Nov 28, 2004 By Commentary Jim Kriek For The 5 min read

Cleaning out the notebook: Now that the professional baseball season has finally run its course, all the way through October, and the WPIAL has decided its football titles, to be followed by state playoffs, maybe it’s time the two sat down and studied some new plans for the seasons ahead.

– There is no reason other than money and its accompanying player greed that major league baseball should be playing its World Series in late October. And if you should get a few days of rain, play could go into November. Once upon a time the World Series was played the first week in October, matching the individual champion from each league. But today, with TV running the show, you have to have two sets of playoffs for the league title, then the Series.

Change the league lineups to two eight-team sections, match those winners for the overall league championship, and they in turn go to the World Series. That way, you won’t have the playoffs alone going into late October before the Series even begins.

Also, cut the regular season, back to 154 games. Forget about interleague play, and whether the overpaid, pampered crybabies like it or not, play a few doubleheaders during the season.

It gives me a pain right up to here when some guy getting seven or eight figures to play a little kid’s sport yaps because he might have to play two games in one day. If he thinks that’s hard work, let him get a lunch bucket and go dig coal.

– As for the scholastic football playoffs, it has been noted here before that they are too dragged out. Scholastic football now covers all or parts of five months, starting with pre-season workouts (legal workouts, that is) in August, and concluding with state title games in December. The season actually runs into the start of basketball before state champions are crowned.

There is no reason for 16 teams to be involved in divisional post-season play, other than the WPIAL looking to see how much money they can take in.

For instance, in the Quad-A lineup of 16, you had two conferences with six of their eight teams involved, four of seven in another, and of the 16 teams, six had losing records, four with three wins in seven conference games, and two others with just two wins. They were all matched up with seeded teams, five of them losing opening night and the sixth losing in the second round.

Why not take just the top two teams from each conference, pair them up, and go from there? That would cut the season by two weeks. If you can’t win two-thirds of your games, you don’t belong in the playoffs anyway. And before somebody reminds me, yes, I’m aware that one 3-A team with a losing record got to the finals. That happens every year, doesn’t it?

Once before when this subject was broached, the question came in return “would you want to be the one to tell teams they shouldn’t be in the playoffs because of losing records?” Consider it done right here. If missing the playoffs is the biggest disappointment those players ever have, they can consider themselves very lucky.

Many others have echoed that overworked bleat “they work hard, they deserve to be in there.” Oh, that woeful expression “we work hard” touches me right here. You hear it from teams, coaches, mostly pain-in-the-neck parents, whoever. If some of those players worked just one-third as hard in the classroom they would be a lot better off.

The feeling is still there – cut the field and the seasons. Then do the same in basketball and football.

– So, the National Hockey League is shut down because of a player-management dispute, and might not play this year. Well, boooooo, hoooooo, hoooooo!! Be honest, has anybody really missed the NHL? It’s about time management stood up to greedy players who think the sport can’t exist without them. They can shut down the NHL until a thousand years from now and it won’t matter a hoot in you know where to me. Too bad the major league baseball and pro football owners can’t show some of the backbone of the NHL owners.

– How many of you read the recent statement by Latrell Sprewell, another of those impoverished NBA whimps, who balked at signing a $10-million contract extension. His reason for refusal? Very straight faced, he said publicly, “I got my family to feed.” Really? If he thinks an 8-figure contract is tough living, maybe he should come to Connellsville and talk to those 300-plus workers that were recently booted at Anchor Glass. If he does get a raise, he might want to use part of it to get a haircut, to keep the pigtails out of his face. His biggest fault is what affects too many pros these days – arrogant athlete stupidity.

– Hurray for the NBA commissioner who told those rioting bums to hit the road for a while, one of them for the rest of the season. It’s good to see those in charge taking over their game, and at the same time showing the prima donna players who is really in charge. If the low IQ, high conceit blowhards have to sit on the sidelines for a while, maybe they will realize the public doesn’t really need them. The penalty was “suspended, without pay …” However, I wouldn’t bet the farm that “without pay” penalty will be too strongly enforced. Teams will find some way to get checks to them. If coaches and/or team officials had taken charge of players in the first place, NBA management wouldn’t have had to act as strongly as they did. This corner applauds the NBA move. Now how about the NFL taking action against their clown touchdown scorers?

Jim Kriek is a Herald-Standard columnist.