Baseball Fantasy

I ran into an old friend last night and we hung out for a while. We don't agree on anything. Politics, religion, culture wars, anything. As often as we discuss these things, there's never any rancor. Mystified head shaking, but no rancor.

But last night we got into it. He called me a moron, I called him a jackass. It nearly came to fisticuffs.

Ok, not really. But it was a pretty heated argument.

About Pete Rose.

Bart Giamatti's decision is still dividing this country, almost two decades later. And no one likes Bud Selig. So I've decided that I would like to be Commissioner of Baseball. I think I could bring a sense of whimsy (by which I mean "arbitrary and irresponsible exercise of power") to the job. Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish in office:

1. Interleague play would be abolished.

Except maybe for one series per season. And the teams would play by the guests' rather than by the hosts' rules. That is, if the Giants are at the A's, they would play by NL rules. This is more gentlemanly and sportsmanlike, I think.

2. For an entire season, the Yankees and the Red Sox would play only one another, and after each game the players would have to line up and shake hands with the other team, Little League style.

The complications to the rest of the AL schedule would be more than outweighed by the potential for comedy and our collective delight in punishing the smuggest and whiniest (respectively) teams in baseball.

3. The American League would do away with the Designated Hitter. The DH would be replaced by the DS, the Designated Steroider.

Each team could select one player who would be allowed to use performance enhancing drugs. He would be required to sit out for all Interleague or World Series games, whether played in an NL park or not.

Alternately, the team could choose between having a DS and letting their pitchers bat off a tee. I am a pro-choice candidate.

4. It will be written into the MLB charter that they have the longest season in professional sports.

This rule is meant not so much to lengthen the baseball season, but as leverage to shorten the NHL season. I'm still fuzzy on the details. I'm imagining some kind of MLB/NBA coalition.

5. Rollie Fingers, Ozzie Smith, and Goose Gossage will be ordered to return to active duty.

Because they're fun. No one's fun anymore (said the grouchy old dude). There might also be a rule that Rickey Henderson has to come back up from the minors and keep playing until he's eligible for Social Security.

You know, next year.

I loves me some Rickey. How can you not?

I was also thinking about making some rules about how the Mariners and the poor benighted Wichita Linemen (my ill-managed fantasy team) would have to make it to the playoffs. But that's a bit capricious, even for the "capricious despotism platform" on which I am running.


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