A commissioner could no longer control the league, as was the case before the advent of free agency in the 1970s. But he can affect the pace of his league. He can be openly an advocate of his fans. Even if he can't tell where the bus goes, he can hold a roadmap and insist on the right path.
The most influential commissioners in sports history have done so. He has been a visionary, not just a figurehead. They have seen where a game is going and directed it to a location beyond the next visible curve in the road.
Pete Rozelle, David Stern, Bart Giamatti, Jim Delany. good people? Not necessarily. Presenter? More often than not. Apparently they are paid for it.
The worst ones have simply counted and distributed TV revenue, negotiated and earned by predecessors, and mouthed, usually bubbling up in various blunders that could have been avoided by more sensible caretakers. And yet you can make a case for every one of those people who have been humiliated by fans for absolutely no reason other than their images.
Yes, Gary Bateman broke the 1994 lockout and went on autopilot at a time when the NHL, along with three other major sports at the time, was on course to ascend to the top level of American consciousness. But he is also largely responsible for southern expansion, the exponential climb in franchise value over the past two decades and encouraging owners to stay in markets from which they could fly.
Yes, Roger Goodell often seems like the guy working the boss's blank and is passive in acting on all sorts of intense events. But at least he saw that when the league was under siege two years ago, and on some issues helped persuade ownership to make the necessary concessions to the NFL's overwhelming percentage of African-American players.
Yes, Adam Silver has been soft on the rhetoric of "load management," but even he has recently publicly acknowledged that it's a problem for the NBA and that he's in a fix with his players' union. wants to find a solution.
But I can sit here now and not think of a redeeming aspect of the Rob Manfred era as MLB commissioner. In his 7-year tenure, he has overseen the gradual decline of a sport that was exciting and fun and important a decade ago to what we see now.
Is this all his fault? certainly not. The short-sighted bosses, the players themselves involved, the greedy all, bear most of the blame. As analytics devotees promote a brand of baseball that is putting patrons to sleep. As the players are the agents who indirectly control everything in the game.
But what Manfred had to see, and what could be seen years earlier, was that the pace of the game would drag the game into the ditch for no good reason. This has been the biggest unnecessary obstacle to MLB's product. Reasons make the laundry list – endless tours to the mound, pitchers running out of rubber, batters running out of boxes, 30 seconds between deliveries instead of 12 a generation ago.
Nothing has been done. MLBPA is to blame. It lobbied for the removal of a pitch clock from collective bargaining talks three years ago. Manfred and the owner could have stood firm but surrendered.
That was in early 2019. Here we are and the trend towards sports that has only lengthened forever, averaging a record 3:10 in the 2021 season. Waiting for action has become synonymous with waiting through eight pitching changes as the game dissolves and becomes less and less lucrative product.
This morning, Manfred reiterated that pitch clock is a priority. This is for the 2023 season. This should have been a priority when he took over for Bud Selig in 2015. But it clearly hasn't happened. I think we should be grateful because it looks like the pitch clock will finally be done next year.
But it could and should have happened much earlier than that. Most of the players now populating MLB rosters have become accustomed to pitching clocks at one point or another during their tenure in the minors, where an extended period of experimentation with time constraints has been tried. Players' resistance to high speed is crumbling.
It doesn't take all that much to shorten a 9-innings game time into the 2:30 range. The extent of variation in lefty-right situational pitching. Unnecessary strategy trips to the mound. Throws first to "hold" baserunners. All of this should be paramount if MLB is to not only regain its old original audience but generate a new one.
But the most disturbing trend is for batsmen to "adjust" out of the box and collect themselves. It's a trend I've seen in my lifetime, beginning with players like Richie Hebner and Mike Hargrove in the 1970s, leading up to the 1990s with Nomar GarcÃapara and Derek Jeter. For decades someone needs to stop this.
It takes a commissioner who is not only a caddy to owners but someone with a love of the game – as was Giamatti. Had he not passed ahead of time, A. Bart could have been a great leader. That he was a fan of the first game rather than some sort of beancounter or former Labor negotiator (see: Manfred) influenced not only his rhetoric but also his vision. He really wanted what was best for the game, not just the bottom lines of the owners.
And as a commissioner, trying to raise owned cats and deal with agenda-driven MLBPA counsel is an exhausting endeavor. But Manfred is also begging his masters for a mistake. He needed to see that the pace of the game was the biggest threat to the future of the game (the lack of an effective salary cap being close to each other, effectively being negated as it was almost all of the league's 30 franchises). Competitive viability of one third).
My son lives in Pittsburgh. He is 22 years old and recently graduated from college. He grew up going to Phillies games.
How many pirate games did he participate in while on the Point Park University campus within walking distance of the Clemente Bridge from PNC Park?
"One."
Would he have believed that four and a half years ago when he first left for Pittsburgh?
"No."
Before you make it easy for the Pirates to be non-competitive due to their small-market position in the game without a cap, know that I asked them not only about the local club that lost this season. Had asked > 100 games this season but a product within his generation as MLB. How do his friends feel about baseball in general?
"Not many care."
But how do they feel about football and hockey and basketball?
"He likes it."
Why not baseball?
"Watching baseball is boring. There's very little action."
This one sports-loving kid who played baseball for 14 years, basically his entire ambulatory youth, is telling you that MLB in its current version knows not only him but basically everyone. I believe he is an indicator of his overall demographic.
And this is an issue that Rob Manfred should have looked at, players and owners doing everything in their power to act on it. He's just saying it's a priority? for next year?
It's not the commissioner, it's an empty suit.