Congratulations to Baseball's Newest Hall of Famers

This is a little late, but better late than never.  Congratulations to the Class of 2018 who were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY the weekend of July 28 - 29.

I count myself fortunate to have seen all six of this year's inductees play in person. Chipper Jones of the Braves, Vladimir Guerrero of the Expos, Jim Thome of the Indians and Trevor Hoffman of the Padres all played against my beloved Cardinals and I was fortunate to be able to see all of them on several occasions at Busch Stadium II or Busch Stadium III in St. Louis.  I saw Jack Morris and Alan Trammell of the Tigers on a road trip to visit friends when we took in a game against the Angels in May of 1984 at old Tiger Stadium located at the corner of Michigan & Trumbull  I was also lucky enough to see Morris pitch and Trammell play shortstop against the Kansas City Royals at Kaufmann Stadium on different occasions during the 80s.  All six of these men are deserving of the honor to be called Hall of Famers.

Two more men joined the Hall this year not as players but as those who describe the action of baseball.  The winner of the J. G. Taylor Spink Writer's Award is Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon Journal.  Joining Ocker was this year's Ford C. Frick Broadcaster's Award winner Bob Costas.  I have had the chance to listen to Costas frequently since he worked for KMOX radio in my home town.  Costas went on to bigger and better things working for NBC and the MLB network calling baseball, football, basketball, hockey and the Olympics.  Congratulations to Ocker and Costas!

Random Thoughts at Baseball's All-Star Break

My beloved Cardinals baseball team has fired Mike Matheny as its manager and now starts the second half of the season with interim manager Mike Schildt.  I'm not sure I would have made the change to Schildt now.  If the Cards are serious they would have named a new permanent manager immediately.  My choice would have been former infielder Jose Oquendo who reportedly relates well to Latin players and young players.  But, the Cardinals went interim instead.  Perhaps Oquendo doesn't want the job or the Cardinals have something else planned.  I am skeptical the team will get back into the National League Central division race this season.

-The MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night epitomized everything wrong with the professional game.  Just like regular season games, batters were swinging for the fences in each at bat and striking out at a record pace.  While the home run is an exciting part of the game its pursuit results in a lack of action on the field.  Wake up MLB.  As far as the All-Star Game, thank God we won't have to deal with it for another year.

-Finally, if you put a gun to my head and ask who will be in the World Series this year, I will say the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Dodgers have struggled at times, but in my opinion they are the best of a mediocre National League.  Ultimately I expect the Dodgers' pitching to put them into the series.  I also think the Red Sox are much better than any team that would face them in the World Series.  The Bosox pitching, hitting, defense and speed will carry them to their second world title in the last six years.

Happy 242nd Birthday USA!

Today marks the 242 anniversary of the United States of America.  This my where I live and I am proud to be a citizen of this great land.  Yes, we have our problems and with any nation we have our disagreements and arguments over how we should be headed and how we should be treating our citizens.  But, I can think of no other place I would rather live.  I originally posted the article below several years ago.  It still holds true today.  Happy 4th of July America!


"I am blessed to live in the United States of America.  It is still the richest and most powerful nation in the world.  But more importantly I am allowed to express myself and to criticize our leaders as I see fit due to the Bill of Rights of this great nation.

Today  marks the 242nd birthday of the United States of America.  It is one of the longest running democracies in the world.  This has been accomplished through the sacrifice of thousands going back to the Revolution against the British to today with our troops deployed in Afghanistan and other Middle East hot-spots.  These brave men and women paid the ultimate price for our enduring freedom.  I have no good way of sufficiently expressing my gratitude to them and to those who have served in conflicts such as World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.  Today I say thank you to all of our armed forces past and present.  Because of you I am able to live in what I truly believe is the greatest nation on Earth.  Happy Birthday America!  Long may you stand"! 

