With opening day right around the corner, and most Americans are already concentrating on football, I've decided to suggest some incremental changes to the sport of baseball in the style of Hunter S. Thompson in hope that a new game might put more butts in the seats. (to see his far more entertaining article on baseball reform check out "Baseball has Become Unruly" On ESPN).
New Rules of Baseball (Effective Immediately)
1. Shorter Seasons--The Baseball season will now be shortened to 32 games a year, spread out equitably so as to keep the season running until October, in order to prevent injuries.
2. Action-- The rule that allows a baserunner to squash a catcher standing in his path to home base like an unruly field mouse will now apply to all bases, and basemen will need to retain control of a ball for at least 3 seconds to earn an out.
3. Psyche Outs-- Baseketball was on to something. Coaches, managers, or base coaches on the batting team will now be allowed to make their way onto the field to "Psyche out" opposing pitchers. any balls, bean balls, or home runs caused directly by an opposing player's distraction will be listed in official box scores as a PO or "Psyche Out".
4. Fights--Charging the mound will no longer result in ejection for both players, instead the instigating batter will sit out for half an inning, providing he had due cause to charge the mound (was struck or brushed by an errant pitch, insulted by an opposing pitcher, etc.). Fights will be allowed to continue under close observation of on-field officials. A fight will end when one player hits the ground.
5. Subsitutions--Substitutions will no longer be one-and-done, a player may sub in/out of a game as often as he likes, a player may sub at any time during the proceedings by tagging a player currently in the dugout (this will be especially amusing if combined with rule 2 for maximum effect, imagine a player rounding first base, then tagging in C.C. Sabathia just to watch gleefully as he lampoons an unsuspecting second baseman.)
6. Live Ball-- If a ball touches the ground at any time during a game, players from either team will be allowed to touch it and move it as they please. Balls hurled past the foul line by the batting team will become foul balls, balls hurled over the fence will become home runs. If a batting team player holding a ball is touched by a fielding team player he will be considered out. Additionally, if a fielding team player catches an errant throw by a batting team player, that player will be out (Imagine this, after Sabathia plows the second baseman, he picks up the ball and hurls it at the stadium's back wall, giving him time to tag the original baserunner back in, a fielder dives for it but just misses it and Sportscenter has the greatest replay clip of all times.)
7. Instant Replay -- Lets get real for a minute. Baseball actually needs this. and they'll need it even more to see if the second basemen touched Sabathia's leg before he got his throw off.
There you have it, I believe that if these rules are implemented, they will change the sport of baseball for the better in a matter of years. Draft picks will be chosen on all around athleticism, size included. Steroids will no longer be welcome, as players will need more stamina for the fast-paced game that baseball has become and basic boxing lessons will be a must for prospective recruits. More fighting in sports and more sports with fighting will make for a more perfect world, I say.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
U.N. Loosens Soil Around the Future Crater of Gaddafi
I'm experiencing the bad news fatigue that our generation has become known for. Thousands of people are in pain around the world and I'm shutting off my TV because I can't concentrate anymore.
It is a highly unfortunate longterm outcome of our prolonged exposure to Superinformation. When we can hear so much about death each and every day, Life itself becomes something largely numerical.
Ironically, the only tidbits absent from news reports of missle strikes on Libyan air defenses are the numbers we've come to ignore.
Comm centers and anti-air bases need crews.
Crews that aren't missle-proof.
I'm not suggesting that the casualties in these strikes were astronomical, merely that reports of these casualties are entirely conspicuous in their absence. I get as tired of casualty reports as the next guy, but they serve a vital purpose in our increasingly numb world: adding reality to a situation.
War games have winners and losers and losers bleed just like you.
I strongly dislike Moammar Gaddafi and if I were alive in the 1980's I'd probably like him even less, but my general distaste for him doesn't decertify his humanity.
If people with more power and general temerity than me have decided that it is entirely necessary to take human lives to resolve this crisis I ask only one thing of them. Tell me about it.
I understand that It's vital to keep Americans in support of the no-fly zone over Libya in order to save hundreds if not thousands of lives, but obscuring the stark truths of the operation isn't at all right way to curry our favor. I don't believe that taking a life is ever a necessity, but I understand that most Americans likely believe that it can be the lesser of two evils.
The problem with American politics for the last 200 years has been the general belief that Americans are too soft, too slow, or too stupid to make the right choice in an emergency, and this has driven the rhetoric that leads to the obscuring of details from the general public.
We're not stupid, we're not soft, we're not slow; we're simply very busy, and we're very tired. Be honest with us and we might surprise you.
(well, not me, but those other folks will come through, I swear).
It is a highly unfortunate longterm outcome of our prolonged exposure to Superinformation. When we can hear so much about death each and every day, Life itself becomes something largely numerical.
