davearm2

Apparently Americans would rather watch sports that really aren't sports than soccer.

Or Mark Prior

Wow, that's just flat out wrong. Stunning coming from you. LOL OK. According to the Nielson TV ratings, average ranks are as follows: NFL (National Football League) NBA (National Basketball Association) MLB (Major League Baseball) NCAA football (college football) NCAA basketball (college basketball) NASCAR (stock car racing) WWE (professional wrestling) NHL (National Hockey League) AFL (Arena Football League) WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) MLS (Major League Soccer) According to the most recent Harris poll: Pro football Baseball College football Auto racing Men’s pro basketball Hockey Men’s college basketball Men’s golf Men’s soccer Boxing Yep Americans just can't get enough soccer. :lol:

I don't think you folks realize that bringing up soccer and all of its leagues and championships just proves my point. Whatever that sport is doing, the American sporting public ain't buying. That has been proven over and over again.

The bolded is is highly debatable, in light of the fact that the WC winner quite often has more wins than the worst division winner.

There are multiple examples in the post you quoted. You didn't give one example of an American sport that crowns multiple champions. The NCAA men's basketball champion is Connecticut. Period. The BCS champion is Auburn. Period. And on and on for every sport. I never said that both winners were intended to be on an equal plane. It's obvious that it's more prestigious to have the best record in the NL and beat the AL champion than it is to come in 3rd in the NL East and win your way through a 16 team bracket. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any interest in the latter though, and the aforementioned conference tournaments, conference title games/bowl season, and european soccer are all examples that support that notion. Auburn won the BCS title, but OSU is the Big Ten Champion, Oklahoma is the Big 12 Champion, Mississippi State is the Gator Bowl champion, and on and on. The conference tournaments and title games feed into the national championship race, and that's what makes them interesting to fans. They're clearly not independent the way you're laying it out. You said NL reg season champ vs. AL reg season champ would be the more prestigious playoff, and I don't disagree. So we call that winner the World Series winner. Your also-ran bracket tournament that follows would be about as interesting as the NIT, and the "champion" that it produced would be essentially meaningless.

There are multiple examples in the post you quoted. You didn't give one example of an American sport that crowns multiple champions. The NCAA men's basketball champion is Connecticut. Period. The BCS champion is Auburn. Period. And on and on for every sport.

Great then give it to CBS. They seem to know how to handle the situation with their March Madness coverage. Fox and TBS are under contract for 2012 and 2013. So your thinking is that Fox and TBS would have a problem with having more games available to broadcast throughout October? Why would that be? The reason why the schedule is so spread out right now is because of TV. The networks are paying a ton of money for the rights to the games and want certain games on at certain times and do not want them to overlap each other. It was cut off, but originally this discussion was about stacking the series more tightly so they don't go into mid-November. The networks will not go for that just to add a couple of games at the beginning of the postseason. Putting the LCS games on at times where they don't overlap are going to be more important than the play-in games. I'm still not grasping the dynamic that has more games = fewer viewers. In my model a typical slice of LCS week would look like this: Monday: PHI @ CHC, 5pm; NYY @ BOS 8pm Tuesday: NYY @ BOS, 5pm; PHI @ CHC 8pm As it is now, we have: Monday: NYY @ BOS 8pm Tuesday: PHI @ CHC 8pm So how is the current setup going to generate more viewers for the networks?

