, nail-biting race between the Yankees and the Rays instead turned meaningless, as both teams made the playoffs.

It’s too late to save the division race as we once knew it.

The focus of the argument now is, if Selig wants more playoffs, then he has to give somewhere else.

Namely, the length of the regular season.

The World Series will once again drift into November this year.

Thank goodness the Texas Rangers are hosts this weekend. MLB is playing with fire.

Heaven forbid the day when the Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies meet in the November Classic. Can you throw a curveball with mittens on?

Selig wants more playoffs, but when are you going to play the extra games?

There’s even talk of extending the divisional series to a best-of-seven, too.

Just how many days does Selig think October has, anyway?

Additional playoffs will have to mean either: a) a reduced regular season (thus cutting into each team’s gate); b) starting the season earlier; or c) schedule more honest-to-goodness doubleheaders (NOT the day/night ones, either; I’m talking the old-fashioned Sunday afternoon twinbills).

It’s the lesser of two evils, to begin the season in March as opposed to having the World Series end in mid-November. At least a March start will allow for as many games in the first week or two to be played either indoors or in warm-weather climates.

Have as many Northern-based teams play out west or down south or in Toronto as possible, beginning around March 24 or so. This may mean some teams will play their first 6-10 games on the road, but so be it.

Everyone gets 81 home and 81 away, so it all evens out eventually.

I’m guessing that more playoffs in MLB would mean two more teams in each league qualifying, creating an NFL-like system of six teams in each league participating.

That scenario would likely give the top two divisional winners, by win-loss record, a bye in the first round. Then the other four battle it out—the third divisional winner and the three Wild Cards—with those two winners facing the bye teams.

I’m not wild about any of this. One reason is that getting a bye and waiting a week or so to play your first playoff game seems unnatural, after playing 162 games with little rest.

I can’t help but wonder if this would inadvertently penalize the best teams, who would have to begin the playoffs cold against a team that just got done playing a series.

The only way this scenario could be avoided would be to add four playoff teams to each league, so that no one gets a bye. Now you’d have 16 out of the 30 teams making the playoffs. Kind of makes a 162-game season overkill, to eliminate less than half of the MLB teams.

Can you imagine five Wild Cards per league?

However he chooses to implement it, Selig can’t keep everything else status quo. He can’t start in early-April, play 162 games, extend the DS to a best-of-seven, and add playoff teams. The World Series would bump up against Thanksgiving.

I’d like to see Selig try to convince perennial bottom feeders like the Royals and Pirates that they should give up some home dates in order to make the regular season shorter, so Bud can add playoff teams and lengthen the DSs.

Bud Selig has already destroyed the traditional pennant race. Now he wants to emulate the other three majors and add to his postseason invite list.

I don’t like it, so the least he can do is compromise elsewhere.

Selig wants to have his cake and eat it, too. I hope he chokes on it.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Jose Guillen, a midseason pickup by the National League champion San Francisco Giants, has been linked to a federal performance-enhancing drug investigation, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

According to the Times, federal investigators informed Major League Baseball just prior to the start of the playoffs that they were looking into shipments of performance-enhancing drugs—including human growth hormone (HGH)—to Guillen’s wife at their Bay Area home.

Guillen, who came to the Giants from the Kansas City Royals in a trade for cash and a player to be named later on Aug. 13, hit .266 with three home runs and 15 RBI in 42 games.

Despite his relative lack of production, he was still expected to be named to San Francisco’s postseason roster. Surprisingly, fellow outfielder Aaron Rowand, who had struggled all season long, was named instead.

This could be why.

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By Dr. Louis Marmon

Baseball has loads of issues. The bats shatter and impale baserunners. The games are too long, and so is the season. Since when is the World Series supposed to be played in November?

It is also clear that Bud Selig isn’t creative enough to figure out a way to effectively use instant replay. He claims that these issues require further study before he can make any changes since he doesn’t want to diminish the fans’ experience.

But there is one thing that Selig can do immediately that will enhance the game for everyone watching:

Stop the spitting.

Why is that every time the camera pans on a baseball player he is spitting something? Most of the time they aren’t chewing anything. There isn’t any gum, tobacco, chaw, pinch, snuff, seeds or any other substance in their mouths except their own natural secretions—which, at least the last time I checked, are not toxic except if they end up going on or into someone else.

It’s not like they are playing in a dust bowl and have to clear out the schmutz so they can breathe. I doubt coal miners spit as much as most ballplayers.

It is a behavior that would never be tolerated in any other location or environment. Can you imagine their mothers or wives condoning this at their homes? “It’s OK, dear, just park that hocker over there by the ottoman.” You can’t even get away with it on the street, let alone another public venue.

Spitting directly at someone during a game uniformly results in heavy fines, and it may have cost Roberto Alomar the chance to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. Not even spectators can do it without offending someone. In fact, some disreputable spitting Yankees fans may have cost the team the chance to sign Cliff Lee.

Spitting has become such an integral aspect of Major League Baseball that Little Leaguers and even female softball players can be seen launching loogies as they step into the batter’s box or onto the pitcher’s mound. Is that really the image we want our kids to emulate?

Tobacco use has been wisely curtailed in the minor leagues for years, which makes the persistent spitting in the majors even more of a mystery. You see it occasionally in football and other field sports, and boxers spitting into a bucket is iconic. But it almost never occurs in golf or tennis.

Is spitting a way to demonstrate masculinity? To mark territory or to prove that you are tough enough to play the game? It is certainly not a way to attract women—at least not the women I would find interesting.

There is little doubt that ritual spitting was an integral part of early baseball history. Mark Twain noted that there was more tobacco use the further south and west he traveled. By the 1800s tobacco chewing had declined in the Northeast and likely peaked in the US by the 1880s. But it persisted in baseball perhaps as a throwback to a more rural lifestyle.

As players switched to other forms of oral entertainment, like sunflower seeds or gum, the spitting persisted in large part because it was always associated with the game.

Spitting the last mouthful of water is almost understandable since many coaches mistakenly believed for years that drinking water was bad for performance and would lead to stomach cramps.

But it doesn’t make much sense right now.

Spitting is ugly, boorish, unsanitary, unnecessary and generally uncalled for since even those who feel compelled to consume sunflower seeds in the dugout can rid themselves of the husks into a cup rather than onto the ground.

It’s about time Selig raised the playing field above the level of a spittoon. It may even elevate the level of play.

Or, at the very least, the level of on-field behavior.

This article originally appeared on The NY Sports Digest. If its off-beat and it’s about the Mets, Yankees, Knicks, Giants, Jets, Islanders, or Rangers, than The Digest is the spot to get it. Stop with the mega-sites and get a feel for the true pulse of New York at www.NYSportsDigest.com

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