Baseball To-Do List: Well, First Spit It Out and Then Button It Up

Slashed television revenues. Runaway player salaries. And declining popularity among America’s youth. Major league baseball has got big problems.

I don’t kid myself that I have the solutions for all of them, but here’s a no-brainer for one:

Encourage major leaguers to stop chewing tobacco, or at the very least, suggest to the directors at CBS that they would be doing everyone a favor by switching cameras from the extreme close-up of a ballplayer in the dugout with a chunk of Red Man hanging from his lips.

I’m not squeamish, but I literally had to shield my eyes from Jim Fregosi’s “chaw” during Game 2 of the World Series.

Two possible benefits: More youth appeal and higher television ratings for the national pastime.

DAN MICHEL

Los Angeles

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Please, fewer shots of the dugout, especially of Jim Fregosi, chewing on something that is too big for his mouth. Is it tobacco, bubble gum or a golf ball?

ADAM KUCIA

Canoga Park

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The best thing about this year’s World Series: John Kruk’s humorous postgame comments.

The worst thing about this year’s World Series: Tim McCarver’s pregame, during-game and postgame comments. Whoever invented the mute button on TV remote controls must have known someday, somehow, McCarver would invade our living rooms and we would need some way to defend ourselves.

DIANNA HALLMARK

Claremont

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Isn’t it about time we recognized our northern neighbor’s Blue Jays and changed the name of the American League to the AmerCanada League?

GEORGE KERSTER

Manhattan Beach