BASEBALL, YER OUT!

Baseball is our national pastime, but it has three strikes against it and you know about three strikes

STRIKE ONE: BALLPARKS HAVE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS

Since a team plays half its games in its iwn home ballpark, its dimensions can make quite a difference in its won-lost record, in a ballplayer's batting and fielding averages, pitching record, paycheck, the winning of Cy Young and MVP awards, and the prospects of being voted into the Hall of Fame. Comparing the records of players who play in different ballparks is meaningless, invalid, absurd..

A ball hit 315 feet down the right field line in New York's Yankee Stadium or San Francisco's AT&T Park is a home run, but a ball hit 40 feet further back in Chicago's Wrigley Field is a lazy fly ball and a probable out. Want to compare the record of sluggers who play in those two ballparks? Or of pitchers who pitch in those two parks?

A line drive to left field that would reach the stands for a home run in most ballparks would ricochet off the Green Monster in Boston's Fenway Park -- a 37 foot high wall that sits atop its left field fence a short 310 feet away -- and bounce harmlessly back onto the playing field for a single or double.

Some parks are domed and protected from weather, others aren't. Some ballfields have artificial grass that speeds up ground balls, others have natural grass that slow up the ball. Different parks have different amounts of foul territory behind home plate and down the foul lines. A team's fortunes have been known to rise and fall with the rise and fall of its pitching mound.

Baseball is the only professional sport whose playing fields have such differences in its dimensions.

STRKE TWO: ARBITRARY AWARDING OF WINS/LOSSES TO PITCHERS

A win is awarded to the pitcher who was the pitcher of record when the team went ahead in the game and stayed ahead (starting pitchers must pitch 5 innings too get the win). That arbitrary rule can and frequently does produce an absurd result, such as this:

The starting pitcher for the home team pitches a beautiful game, and leaves the game in the 9th inning with his team ahead 10-0. A relief pitcher comes in and gives up 11 runs, to make the score 11-10 in favor of the visiting team. The home team then scores two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game 12-11.

The winning pitcher under today's rules? The relief pitcher, who pitched atrociously, and not the starting pitcher, who pitched masterfully! The charging of losses to pitchers have similar problems.

Simple solution. Have the game's official scorer award the win to the pitcher he or she believes most contributed to the win, the way the official scorer rules whether a batter reached base by getting a hit or on an error. Might there be a game when a team wins, all of its pitchers pitched poorly and no one is awarded the coveted win? Sure, and deservedly so.

STRIKE THREE: IT AIN'T A WORLD SERIES

Each baseball season wraps up with the playoffs and their shining highlight, the World Series. Problem is, the world is not invited. The only teams invited are 27 teams from the U.S. and one each from Toronto and Montreal. Professional teams in Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world are ignored. Think of what we Americans would be saying if there were a World Football Series and U.S. teams were shunned.

Solution? Give the World Series a new name, like the North American Series (which it is), or the Grand Series or some other such name...or, leave the name as it is and legitimatize it by inviting the world. Sure, there was a time, 100 years ago, when professional baseball was only played in the U.S. and the name World Series was appropriate, but 'taint so anymore.

Our national pastime needs serious fixin'.