2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

[LongTimeListener]

The fact that it was in Milwaukee also added to the Perfect Selig Storm.

 

[poindexter]

I am not sure why Selig caught all the heat for that debacle. Didn't the two managers (Torre and Brenly?) come up to Selig and say "we don't have any more pitchers"?

 

[Dick Whitman]

You're trying to come at this from a preconceived general position and it's twisting you into weird spots. They didn't have a plan in place.

You are above it all and too cool to care about an exhibition game, and that's cool. I'm above some stupid stuff too.

Nobody cares about the All-Star Game. Check that. Nobody cares who wins the All-Star Game. I'm not above it all. I'm not too cool. I'm the 99 percent.

But, suddenly, everybody cared.

The criticism was just misplaced. The problem wasn't that baseball didn't have a plan in place to resolve an All-Star Game tie. The problem was that baseball was trying to act like the game's result actually mattered to begin with. They always have, and I've never, ever gotten it, at least after interleague play was instituted.

Baseball is, by nature, the best All-Star Game because people can try hard without risking injury. So why try to force the other stuff on people?

 

[Riptide]

I thought this was discussed to death in 2002, 2003, 2004 ...

 

[Dick Whitman]

I thought this was discussed to death in 2002, 2003, 2004 ...

But as long as the game still "counts," it's still a relevant topic.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Do we still remember Dime Beer Night, and Disco Demolition Night? We do. Same thing with the 2002 All-Star Game except there wasn't a riot. Just the national pastime tripping over its own deck as only it can to the delight of millions.

 

[outofplace]

Looks like Mariano Rivera will pitch the bottom of the 8th, to guard against someone else blowing the lead and Rivera not getting into the game.

is there a rational argument for not voting for Rivera for the Hall of Fame? If not, should someone who fails to vote for him be removed from the BBWAA for being irrational ?

Let's be sure to get the ones who didn't vote for Rickey Henderson and quite a few others who should have been unanimous.

Rivera's not going to be unanimous. Nobody will as long as jackasses who misuse their votes continue to get to keep them.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Just the national pastime tripping over its own deck as only it can to the delight of millions.

I am so outraged that an exhibition game ended in a tie.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Because it was funny, and the fact poor Bud was so obviously mortified made it funnier still. If people can't laugh at baseball's tendency for self-inflicted stupidity/lunacy, our nation is in real trouble.

I guess I don't quite understand what was funny about it to begin with and why he was mortified. They ran out of pitchers in an extra-inning exhibition game.

I mean, it was funny in a laugh-with-baseball way. "Oops, we ran out of pitchers!" But just not sure why it was a laugh-at-baseball opportunity.

Because technically, the rules say that a pitcher can go 3 innings. The last time it happened was Maddux in '94. As a kid, I remember the starter would usually go 3 innings, unless he got lit up.

With a dozen, or more pitchers on the staff, they should never have run out of pitchers. Babying their arms, and the desire to get everyone in the game, caused them to run out.

 

[Dick Whitman]

People were outraged because there was a festering national resentment over the decline of the three-inning All-Star outing?

 

[LongTimeListener]

You're overstating "outrage." The mood was more one of mockery, and the incident (and especially the visuals) were another good example of baseball gone wrong. (Which it really was at the time.)

In any case, there's certainly no outrage 11 years later.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

People were outraged because there was a festering national resentment over the decline of the three-inning All-Star outing?

No, there was, as LTL said, mockery. Looking at the boxscore, the AL had three pitchers go two innings, the NL had two. You had Barry Zito pitching 1/3 of an inning.

Also, back then, pitchers could be named to the team, but not pitch because they had thrown over the weekend, making them unavailable and taking up a roster spot. MLB finally changed that rule a few years ago, where if a pitcher can't pitch, they're not on the roster.