Ironically, the only tidbits absent from news reports of missle strikes on Libyan air defenses are the numbers we've come to ignore.
Comm centers and anti-air bases need crews.
Crews that aren't missle-proof.
I'm not suggesting that the casualties in these strikes were astronomical, merely that reports of these casualties are entirely conspicuous in their absence. I get as tired of casualty reports as the next guy, but they serve a vital purpose in our increasingly numb world: adding reality to a situation.
War games have winners and losers and losers bleed just like you.
I strongly dislike Moammar Gaddafi and if I were alive in the 1980's I'd probably like him even less, but my general distaste for him doesn't decertify his humanity.
If people with more power and general temerity than me have decided that it is entirely necessary to take human lives to resolve this crisis I ask only one thing of them. Tell me about it.
I understand that It's vital to keep Americans in support of the no-fly zone over Libya in order to save hundreds if not thousands of lives, but obscuring the stark truths of the operation isn't at all right way to curry our favor. I don't believe that taking a life is ever a necessity, but I understand that most Americans likely believe that it can be the lesser of two evils.
The problem with American politics for the last 200 years has been the general belief that Americans are too soft, too slow, or too stupid to make the right choice in an emergency, and this has driven the rhetoric that leads to the obscuring of details from the general public.
We're not stupid, we're not soft, we're not slow; we're simply very busy, and we're very tired. Be honest with us and we might surprise you.
(well, not me, but those other folks will come through, I swear).
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
I seem to have forgotten what this is supposed to be about
It's a slow week in every sense of the word. The union protests are still running strong, but the press and the general public are burning out, and until the U.S. government decides to turn Tripoli into the 9th wonder of the world--the crater of Gaddafi--there'll be nothing exciting coming out of the middle east either.
Because it's a slow week, and my boredom will not allow me to do anything that could possibly entertain any of you without retching, I've decided to have a little fun.
I 'm going to use this rare time I have to myself to promote a theory that I may never get to express otherwise.
I'm a humanist. I believe that beating, clubbing, shooting or burning another living being until they are no longer a living being is the highest crime imaginable. Human beings are a renewable resource, Morgan Freeman is not, Fred Thompson is not, the short kid from my kindergarten class is not. Each individual person is a unique quantity and should avoid all labels like they would avoid flying sawblades.
Humans are unique but this line of thinking isn't, I'm getting to the new and interesting part.
I've always wondered if it is even possible to stop people from killing each other. After all, everyone is against murder and war, but a great many human beings engage in each wholeheartedly, justifying it as we go.
A foregone conclusion of the life we live is that, if we are unlucky enough, one day someone will come along, declare us an infidel, a traitor, an enemy of the state, or some malleable ethnic slur, and then take our lives unceremoniously.
but perhaps it wouldn't be this way if doing such a thing was a little bit difficult
Here's my thought:
6 Rules of Killing
1. From this point on, All acts of murder, execution, and war (police-action, conflict, whatever) must be committed by hand. If you are physically handicapped, you will be allowed to use a small sharpened stone.
2. A killing must be a public event, no killings may occur in private.
3. In order to take a another person's life, you must know their full name, their favorite beverage, one of their dreams or life goals, and one thing that makes them sad.
4. If you choose to kill a person, their death must last a minimum of 18 minutes.
5. all people you have elected to kill will be allowed a final statement if they choose to give one, and you must carry this statement to any of four living individuals that your victim chooses. You will be required to tell these people the way in which your victim was killed.
6. If war is declared, all members of both armies will adhere to all of the above rules. The leaders of each country will have two options to choose from, either they must fight in the wars themselves, or they will be charged with the duty of knowing each casualty's name, favorite beverage, dream, and sorrow and of carrying each casualty's final statement to each of his chosen witnesses alongside their killer.
Some of those rules might sound harsh, but remember that it took 3 men 45 minutes to kill 100,000 people at Hiroshima. These people had stories, passions, goals, and tastes just as I do. If those people truly had to die, they never should have died as labels. They were 100,000 Japanese, when they should have been counted as 1 Setsuko Thurlow, 1 Francis Mitsuo Tomosawa, and so on forever and for all time.
Perhaps if we had to kill People every day instead of nazis and traitors and criminals and enemy combatants and terrorists and communists and gypsies and heretics and spies and monsters, we'd kill less.
Because it's a slow week, and my boredom will not allow me to do anything that could possibly entertain any of you without retching, I've decided to have a little fun.
I 'm going to use this rare time I have to myself to promote a theory that I may never get to express otherwise.
I'm a humanist. I believe that beating, clubbing, shooting or burning another living being until they are no longer a living being is the highest crime imaginable. Human beings are a renewable resource, Morgan Freeman is not, Fred Thompson is not, the short kid from my kindergarten class is not. Each individual person is a unique quantity and should avoid all labels like they would avoid flying sawblades.
