Another Bush League Move by MLB

ESPN is reporting Major League Baseball will cut the length of doubleheader games from nine innings to seven innings effective immediately.

This is just another bush league move, more closely associated with high school baseball than major league baseball.  There have been very rare occasions in the past where MLB allowed teams to play seven inning doubleheader games, but never a whole season.  This is more proof MLB and its "management" are making the rules up on the fly.  The question that comes to mind is why wasn't this rule implemented prior to the start of the season instead of now, eight days after the 2020 season started?

MLB and its players will tell you this is for the safety of its players.  But, the question then becomes why play the games at all?  As I wrote Tuesday night.  Just cancel the whole season and come back next spring.  Just shut it down now.  Rob Manfred you're still an idiot and should be canned immediately.

Just Shut It Down and be Done with It

Major League Baseball continues to make up the rules for 2020 as it goes along.  The latest is arbitrarily postponing ten percent of the Miami Marlins season.  Granted the Marlins are a very ill team.  About half of the players have tested positive for the coronavirus.  But, why the "powers that be" at MLB chose to postpone the team's next six games rather than three or nine, I have no idea.  A person who tests positive for the Covid virus is to be quarantined for 14 days not six.  So, why then does baseball pick to postpone the Marlins next six games through Sunday?  (And keep in mind that is ten percent of the team's scheduled games.  It definitely puts Miami behind the eight ball, and is unfair to the teams that were scheduled to play them this week.  Now all of the teams involved, the Marlins, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals will have to play make up games in an already tight schedule.  But, given baseball's track record this doesn't come as a surprise.

The last thing I wrote in my previous post is Rob Manfred is an idiot.  As commissioner, Manfred should be looking out for the best interests of the game.  But, he's not.  Manfred is more concerned about making sure his band of billionaire brothers (the owners), make as much money as they possibly can in this pandemic shortened season.  Manfred and his gang of greed have also impacted the season of the Phillies and Yankees.  The Phillies played the Marlins last weekend when the news of the virus hitting the Marlins was released.  Now to be safe MLB has postponed the four games scheduled this week between the Yanks and Phils.  That means those teams will have to make up four games down the stretch on open dates.

 This is crazy.  The schedules are not fair, and the owners are placing their earnings ahead of the players' health.  If the owners won't shut it down, maybe the players will.  This week's postponements are just the tip of the iceberg.  Please, shut it all down now!

Opening Day for MLB...Why Bother?

It's been over 200 days since America last saw Major League Baseball played before the pandemic shut things down.  And the way MLB is going they should have stayed shut down.

Normally, I count down the days to the start of the regular season. But, this year I could care less.  Here are some random thoughts on the state of the game as it opened today.

-MLB and its players approved expanded playoffs this year.  In a money grab to expand the number of games available for ESPN and Fox Sports, both sides approved expanding the playoffs to 16 teams.  That means more than half of the teams in MLB will be in the playoffs. Which raises the question why bother playing a regular season.  Expanded playoffs cheapen the regular season and reduces the talent pool in the playoffs.  What's even worse is once playoffs are expanded they never contract.

-I've been watching baseball for over 60 years and the thought of a designated hitter makes me want to puke.  The addition of a DH to the National League creates an uneven playing field for NL teams that have not cultivated the spot in the lineup as have their junior circuit cousins for the past 40 plus years.  It's been a gimmick since it was implemented and it still is.

-The 60 game season is a joke.  Why is a third of the season being spent playing teams that aren't even in the same league.  Yet, those games will count as much as any division game.  I am a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and agree playing two thirds of the season against its division rivals is a good idea.  But, why the heck are the Cardinals playing the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox?  They are bad baseball teams.  It's another gimmick that MLB has forced on the public.  And MLB hasn't publicized it yet, but all teams will be playing the same other league division they are playing this year again next year.  What does that tell you?  ESPN AND Fox want to match up major market teams on the East coast to inflate ratings.  Hopefully, this will backfire and MLB, ESPN and Fox will lose their ass as the public sees through yet another worthless gimmick.

-One final thought;  if commissioner Rob Manfred is involved, you can be assured he will do the wrong thing and piss off the fans who support the game.  But, what does Manfred and his owner buddies care?  They're making money hand over fist without a single person in any stadium.

I guess I will continue to watch the Big Bang Theory and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives rather than this bastardization of the American past time until the NHL starts its playoffs in a week and a half.

Rob Manfred, you're an idiot.

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The World's Second Worst Customer Service

Now that you've read the headline you're wondering who has the second worst customer service I have ever experienced.  It's Macy's.com.

I now understand why the company is dying a slow death.  I called the company's customer service number this morning on behalf of my mother who has a hard time hearing voices on the phone.  She ordered some face cream she likes from Macy's on July 1st.  As of today, the package is in never, never land.  It shipped by UPS and as of July 7th there have been no status update in two weeks.  So, I attempted to call UPS and the first thing it says is, if you are having any problems with your package delivery call the shipper.

The shipper is Macy's.  I found an 800 number Macy's has on its website, that the company urges you to call if you don't have the product you have ordered and for which Macy's has already been paid.

I called the customer service department at 12:10 p.m. this afternoon.  At 1:50 I hung up because after one hour and 40 minutes no one had picked up my call.  All I heard repeatedly was to please stay on the line and the next available customer service rep would be with me.  Apparently, Macy's has so few customer service reps it can't keep up with the calls its getting.  I understand waiting my turn for 10 or even 15 minutes.  But, an hour and 40 minutes?  Macy's that is an EPIC FAIL.

I thought, I would give the retailer the benefit of a doubt and called back again just before 4 p.m. and was greeted with the message from Macy's the wait time would be at least 60 minutes.  My response was to hang up as fast as I could.

Macy's I will never do business with you and encourage my family, friends and readers to never do business with you either.  Hopefully, you will just go out of business and stop wasting people's time and money.

And now that you know who the second worst company is you probably want to know who the worst is.  It's an easy answer because there is no one close to them.  The worst company for customer service is Charter / Spectrum.  I'll have more on that screwed up organization in the coming days.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 232nd birthday to the greatest nation ever...the United States of America.  And more importantly, thank you to all of the brave troops stationed around the world defending the American way of life. I realize we're not the most beloved of countries, but why is that when some other nation gets in trouble or needs help, the US is always the first one it asks?  And the United States never says no to someone in need.

244 years old and going strong. God Bless America!!!

Gibberish

I received a new legal agreement today from one of the retail banks with which I do business.  All, I can say about the document is...it's gibberish.

Keep in mind that retail banks are some of the tightest retailers there are.  They will hang onto every single penny they can squeeze out of their customers.

The "Terms and Conditions of Your Account" is from a company named Busey Bank.  The statement is 16 pages of legalese and while it is readable to someone with a bit of a legal background, most of its customers are probably scratching their heads at what it is trying to tell them.  As a reporter, I covered the legal beat for years so I have a bit of a legal background and am able to read legal documents.  But, Busey Bank's document is so dry I finally gave up after reading three of the 16 pages of legalese written in about a 6 point type face.

Busey, you could have made this much easier by following examples from other financial corporations and written the document in much easier to read language.  But, instead you chose to send it out to your customers in boilerplate.  And to top it off Busey doesn't even highlight the major changes from its last account document.  So, the bottom line is, you have to read both documents closely and interpret the boiler plate legal language to know what if anything has changed.

The sad thing about this is Busey isn't the only retail bank to do this.  Most of its competitors in the industry are doing the same thing.  It is a complete disservice to their customers.