That wouldn't resonate with fans(and therefore the owners) nearly as much as having regular season champ World Series. Especially if there were a less selective Champions League-esque tournament afterwards. It gives incentive to be the very best(just like people like to reminisce about), while still keeping the interest of the other 25 teams who know before Memorial Day that their team can't reach that standard. And "relegate the worst teams to AAA" is an impossibility. AAA teams are the same franchises at a different level of play, not completely different entities that can be swapped. You can't crown two champions every year. That's completely unworkable. And if you say one playoff is for the championship and the other is just for fun, nobody will pay attention to the just-for-fun one. You see multiple champions in soccer with attention being paid to all of them. Part of that is because it combines leagues, but part of that is that people like rooting for their teams in tournaments. Offsetting the selected teams a year helps keep it from being considered just a consolation bracket, and if they wanted to incorporate NPB teams into it that'd be pretty cool as far as I'm concerned. You see it happen in college athletics too. People go nuts over championship week and bowl games even though the real tournament/title game happens afterward. If you wanted to give incentive to win that 16 team tourney with an auto-bid in the following year, that's a decent idea too. The point of the exercise is to solve conflicting desires. In baseball especially, people want to see deserved winners, and not make the 6 month season moot because of a poor game or two. Likewise, no one wants(or shouldn't want) to be so exclusive that we go back to having a 2 team playoff and world series in one, because 80% of baseball fans would lose interest by May. What I outlined is an attempt to satisfy both of those desires, and far from the only potential idea. Sorry, not seeing it, especially the part where you expect fans to embrace multiple champions every season. I can't think of an American team sport that uses that model, on any level. Your solution creates more problems than it solves. JMHO of course.

Great then give it to CBS. They seem to know how to handle the situation with their March Madness coverage. Fox and TBS are under contract for 2012 and 2013. So your thinking is that Fox and TBS would have a problem with having more games available to broadcast throughout October? Why would that be?

Or, skip all that, keep things as-is with the postseason, and simply add a trophy that commemorates the regular-season champion in each league. Or you could give the Giles and Harridge Trophies to the regular season winners, rather than the LCS winners. If winning the regular season is deserving of a trophy, then give a trophy. If you expand the playoffs, you have to shorten the season to 154 games unless you want Game 7 of the WS to be on November 15th. And do away with the stupid "All-Star game determines WS home field advantage" and just let that be determined by regular season record. Nah just take out all of the off-days in the postseason and you'd be fine. These guys are used to playing 162 games in 182 days. So let them play a 7-game series in 7 days, with an off day after the series concludes (or more than one, if you finish in less than 7 games). In 2011, the regular season ends Wednesday Sept 28. First round: October 1-5 (best of 5, 2-2-1 format) Second round: October 7-13 (best of 7, 2-3-2 format) League Championships: October 15-21 World Series: October 23-29. TBS and Fox would have a fit. Great then give it to CBS. They seem to know how to handle the situation with their March Madness coverage.

That wouldn't resonate with fans(and therefore the owners) nearly as much as having regular season champ World Series. Especially if there were a less selective Champions League-esque tournament afterwards. It gives incentive to be the very best(just like people like to reminisce about), while still keeping the interest of the other 25 teams who know before Memorial Day that their team can't reach that standard. And "relegate the worst teams to AAA" is an impossibility. AAA teams are the same franchises at a different level of play, not completely different entities that can be swapped. You can't crown two champions every year. That's completely unworkable. And if you say one playoff is for the championship and the other is just for fun, nobody will pay attention to the just-for-fun one.

Or, skip all that, keep things as-is with the postseason, and simply add a trophy that commemorates the regular-season champion in each league. Or you could give the Giles and Harridge Trophies to the regular season winners, rather than the LCS winners. If winning the regular season is deserving of a trophy, then give a trophy. If you expand the playoffs, you have to shorten the season to 154 games unless you want Game 7 of the WS to be on November 15th. And do away with the stupid "All-Star game determines WS home field advantage" and just let that be determined by regular season record. Nah just take out all of the off-days in the postseason and you'd be fine. These guys are used to playing 162 games in 182 days. So let them play a 7-game series in 7 days, with an off day after the series concludes (or more than one, if you finish in less than 7 games). In 2011, the regular season ends Wednesday Sept 28. First round: October 1-5 (best of 5, 2-2-1 format) Second round: October 7-13 (best of 7, 2-3-2 format) League Championships: October 15-21 World Series: October 23-29.

