World Series needs to find a way to regain its old magic

It was a splendid sight, ancient wonder Stan Musial throwing out the first pitch of Friday’s final World Series game.

Until a sudden winter wind sent the old guy stumbling off the mound.

It was a heartwarming sight, David Eckstein being named the most valuable player after Friday’s final World Series game.

Until Commissioner Bud Selig mispronounced his last name.

Poor misguided baseball, once the curators of this country’s most important October holiday, now spends the week dumping eggs on windshields and dropping firecrackers in jack-o’-lanterns.

The World Series no longer works.

The best teams don’t play. The best venues aren’t used. The best players don’t talk. The best fans are asleep.

What was once this country’s most classic title bout now ranks fifth on the championship buzz list, behind the Super Bowl, the Final Four, the BCS and the NBA Finals.

Remember when people used to love it so much they would follow it through scratchy portable radios sneaked into classrooms and offices?

These days, they won’t even watch it in high definition from their family room couches. This year’s TV ratings for the St. Louis Cardinals’ win over the Detroit Tigers were the worst Series ratings ever -- and less than half of the ratings 15 years ago.

Remember when people cared so much, even the smallest of newspapers would devote a week’s worth of rich stories about the games?

Check out Saturday’s Louisville Courier-Journal, a venerable publication in a town that is only a four-hour drive from St. Louis. The entire Cardinals championship is covered in one small wire-service story with only six paragraphs on the front page.

When the World Series loses Middle America, it loses its soul, and that’s what’s happening here, as slowly and painfully as an “American Idol” reject singing during the seventh-inning stretch.

None of the following issues are new, nor is the common response to them by the blinded hardball fraternity.

“That’s just baseball,” they say, again and again.

Oh yeah? Well, that’s just stupid.

* Change the playoffs.

Baseball boasts seven different champions in seven seasons.

Sorry, but that is nothing to brag about.

Sports leagues need powerhouses. They need bullies. They need Goliaths. They need greatness.

Baseball needs to increase the wild-card round to seven games to ensure that a summer-long powerhouse like the New York Yankees cannot be eliminated in three bad days. Remember, the great NFL so believes in this theory, its four best teams don’t even participate in the opening playoff round.

* Change the location.

A neutral site works for three of the top four championships, why not in baseball?

Award the game to a warm-weather or domed-stadium city. Play seven consecutive games there. Turn it into an annual celebration of our national pastime, Baseball Town USA.

If the Super Bowl can party in one spot for one week, why can’t baseball?

This will end the travel-day drudgery that busts momentum. This will end the weather postponements that ruin interest. This will ensure that the most important games are played under ideal conditions.

Worried about alienating home fans? Have you ever heard an NFL die-hard complain that the Super Bowl is not played at their home field? Divide up the tickets, give more to the team whose league has home-field advantage, and every game will be a sold-out blast.

* Change the access.

Just wondering but, this week, did you learn something new about the great Albert Pujols? Did you learn anything, period, about young Adam Wainwright?

Probably not, because, unlike every other major sport, baseball does not make its players accessible to the media on a daily basis during its championship.

The players just say no, and baseball cowers to their indifference, and the game’s public face becomes a blur that becomes easy to ignore.

During this week’s World Series rainout, the Cardinals clubhouse was open to the media for 30 minutes. For the first 20 minutes of that session, the clubhouse was empty save for two clubhouse attendants standing guard over the lockers in case somebody wanted to steal, what, some new stick deodorant?

When a few Cardinals finally emerged, they spoke for only five or 10 minutes before “public relations” staffers shouted that the session was over.

Think about it. The NFL has far more popular players, and the NBA has much richer players, and both groups routinely sit for a week’s worth of championship interviews.

That’s just baseball? That’s just ignorant.

* Change the focus.

Baseball’s embarrassingly subservient relationship with television was made clear even before this World Series’ first pitch.

In Detroit’s Comerica Park, in the heart of Motown, the pregame entertainer was an out-of-towner named John Mellencamp.

And he sang only one song -- the one that he sings on commercials promoting baseball’s major automobile sponsor.

TV owns the World Series’ late starting times, which is killing its younger fan base.

TV owns the World Series’ long game times, which is boring its older stalwarts.

Bud Selig is a good man, a well-meaning commissioner who has done some terrific things when he hasn’t been pulled apart by a shortsighted union and selfish ownership.

In the final years of his reign, it would be nice to see him pull this one thing back, regaining control of his sport’s crown jewel, its most enduring connection between the present and the past, the World of Hurt Series.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com To read previous Plaschke columns, go to latimes.com/plaschke.