MR. NOVEMBER

Reggie Jackson’s nickname was Mr. October because he almost always came through with a stellar performance in the World Series. (I saw him hit three home runs in one critical Yankee World Series game in the 1970’s.) This was when baseball’s World Series was held in early October. Today is October 26th and only three games have been played in the World Series. Tonight, rain is forecast in St. Louis and so the fourth game probably won’t be played until at least the 27th … and the fifth, maybe on the 28th. Then, there will be a travel day before the series moves back to Detroit. So the sixth game (if necessary) would be played on the 30th at the earliest. Thus, any hiccup in this process would push the seventh game (if necessary) into November! What is going on here?

Expanding the number of baseball teams and the number of scheduled games has pushed out the World Series by at least three weeks until now freezing weather and snow now threaten the “boys of summer” with cold-related injuries. Why? We all know the answer … money. This is also why the National Hockey League now plays the Stanley Cup games in early June. (I remember one such Boston Bruins game played in a dense fog because it was so warm in the arena that the ice was sublimating.) The real problem is that greed persists … and we know that things will continue to get worse. Eventually, all sports will have to be played year-round in order for the television networks to recoup their enormous investments in the TV broadcast rights. Even now the thrill of attending live sporting events has been substantially reduced because of all the players standing around idle while TV advertisers insert more and longer commercials.

I have a solution. Let’s create on omnibus sport. Make baseball a contact sport with football-like pads and have it played on a huge ice rink. Put hoops in left, right and center fields so that home runs hit into them get an extra score. Allow personal grudge fights and encourage bench-clearing melees. And call this sport “politics”.