Humans are unique but this line of thinking isn't, I'm getting to the new and interesting part.
I've always wondered if it is even possible to stop people from killing each other. After all, everyone is against murder and war, but a great many human beings engage in each wholeheartedly, justifying it as we go.
A foregone conclusion of the life we live is that, if we are unlucky enough, one day someone will come along, declare us an infidel, a traitor, an enemy of the state, or some malleable ethnic slur, and then take our lives unceremoniously.
but perhaps it wouldn't be this way if doing such a thing was a little bit difficult
Here's my thought:
6 Rules of Killing
1. From this point on, All acts of murder, execution, and war (police-action, conflict, whatever) must be committed by hand. If you are physically handicapped, you will be allowed to use a small sharpened stone.
2. A killing must be a public event, no killings may occur in private.
3. In order to take a another person's life, you must know their full name, their favorite beverage, one of their dreams or life goals, and one thing that makes them sad.
4. If you choose to kill a person, their death must last a minimum of 18 minutes.
5. all people you have elected to kill will be allowed a final statement if they choose to give one, and you must carry this statement to any of four living individuals that your victim chooses. You will be required to tell these people the way in which your victim was killed.
6. If war is declared, all members of both armies will adhere to all of the above rules. The leaders of each country will have two options to choose from, either they must fight in the wars themselves, or they will be charged with the duty of knowing each casualty's name, favorite beverage, dream, and sorrow and of carrying each casualty's final statement to each of his chosen witnesses alongside their killer.
Some of those rules might sound harsh, but remember that it took 3 men 45 minutes to kill 100,000 people at Hiroshima. These people had stories, passions, goals, and tastes just as I do. If those people truly had to die, they never should have died as labels. They were 100,000 Japanese, when they should have been counted as 1 Setsuko Thurlow, 1 Francis Mitsuo Tomosawa, and so on forever and for all time.
Perhaps if we had to kill People every day instead of nazis and traitors and criminals and enemy combatants and terrorists and communists and gypsies and heretics and spies and monsters, we'd kill less.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Fist II: The Straight to DVD edition
I've learned enough about politics over the last few years to become wholly moderate (which means in general terms that If I decide to voice my political views in public I'm either denounced as a communist by my friends or as a corporate fascist by my family), but the recent de-evolution in Wisconsin is taking me back to my hippy-dippy roots in a big way.
I can't really decide whether its more disturbing that Governor Walker's deliberate swipe at the knees of union workers is actually going to pass in Wisconsin, or that the the majority of wisconsinites (wisconsonians, wisconsinadors) back the current plan as it stands.
The Midwest is the union region, we have been for almost a century now. We just finished celebrating a Superbowl victory brought to our region by a football team characterized by its proud and blatantly obvious union heritage.
Apparently we were cheering for the Packers and planning to disband "the packers" at the same time.
Make no mistake, this isn't about balancing the budget (though it just might) it's not a temporary fix or a small step back in union rights, it's a wing clipping. I've voiced my frustration with union negotiation in the past. I watched some very competent teachers receive pink slips last year because of union-lobbied seniority laws. That said, I've never begged for union abolition. That's like watching a rabbit eat your cabbage, then exterminating all four legged mammals in a blind fury because those miserable skellions keep taking your lunch.
This is a dangerous game to play, but thanks to the 2010 midterms we're already rolling the dice and reading the instructions so the most we can do now is sit back and stock up on "go directly to jail cards."
It's a safe bet that they'll be devillishly useful in our benfit-free minimum wage futures.
I can't really decide whether its more disturbing that Governor Walker's deliberate swipe at the knees of union workers is actually going to pass in Wisconsin, or that the the majority of wisconsinites (wisconsonians, wisconsinadors) back the current plan as it stands.
The Midwest is the union region, we have been for almost a century now. We just finished celebrating a Superbowl victory brought to our region by a football team characterized by its proud and blatantly obvious union heritage.
Apparently we were cheering for the Packers and planning to disband "the packers" at the same time.
Make no mistake, this isn't about balancing the budget (though it just might) it's not a temporary fix or a small step back in union rights, it's a wing clipping. I've voiced my frustration with union negotiation in the past. I watched some very competent teachers receive pink slips last year because of union-lobbied seniority laws. That said, I've never begged for union abolition. That's like watching a rabbit eat your cabbage, then exterminating all four legged mammals in a blind fury because those miserable skellions keep taking your lunch.
This is a dangerous game to play, but thanks to the 2010 midterms we're already rolling the dice and reading the instructions so the most we can do now is sit back and stock up on "go directly to jail cards."
It's a safe bet that they'll be devillishly useful in our benfit-free minimum wage futures.
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