I'll shit on baseball - its a hobby. The "athletes" aren't really all that athletic.

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the western side of michigan itself is a mix between cubs and tigers. illinois has the cubs and sox, wisconsin has the brewers, and everyone in indiana is obsessed with the cubs if they watch baseball.

everyone in detroit and much of michigan LOVES the tigers, hell detroit is a baseball town first. we were named the best baseball town, so yeah, everyone HERE loves the tigers. but once you get away from that, its all about the cubs. especially in kalamazoo and grand rapids, where you are closer to chicago then detroit.

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I laugh at people who say baseball is long and they are football fans. Football is one the most slowest games in all of professional sports with all the time outs and commercial breaks and replays

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

Just my opinion, but I think MLB really has to start looking at letting more teams into the post season. Only letting in 4 teams in each league is ridiculous.

Here are the Wild Card Standings as of this morning; (Games Back in yellow)

4. NY Yankees 66-40 -
5. Boston 61-46 5.5
6. Minnesota 59-48 7.5
7. Toronto 56-51 10.5
8. LA Angels 54-54 13
9. Detroit 53-53 13
10.Oakland 53-53 13

Ok, so suffice to say that from Toronto down, those teams are pretty much done as far as the Wild Card goes. However, if you had 8 teams make the playoffs, you'd have a much more exciting race. Otherwise, who's going to watch the Athletics vs Indians in Spetember? If the A's had a good shot at 8th place, I'm sure it would garner a lot more intrest.

Giving fans hope that they can make the playoffs (and anything can happen in the playoffs) I beleive would renew intrest in MLB a great deal. Not to mention double the playoff revenue (at least).

Parity is good for sports...

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"Let's just trap Sekera in the caverns underneath HSBC arena." -BlueandYellow

Reporter: "Steve, you guys now lead the league in defensive scoring."
Montador: "It's probably because of how good-looking we are."

If baseball does that they'd have to change the schedule, they're flirting with winter too much as it is.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

bring the season back down to 154 games, and bring back the weekend double header.

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The stoppages are called for television. In baseball, they're just fuckin THERE. Like a part of the game.

"Hey, this batter's spending more time playing with his dick than swinging, so let's go to commercial break"

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Yeah, that'd work

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"Let's just trap Sekera in the caverns underneath HSBC arena." -BlueandYellow

Reporter: "Steve, you guys now lead the league in defensive scoring."
Montador: "It's probably because of how good-looking we are."

If a sport cures my insomnia, then it's boring.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

they have breaks for the ends off half innings/innings and pitching changes. thats it. in hockey, its the first stoppage in play after the 15:00 mark, 10:00 mark, and 5:00 mark of every period, as long as the stoppage isnt A. and icing, B. a penalty, C. a goal.

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That's 18 scheduled breaks, and then how many pitching changes happen? (I'm not arguing a point, just curious)

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depends. but the breaks are usually no longer then 60 seconds. i think football and basketball are much more obnoxious with their breaks. baseball, you gotta understand, they have to switch positions, warm up the pitcher.. baseball is a very tactile sport. its not heavy on the action.

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Baseball is strategic, and likewise its pace can't really be controlled. The problem is that I think many managers over strategize, using pitchers for specific batters, specific situations, etc. This was reinforced when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in too long early in the decade.

Additionally, managers (and any coach) will tend towards doing something, even if standing pat is a better option because it looks better in the eyes of fans and media.

The only time shortening rule-change I would even really consider is limiting the number of pitchers that can be used in a nine inning game. Otherwise, the pressure is on the umpires to tell these guys "stop dicking around and fucking play," and then immediately start calling strikes (against a batter that takes to long) or balls (against a pitcher) accordingly and start warning and ejecting players and managers for delaying the game.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

If I wanted to watch something so tactical, I would watch deer hunting.

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and thats fine. its not for everyone.

as for strategy, theres a story about shoeless joe jackson. he would know what pitch was going to be thrown, and where, and he would start running towards where he thought the ball would go. he was almost never wrong. this story was retold, actually, in the movie "field of dreams."

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I like Ty Cobb stories better.

A disabled man once heckled Cobb so bad that Cobb climbed into the stands and beat the shit out of him. The players backed Cobb.

Cobb was once mugged by three guys. He beat the shit out of them so bad they had to be hospitalized.


Ty Cobb is awesome.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Wasn't he also a notorious racist?

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

Yes. I don't see why people pick on that though. It's not like hundreds of other baseball players at the time weren't.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Yeah well that and the fact he beat the shit out of a disabled guy (I really doubt that bit) and he doesn't seem too pleasant.

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.