From: miked@pterodactyl.cis.ohio-state.edu (Michael Davey)
Subject: Re: Baseball and Billions
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:32:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.173410.12937@adobe.com> snichols@adobe.com (Sherri Nichols) writes:
>That may be.  However, major league baseball is, and always has been, a
>business.  
	I acknowledged that. Read my posts more carefully.

>I disagree strongly.  The integrity of the game is intact as long as the
>goal of teams is to win.  
	The integrity of the game does not reside solely in competition. It is 
comprised of a variety of elements which combine to give it its unique 
character and identity. The more elements you change, the farther removed
from the original it becomes and the more compromised its integrity becomes.

>Was the integrity of the game compromised when they lowered the pitcher's
>mound?  Sometimes, there *is* something wrong with the game itself, and it
>has to be fixed; else people find it less interesting.
	In many people's oppinion, lowering the pitchers mound did compromise
the integrity of the game. What was going on at that period was the slider
was beginning to make an impact and offense began to decrease because the 
pitcher as atheletes had evolved to the point that the measurements of the 
game no longer allowed for fair competition between batter and pitcher. There
are people who say eventually the distance between the bases will have to be 
increased to allow for the increased speed of the base runners compared to
150 years ago. I don`t think you can compare these changes to the drastic
change of adding a hitter to the line-up.

>No, I don't think so.  The issue is, should "The Game" be removed from the
>control of owners.  Well, owners are in large part responsible for
>establishing "The Game" as whatever part of our culture it occupies.  So,
>were those owners okay, and today's owners evil?
	This reply is puzzling. It really does not relate to what I originally
posted. The issue is not and has never been should the game be removed from 
the control of the owners. It has been should the commissioner have the power 
to protect the game from owners whose vision is extremely short and who would
prefer to make obscene amounts of money by instituting practices that 
are unreasonable in the light of current circumstances. You continually turn
the argument into "Owners Good-You bad" If you believe that the owners should
have absolute power and are never wrong and never make incorrect decisions, 
etc, etc, there is no grounds for further discussion. You are turning 
everything into a choice between two polar opposites, which my positions
have never suggested.

>I believe I stated in my original post that the anti-trust exemption should
>be revoked.
	Yes, but until it is revoked, your continued inclusion of money in the
dynamic is inappropriate.

>What exactly *is* the ideal, and has it ever existed?
	It never exists, but you seem to deny there is anything wrong with the 
current state of affairs and do not hold the owners responsible for there role
in things at all.

>Give me a break.  My whole point is that AL fans enjoy the game, *with the
>DH*, just as much as NL fans.  Why, then, is the DH evil?
	Because it was instituted to increase revenue first, not fix a problem
with the game itself, otherwise, as I stated, the NL fans in the `60 would 
have wanted it also.

>Do you live in Tampa?
	No, but I have a set of grandparents there and I visit often and I
cannot see how if Miami can play outdoors, where the average rainfall is
greater than that in Tampa, the Tampa-Bay Giants cannot play outdoors. There
are no domes in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Detroit and the weather there in the 
spring can be miserable. Last year during the World Series, it was like
30 degrees in Milwaukee and Vincent made the statement that they were
looking at shortening the season to insure good weather for the playoffs
and World Series. This seems a bit more reasonable than moving the game
indoors when being outdoors on a pleasant day or evening is one of the things
people like about outdoor sports.

>No, as a matter of fact, all the people in all cities found the game
>boring in the late sixties.  Offense was way down, and so was attendance.
>That's why *both* leagues took measures to increase offense.  Then, in the
>seventies, with the AL still trailing in attendance versus the NL, the AL
>took further measures.
	The reason they lowered the mound was not because of attendence but due
to the fact that batting averages in both leagues were way down due to the 
wide spread use of the slider. In one of Roger Angell's books(Once More Around
the Park, I believe) he addresses his very issue in the chapter in which he 
talks with Gibson from the Cardinals. Angell and Gibson both maintain that 
given time the batters would have adjusted and offense would have gone back up.The DH, on the other hand, was introduced to increase revenue, not offenses 
specifically. If the owners had been a little patient. Offense would have 
increased and so would have fan interest in AL ball.

>It may not have been universally percieved, and indeed may still not be
>universally perceived, but do you deny that the DH has been a success?
>That fans of the AL *do* like it, and would regard the abolition of the DH
>as a serious mistake?  I really don't understand why you think that
>something which people clearly *like* and are willing to pay money for,
>shows such a lack of respect to the traditions of "The Game"?  Who decides
>what the proper respect of the traditions of "The Game" are, anyway?  I
>claim that the fans decide this, with their wallets.

	Yes, the DH was a success. No, not all AL fans like the DH. Again, as
I have shown, your repeated invoking of capitalism and free market theory is
invalid. The most you can do is affirm as a first principal that for you, if 
a lot of people like something and spend money on it,  than it automatically 
has value and merit and corresponds to tradition. (You can never prove a first
principal by its very nature, so please do not try and argue in this space
about it. Instead read some introductory books on logic or epistemology). 
In this case, we might as well all start watching stock car racing as 
more money is spent on stock car racing and more people attend stock car 
racing than any other sport in this country. And by your reasoning, stock
car racing has more integrity as an athletic contest than any other athletic
endeavor.

--Mike D.--


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