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The world according to Jim:
• The Commissioner of Baseball seems to have gotten out over his skis. Whether it was boredom, a desperate attempt to placate the game’s TV benefactors or a sincere desire to make the game better – and we’ll leave that for you to judge – the latest “innovation” he offered this week has to be a non-starter.
• His brainstorm? The “golden at-bat.” Basically, allowing a team to use its best hitter, out of order, in a singular key situation, to artificially create a dramatic matchup. Maybe it was the Shohei Ohtani-Mike Trout confrontation at the end of the USA-Japan final in the World Baseball Classic two years ago. Or maybe it really was a TV executive, or a member of MLB’s crack marketing staff (sarcasm intended), who floated this test balloon.
Time to ground it. …
• Classic confrontations can’t, and shouldn’t, be manufactured. That goes against not only the charm of baseball but the entire nature of the game. The great matchups and great late moments of the past happened organically. Gibson vs. Eckersley. in Game 1 in 1988. Bill Mazeroski vs. Ralph Terry on the final at-bat of the 1960 World Series. Or Joe Carter taking Mitch Williams deep for a Game 6 walkoff that decided the 1993 Series.
Or, yes, Freddie Freeman vs. Nestor Cortes, in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series. And this is a reminder that one manager does have control over such matchups, and the Yankees’ Aaron Boone isn’t living this one down for a while. Yankees fans do have long memories. (See below.) …
• If those matchups are artificially obtained rather than organic, how long before we become bored and start referring to them as “tin can at-bats?”
Then again, to Manfred one piece of metal must be no different from another. …
• Are Yankees fans jaded? You judge. The night the Dodgers won Game 5 in Yankee Stadium, Dodgers fans were still on the field and in the stands celebrating as 2 a.m. Eastern time approached. (And for others, the subway platform was party central that night.)
Anyway, walking out of the ballpark after filing for West Coast deadlines, I informed the security guy at the media gate that there were still hundreds of Dodger fans celebrating inside the ballpark, two hours or so after the game had ended. His response: “Well, we still have 27 of them,” meaning championships. I didn’t remind him that his team’s drought was now 15 seasons. …
• There have been just three equal or longer droughts in Yankees history. Can you name them? Answer below. …
• So why are we reminiscing about the World Series? Have you seen the Lakers play recently? …
• The late Chick Hearn used to have a line that would pretty well alert you that things weren’t going well, even if you were listening to the radio half of the simulcast. “The Lakers are STANDING,“ he would say in a scolding, cranky grandpa tone. (And before you interpret that as a criticism, it’s not. I’ve used that tone.)
Maybe John Ireland and Mychal Thompson on radio and Bill Macdonald and Stu Lantz on TV should resurrect it. …
• It’s bad enough when the Lakers stand around offensively. JJ Redick let it be known the other night that his team needed to get back to ball and player movement, and that’s sort of a basketball fundamental. But when you’re standing around on defense – or worse, taking your own sweet time getting back downcourt – that’s trouble. …
• It’s obvious that Father Time – who remains undefeated, by the way – is taking his toll on LeBron James. The goal of playing all 82 games, which James set before the season began, seems counterproductive at this point. …
• And there is a wrinkle in the league’s player participation rules, established last year and designed to make sure the stars are on the floor, especially in nationally televised games. A player who is over 35 or has more than 34,000 regular-season minutes or 1,000 regular-season and playoff games can sit out one game of a back-to-back, though it has to be preapproved by the league.
If Adam Silver’s office needs convincing, I’m sure the Lakers’ video people can put together plenty of clips of James coasting back up the court. …
• Things that make you shake your head: The A’s signed free-agent pitcher Luis Severino, three years at $67 million, the largest contract in franchise history. It would serve them right if he bails on them before they get to Las Vegas in 2028 (or thereabouts). …
• Quiz answer: The Yankees have gone 19 years without winning a World Series (at the start of the franchise’s existence, 1903-23), 18 years (1978-95) and 14 years (1962-76). Otherwise, their fans don’t have that much to complain about. …
• The hubbub over college football winners planting the flag on the turf of the losers reached its nadir with a set of skirmishes last weekend, including a brawl in Columbus, Ohio, that had the cops using pepper spray to try to calm things down between Michigan and Ohio State.
This may be simplistic – and there are some coaches, including Penn State’s James Franklin and Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, who have shown they can defuse such situations before they ignite – but how about this solution: Play better, and if you lose, own it. …
jalexander@scng.com
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