I'd suggest not telling people you think your team is cursed.

Or, skip all that, keep things as-is with the postseason, and simply add a trophy that commemorates the regular-season champion in each league. Or you could give the Giles and Harridge Trophies to the regular season winners, rather than the LCS winners. If winning the regular season is deserving of a trophy, then give a trophy.

Moreso than ever, it seems like stadium is a huge part of the equation. And the Dodgers are definitely behind the curve on that one. Are the Dodgers, with their market and history, ahead of teams like the Twins (Target Field) or even the Brewers?

Right. Anyone that clings to the notion that the point is to determine the best team should love the BCS.

What team does have the best fans in baseball? If we know STL isn't the right answer, then what is? Not defending, just asking.

Joke implies funny. Does not apply

Let's get Andy Marte too

To me, the Cubs' system is "balanced" right now because several of the really good pitchers have either graduated or have been traded. IMO the system has always been, and continues to be, thin in hitters. Only now it's thin in pitchers too. I suppose that counts as balanced.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog?name=mlb_draft&id=6354443 Obviously, not a huge surprise with the Gray interest. I'd really love either Gray or Bubba Starling in round 1. Still, I can't really see anyone here disappointed in the selection. It will be hard for Wilken to shake this forum this year. Lots of studs to choose from. I'd say the opposite is true. With so many studs on the board Wilken could set of riots with another Colvin, Simpson out-of-the-blue type pick.

Remember Prince is a Boras client, and Scott is going to probably use the A-Gon deal as his measuring stick. There are more teams than the Red Sox and Yanks out there with money that would be willing to spend big for either Princ or Pujols. The Angels, Dodgers, and Mets could all be very much in the race, and teams like the Mariners, Orioles, and maybe even the Nationlals could get in on the fun. The Blue Jays recently dumped that massive Wells contract, so they could be in. Dodgers and Mets definitely cant afford him. Angels have Morales at 1B and just took on that awful Wells contract, which will make another big contract hard to fit. Mariners have Smoak as their long term 1B (and Jack Z doesn't seem the type to overspend) and the Nats just signed LaRoche to a multiyear deal. Of the teams you listed, I only see the Orioles and Blue Jays as teams that will likely be in on the bidding. The Nats signed LaRoche to a 2 year deal ($8mm next year, 3rd year option, $1mm buyout). He can be moved next off-season if they needed to. There are usually way more teams interested than folks tend to identify in these sorts of posts. Heck many signings come out of LF, (Werth- Nats, Cliff Lee - Phils etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if some totally unexpected team signs Fielder. Astros? Giants? DBacks? White Sox? etc.

actually, in minor league camp they alllll have their last names on the back of their jerseys. I don't have a picture, but we get to Spring Training most years, and those jerseys have names...it's just when they go play in a MLB game, they get a different jersey with a different number. It's also not unusual for there to be several folks with the same number playing in the same group, so can't just yell "hey 8, get a move on". Coaches generally seem to use last name, and especially at the beginning of ST, there are a lot of guys around, so I'd think the names on the back would be a sanity saving measure for the coaching staff, if nothing else :D Cool, thanks for that Karen.

you guys are forgetting about the third baseman playing with his heels on the grass when a possible bunter is at the plate. In all seriousness I concur; he was pretty sharp in the past as another poster suggested and it wasnt cause we were all younger or more naive about the finer nuances of the game. Even if all he did was explain the obvious thats a heck of a lot better than some other butchers with a mic. Really what more do you want from a broadcaster, song trivia? He is a hack radio guy for reasons I suggested previously and some of his comments in the last 5 years may have clouded our judgement but all in all he was a pretty good broadcaster. Thank you. Back when all Stone was concerned with was highlighting the nuances of the game from a (former) player's perspective, he was pretty good at his job. Somewhere along the line, though, he jumped the tracks. Whether that was a result of ego, politics, bitterness, shock jock syndrome, or the onset of senility is anyone's guess.