Farewell Red Schoendienst

Copyright Baseball Hall of Fame

This past week one of my St. Louis Cardinal childhood favorites passed away at the age of 95.  Albert Fred "Red" Schoendienst was nearing the end of his career when I first saw him play as an eight year old in 1961 at Busch Stadium I.  I wasn't old enough at the time to realize I was seeing a Hall-of-Fame second basemen.  Schoendienst had a long distinguished career including four years with the Milwaukee Braves in the late 1950's,  During that period the Braves went to the World Series twice and won it in 1957.  Red was recognized as one of the best second basemen of his era for his hands and range.

Later in his career he managed the Cardinals to the 1967 and 1968 National League pennants.  In 1967 the Birds won it all beating the Boston Red Sox in seven games.  Schoendienst worked and consulted with the Cardinals until earlier this year.  RIP in Red.

I have been a frequent critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but not this weekend.  Writer Rick Hummel, who is also in the Hall-of-Fame in the writers wing, wrote the following article looking back at how Mr. Schoendienst was remembered by those with he whom he came into contact.  The copyright on the following article is with the Post-Dispatch.  Here is the link to the article.

MLB Games are Just Too Long and Boring

Greetings oh  blog reader.  As I write this I am watching the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds play a divisional game from Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.  The game is being played at a snail's pace and honestly isn't any fun to watch.  It just moved into the top of the 5th and is almost two hours old.  Major League Baseball is boring because the games are too long.  I was offered tickets by a friends to a Cardinals game earlier this week and fortunatly I had other plans.  Fortunate because it was 93 degrees and I knew the game would last over three hours.  The seats were great seats, but also in the sun.  So while I love the game of baseball I was glad I didn't go to the Cards and Marlins game.

I've written about these long games on several occasions.  The average game time is well over three hours in the National League and even longer in the American League.  There are several reasons that the times have gotten out of hand.

For starters, umpires are not calling the strike zone as it is written in the rule book.  The book says a pitch over the plate from the letters to the knees is a strike.  But, for must umps, the strike zone exists between the waist and knees.  Batters take extra pitches looking for a free pass.  This results in more pitches seen in each at bat, which results in a longer game time.  For most hitters and pitchers the game is a cat and mouse contest.  The pitcher gets the ball back from the catcher and he steps off the rubber and does any number of things from rubbing up the ball, to walking around the back of the mound to blowing on his hand to God only knows what he will do next.  While the pitcher is wasting time the batter is stepping out of the batters box.  The hitter goes through a litany of tightening his gloves, looking down the foul line to the base coach for signals, knocking dirt out of his cleats, taking a couple of practice swings and then stepping back into the box.  If you're lucky the pitcher will throw to the hitter and the game resumes for one pitch.  If not they go through this routine again. Each at bat is too long, the inning becomes even longer and the fans get bored waiting for something to happen.  This could be resolved by the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, issuing an order that the hitters will stay in the box and the pitcher on the rubber.  If they don't the pitcher is assessed a ball for each violation and the hitter is assessed a strike each time he steps out of the box.  It wouldn't take long for them to learn their bad habits won't be tolerated.  The commissioner also needs to order umpires to call strikes as they are written in the rule book.  If not they get a warning, that if repeated enough could result in suspension or termination.  The commissioner needs to realize fans do not go to the games to watch the umpires call balls.

If MLB is serious about picking up the pace it would also limit the amount of times between innings to 90 seconds.  As it is now MLB allows some networks to run up to three minutes of commercials each half inning (ESPN/ABC is a prime offender).  Baseball makes a ton of money off of TV rights so its TV partners need to show as many commercials as possible.  But, if the TV networks went to a grid system, they could charge more for each spot and reduce the number between innings.  MLB has to remember the fans in the stands who have to sit and wait every time TV shows a commercial.  These are the same fans who in some cases are paying over $100 per ticket to get into the ballpark. Baseball needs to show some consideration to those paying for tickets and not roll over for broadcast rights holders. If baseball would reduce the amount of time between innings it could result in a savings of at least 24 minutes per game.

If baseball is serious about shortening its games it's not that difficult.  My guess is nothing will change any time soon because of the amount of money being made by MLB and its business partners the way things are at this time.