There’s really no easy answer here—we’re all at the mercy of the weather most of the time anyway and if Rafael Furcal makes a better throw in Philadelphia in Game 1 of the NLCS there’s a good chance the Dodgers have already been swept by the Rays and instead of the weather we’re all discussing if Greg Oden is really Yao Ming 2.0. There are countless suggestions floating around right now for World Series fixes; over the last two days I’ve heard: mandatory double-headers on the schedule, shortening the season to 148 games, starting World Series games earlier in the day, less off-days during the post season, starting the season earlier, a host city for the World Series (a la the Super Bowl), fewer pre-season games, and a few others as well.
What’s important to remember is just because something makes sense or might be good for the game doesn’t mean it’s going to actually happen:just like every other sport, Baseball is a business and that business is fueled by advertising revenue and concession/ticket dollars. Anything that sounds good but interferes with money is going to be discarded out of hand. World Series games starting at 1:00 pm on the weekends? Great idea. Only it interferes with college football and the NFL so ratings will be split and so will the ad dollars, so that’s out.
The only change that has any hope of ever passing would probably be the elimination of a few off-days scheduled during the AL/NLCS which would allow for this thing to get wrapped up sooner AND would also force teams to use a four-man rotation instead of the Big Three approach we’ve been seeing lately. But all of that aside, what does it really matter if the weather sucks? Besides the wind and rain, the takeaways from this Series are that Ryan Howard really, really struggles with curveballs, the umpires are terrible (luckily they have been terrible both ways), and for the most part neither team can hit with runners in scoring position. I think I’d rather talk about the weather, to be honest with you.
