With America Yawning, the National Pastime Needs a Wake-Up Call

Last weekend, adhering to that time-honored tradition marked by autumn chill and early darkness, I called the children inside and turned on the TV.

Together, we were going to share the World Series.

“You know, I used to skip school to watch this,” I said.

“You used to skip school to watch this?” said one.

“No, really?” said another.

No, really.

I have stayed at the barber shop for two hours after a haircut to watch. I have looked over my companion’s shoulder for two hours at dinner to watch.

For the World Series, I have skipped birthday parties, skipped Halloween parties, skipped down the middle of the street in the middle of the afternoon while fleeing fifth grade.

It is thus troubling to report that, by Game 5 of this mutt, I was unwilling to skip even a hockey game.

Instead of watching the pivotal game between the Florida Marlins and Cleveland Indians on Thursday, I visited the Forum to watch the

Kings play the Detroit Red Wings.

And I wasn’t the only one.

Just ask that guy sitting behind the boards named Mike Piazza.

I returned home to watch a tape of the Marlin victory, after which I concluded that even lifelong baseball fans can no longer hide under that old pile of leather in the garage.

This must be the worst World Series ever.

OK, so only those who have watched each of the other 92 and were on speaking terms with Shoeless Joe Jackson can say for sure.

But as Kirk Gibson is my witness, this certainly acts like the worst.

Actually, Gibson was a Game 3 witness, driving to Cleveland from his Detroit-area home, perhaps to see if any of these guys had the dramatic flair to top his 1988 home run.

He never found out. He left early. Cold and blameless.

The combination of teams is as attractive as fish and ice cream. The play is dreadful. The weather is horrible.

The TV coverage is cluttered. The umpiring is inconsistent.

That relatively few people are watching at home--the worst ratings still equal around 14 million viewers nightly--does not in itself make this the worst World Series.

It simply means that when it comes to impressing fans, baseball is out of mulligans.

Not that the blame should fall to the Marlins or Indians. They defeated all comers, they deserve to be there under the current system. Everything Jim Leyland says is right.

This mess was caused by--who else?--those headless, clueless Park Avenue suits.

The result of silly decisions made by baseball’s handcuffed leaders during the last five years have finally come out of hiding, and it isn’t pretty.

Don’t believe me, believe Hank Bauer, who accumulated a record 17-game Series hitting streak with the New York Yankees.

Bauer, 75, tuned in Tuesday night as the Indians’ Marquis Grissom neared his record.

But he fell asleep before Grissom’s eighth-inning single increased his streak to 15 games.

“That was the worst World Series game I ever saw,” Bauer told reporters.

And he played or managed in 57 of them.

BAD MATCHUP

So, you want to allow a wild-card team to compete in the playoffs every year?

Be prepared for some owner to instantly buy his way into that spot.

Be prepared for that wild-card team to make the World Series.

Meet the mercenary Marlins.

Their owner, Wayne Huizenga, wants to sell them.

Their manager, Leyland, doesn’t seem to enjoy them the way he enjoyed the young Pittsburgh Pirates.

Their fans didn’t show up until the end of the playoffs.

And the rest of the nation is supposed to want to spend four hours a night during football season watching them?

As for the Indians, their franchise history and fan resilience have captured our hearts.

But c’mon, they haven’t played consistently well since beating the Yankees.

Solution: Eliminate the wild-card team from the playoffs. The division champions with the second- and third-best records play each other for the right to play the division champion with the best record in each league’s championship series.

The baseball season is so long, the best teams in each league have to endure so much, the nation deserves a chance to see those teams still playing in late October.

BAD UMPIRES

When is baseball going to realize its fans want the best games to involve the best umpires?

No other professional sports union gets away with such blatant patronage as the umpires’ union during postseason play. The umpires aren’t chosen by quality, but rotation, and this year it shows.

When NBC announcer Joe Morgan wondered Thursday night whether Ken Kaiser could be charged with an error for the horrible call at first base in the ninth inning, the answer was clear to all.

In the NFL or NBA, yes. In major league baseball, no.

Anybody wonder why none of the Marlins argued what was nearly a game-changing call by Kaiser?

Because last month, umpire union boss Richie Phillips declared a “no-tolerance” policy against player rebellion, vowing that any argument would result in ejection.

The teams have understood that to be an edict against player emotion. They have reacted by turning down their internal thermostats to the extent that not only are they not arguing even the worst calls, they aren’t really celebrating the good ones.

And while everyone tiptoes around the umpires in fear, the umpires stand around with their hands in their pockets while the games are endlessly delayed by procrastinating pitchers and batters.

Solution: Tell Richie Phillips to get lost. Force the umpires into a strike. Start again from scratch. Weed out the few incompetents. Reward the ones who are not afraid to tell the pitcher to throw the ball.

BAD TIMING

It’s nobody’s fault that this World Series might have been doomed from the start, trying to follow such memorable league playoffs.

But it’s baseball’s fault that those playoffs further hurt the Series by pushing it into early winter.

Neutral-site World Series? Get real. Devout baseball fans attend 81 home games, not eight. What makes sense for football would be suicide for baseball.

Solution: Shorten the season to 154 games. That, combined with one fewer playoff round, will ensure that this is settled by the second week of the month, which has worked on about 70 other occasions.

BAD TV

At its best, the World Series is as charming as one of those scenes inside a shake-and-snow glass ball.

But trying to bring us closer to that scene, NBC has shattered the ball.

I know the players dawdle and games drag, but does anybody really care about those pitch-sequence replays? Are those diagrams about pitch location really helpful? Is it necessary to show a player’s last seven at-bats, confusing us as to which one is live?

And do we really need to hear the first-base coach talking to himself? For years we got along just fine with our imaginations.

NBC will tell you that such distractions are necessary to keep people watching games that run so long and so late.

Of course, it is NBC that pushes for the games to run so long and so late.

Solution: The next time a TV deal comes up, baseball should take less money from a network willing to televise it during the day, or earlier at night.

And let Bob Costas do all the announcing by himself. If there is a Mr. Baseball in that booth, he’s it.

That said, not to worry. The Indians will win tonight in Miami and all will be forgiven with a classic Game 7.

Featuring Charles Nagy versus Al Leiter.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SERIES AT A GLANCE

CLEVELAND vs. FLORIDA

TV: Channel 4

Marlins lead series, 3-2

Game 1: Florida 7, Cleveland 4

Game 2: Cleveland 6, Florida 1

Game 3: Florida 14, Cleveland 11

Game 4: Cleveland 10, Florida 3

Game 5: Florida 8, Cleveland 7

Tonight: at Florida, 5

Sunday: at Florida, 4:30 p.m.*

* If necessary

LOWEST-RATED WORLD SERIES

*--*

Year Teams Rating Network 1997 Cleveland-Florida* 15.0 NBC 1989 Oakland-San Francisco** 16.4 ABC 1993 Toronto-Philadelphia 17.3 CBS 1995 Atlanta-Cleveland 19.5 ABC/NBC 1970 Baltimore-Cincinnati 19.5 NBC

*--*

*--Through five games

**--Interrupted by earthquake

COLDEST WORLD SERIES

*--*

YEAR GAME SITE TEMP. 1997 Game 4 at Cleveland 38 1979 Game 1 at Baltimore 41 1979 Game 4 at Pittsburgh 42 1976 Game 2 at Cincinnati 43 1982 Game 7 at St. Louis 44

*--*

NOTE: Since 1975

* GAME 6

Marlins can apply the clincher with Brown on the mound. C8