How to make America’s pastime more fair, balanced and popular

Family: Murder victim cared about welfare of others
July 5, 2011
CDBG flow should ease future disaster
July 7, 2011
Family: Murder victim cared about welfare of others
July 5, 2011
CDBG flow should ease future disaster
July 7, 2011

With the Los Angeles Dodgers going bankrupt and several teams across the globe also losing money, there’s been a lot of talk about baseball in recent weeks.

Not a lot of it has been good.


Baseball is our nation’s pastime, but it truly is somewhat of a dying sport, having already fallen past football as our country’s No. 1 priority. One can even make the case that the NBA is pushing hard to make the sport No. 3 in our country’s eyes, which truly is a shame.


Mark me down as one of the few people in this country that doesn’t think this necessarily has to be the case. There has been plenty of talk about baseball reform in recent weeks. Some has been intelligent and some has been off the wall.

Here’s my plan, the Gisclair Plan, which you may think combines a little of both.


This is what I’ve got and I truly believe doing all of these steps would make the game more loved among sports fans.


Of course you never know until you try.

Step 1: Level out the leagues:


There are currently 16 teams in the National League and 14 teams in the American League. Each league currently has four playoff spots.


Statistically, it’s easier to make the playoffs in the American League. How exactly is that fair to wildcard hopefuls like the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers or Arizona Diamondbacks, who will claw for their playoff lives deep into September?

The answer is, it’s not.


So what I suggest is move the Milwaukee Brewers back to the American League (where they were originally founded).


With that, you’d have two, 15-team leagues, which is how it should be in the first place. The fact that it isn’t is laughable at best, ridiculous at worst.

Step 2: Be rid of divisions:


Now that we have an even playing field on both sides, let’s eliminate all of the divisions and have two, 15-team divisions.


The division championship banner is so 1993.

Seriously, if you’re a fan of the Boston Red Sox, do you care that your team wins the division if they don’t win the World Series?


Likewise, if your team wins the Wild Card, but wins the World Series, do you scratch your head and lament about not being a division champion?


Of course not.

Play out the schedule (which we’ll get to later) and put the best four teams in the playoffs, regardless of where in the country they are located.


Right now, the Tampa Bay Rays are better than anyone in the American League West.


The Rays won’t make the playoffs because they are behind the Yankees and Red Sox, while some Joe Schmoe like the Rangers will get the thrill of postseason success.

It’s just not fair.


Get rid of the divisions, they just don’t work.


Step 3: Balanced schedule:

With no more divisions to worry about, baseball can also abandon their weighted schedules and play a more balanced slate.


The current MLB schedule is a joke.


It truly is the epitome of unfair.

If you’re a team like the Baltimore Orioles or Toronto Blue Jays, you head into every season knowing you’ll have to play 56 games against the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays, three of the best teams in baseball.

If you’re the St. Louis Cardinals, you spend those 56 games playing the Cubs, Astros and Pirates.

Which schedule is harder? Which team has more of a competitive advantage?

With no divisions, make every team play one home series and one away series against every team in their own league. That comes out to 84 games.

Likewise, make every team play one, three-game series with every team in Interleague play. That comes out to 45 games.

This way, everyone would play the same exact schedule and the true best teams would make the playoffs, which is the goal.

Step 4: Shorten season:

If you are really following what I’m saying closely, you know that 84 + 45 is 129, so that brings me to my next point, shortening the season to just 129 games.

The art of the season ticket is dead in baseball with the current 162-game season format.

Why make a six-month commitment to 81 home games when you know good and well you’re not going to be able to head out to the ballpark for all of the games?

The answer we’ve seen is, you don’t and season ticket sales have dropped across the country.

Americans need exclusivity and scarcity to be interested in something.

We watch LeBron James because he’s a once in a lifetime talent.

We watch the World Cup because it comes around once every four years.

We eat King Cake because it’s only around for Mardi Gras.

Shorten the season and make the games mean a little more. It will raise interest in the game and ticket sales.

You’re far more likely to eat a slice of cheesecake if it’s the last piece left, right?

It’s the same premise.

Step 5: Lengthen the playoffs and World Series:

With a shortened season, you can be finished with the regular season in early to mid September. From that, you can lengthen the postseason and try and find the true best team in the world.

Baseball determines its postseason teams on a marathon, a long season that preaches consistency, stamina and durability.

But when you get to the playoffs, that pace completely shifts and the race become a dead sprint that favors hot arms and short pitching rotations.

Why should you take one girl to the dance, but then dance with another when you get there? You shouldn’t.

I would lengthen the first round series to a best of seven games format.

From there, I would make the second round a best of nine and the World Series a best of 11.

The original World Series was played under this same 11-game series format.

They had it right originally. It’s not too late to go back and fix it.

That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it. Baseball is too long when the games don’t matter and too short when they do. Fixing that is the key to making the sport relevant again.