The Morning Report
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Rah.
While I’ve never been a fan of Bud Selig, I’ve had to admit occasionally that the commissioner of baseball has done some good things. Not many, but some.
Selig’s orchestration, if you can call it that, of everything Pete Rose-related has been effective. Looks like the evidence book on Rose is to be passed down from commish to commish continually and quietly, just like the missile launch codes transfer between presidents. Division realignment has turned out better than most thought it would, and Selig has done a nice job overseeing the development of retro-styled baseball-only stadiums across America.
OK, that’s it for the positives on the commissioner’s to-do list.
All-Star Games that end in a tie, and home-field-in-the-World Series plans that follow are remarkably bad things, as are just about everything Selig does or says about performance-enhancing drugs. Expansion and, come to think of it, major league play during any month other than March inside the state of Florida equal more lameness, courtesy of Bud Selig.
Interleague play, which makes its 2007 debut Friday, is neither the wonder it was hoped to be nor the worst thing ever. It’s just kind of there, and doesn’t matter one way or the other. I suppose the Mets and the Yankees series is interesting to a degree, but not enough to hold 20 times in 10 years. Ditto for the A’s v. Giants, Angels v. Dodgers, Cincinnati v. Cleveland, Texas and Houston, and the Chicago match-up. It just doesn’t matter. “Natural rivalries,” my bleep.
And if I have to sit through one more Padres — Mariners ho-down, I swear I’m gonna hurl. Good thing I don’t have to sit through it. There’s not a word about it in my contract and no one’s forcing me. I might just stick my head in the sand until Monday.
The Pads play Baltimore and Boston during the June go-round of interleague play, which is worthwhile, but they also have the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on the schedule. If there’s one thing that really makes the case against interleague play, it’s the idea that even a single additional National League city has to be introduced to the thing that is Tampa Bay Devil Rays. This year, San Diego gets the honor.
— HOWARD COLE