Saving the National Pastime

In the wake of the Mitchell Report..here are some recommendations to save baseball. 1. Move to a two-tiered playoff system...have all teams play for the right to face Boston or New York in the World Series. The winner of the Boston/New York playoff would face the unfortunate, undermanned team that emerged from the regular season as the league winner. NY or Boston would then promptly sweep the series, or maybe lose one or two games for fun, the media could then continue to do the same thing they do now.....talk about NY and Boston. 2. Simulcast Tony LaRussa reciting the alphabet backwards across all the stadiums' big screen thingamabobs before each game....that would so much fun. Or you could wait until the 3rd inning when everybody is drunk and they could try it with him. 3. Remove that mound thing in the outfield at Houston....this ain't miniature golf...this is MLB. 4. Bring baseball back to Montreal for gosh sakes....DC is not doing anything with it anyway. 5. Make television stop using all that high-tech, sound effect-laden, graphic stuff. When you watch a game now it feels like you are outside at an airport...(thanks Fox for all your great "innovation"). Go back to simply flashing a giant sized score on the screen on occasion like you see on the ESPN Classic games. 6. Eliminate now the DH, interleague play, and these new-fangled teams such as the Rockies, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Devil Rays or Da' Rays, and any other team prior to 1975.

Final recommendation: Stop playing fantasy league baseball and game system baseball, then go outside and play pitch and catch with your sons and daughters. Oh yes, outside....I remember it well.