Despite delay, MLB managed timeless moments

By David Mullen

Major League Baseball sure knows how to ruin a good time.

After coming off a couple of pandemic plagued seasons, prospects were sparkling on the baseball diamond for a return to normalcy. But baseball couldn’t handle the prospect of pleasing fans.

As two strongheaded factions couldn’t agree on how much egregious money they could suck out of their shrinking fanbase, they sucked out their enthusiasm by starting the season late. 

A détente was finally reached, but both sides complained about the agreement and the 2022 season began eight days after the scheduled start.

You’d think the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox don’t like each other. MLB owners and players couldn’t even agree if their dispute was a lockout or a strike. Billionaires and multi-millionaires can’t seem to live under the same retractable roof.

Despite the delay, an entire 162-season schedule was played, requiring quirky revisions to the baseball calendar. The anniversary of Willie Mays’ famous over-the-shoulder catch of a Vic Wertz drive at the Polo Grounds in Game One of the 1954 World Series was remembered with one week left in the 2022 regular season. The World Series is scheduled to begin — weather permitting — on Friday, Oct. 28, three days before Halloween. 

The regular season had plenty of moments. Sure, the National League was adopting the DH full time, the shift was ruining batting averages, and baseball statistics seemed to be kept by NASA. “What was that launch angle of that ball?” “Did you measure the velocity?” 

Starting pitchers still get “quality start” trophies for pitching six innings and giving up three earned runs or less. Maybe a pitcher gets to go to Baskin-Robbins if he walks four batters or fewer. I know what Bob Gibson would think about quality starts. 

In 1968 and 1969, Gibson had 28 complete games each year and didn’t even lead the league. In 1953, Philadelphia’s Robin Roberts had 28 complete games … in a row. In 2022, Miami Marlins Sandy Alcantara may win the NL Cy Young Award with six complete games. No other pitcher had more than three. All 30 teams combined for 36 complete games in the entire 2022 season.  

Baseball withstands the test of time. Aaron Judge of the Yankees broke the all-time AL home run record with his 62nd home run on October 4 in Arlington. The Yankees won the AL East. Two other division teams — the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays — made the playoffs. The Baltimore Orioles were in the playoff hunt until the end and became the first team since 1900 to go from 110 losses to a winning record in one season. The Red Sox were just “wicked bad.”

 The Cleveland Guardians won the AL Central with the youngest roster in the league and not just the majors. The Guardians were younger than any Triple-A team. 

The Houston Astros ran away with the AL West and didn’t get caught cheating. The Seattle Mariners, introducing the baseball world to super-rookie Julio Rodriguez, qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2001. Rodriguez wasn’t born and there were more than 5,300 Blockbuster Video stores open the last time the Mariners made the playoffs. 

For a team with so much promise, the Chicago White Sox were dismal. The Los Angeles Angels, even with the sensational Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, live in Disneyland. Pitching and defense win baseball games and now owner Artie Moreno is finally looking for an out. The team is for sale.

And the normally reliable Oakland Athletics undertook a massive urban renewal project in 2022 and lost more than 100 games for the first time since 1979. The decrepit Coliseum remains removed from the revitalization project with plans of a new ballpark in litigation limbo. 

For the Texas Rangers, it was another season of mediocrity. They forgot the old Yogi Berra quote: “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” They made the same silly mistakes. In the offseason, the Rangers spent a wheelbarrow full of money on two shortstops. Corey Seager and Marcus Semien will end the season with solid statistics, but the Rangers will end with another losing season. 

When ownership finally realized that the team didn’t seem to have their heads in the game, they fired Jon Daniels, head of baseball operations, after 17 seasons of other high-priced, low-return signings like Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo. Daniels last duty on the job was to fire Manager Chris Woodward.

The National League also had flashes worth noting. On October 2, Albert Pujols, 42, of the NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals, hit his 702nd career home run and passed Babe Ruth for second all-time in RBI. 

In their final home game of the regular season, Cardinals’ legends Pujols, Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina were removed from the game together in an emotional, impromptu ceremony in front of a sellout crowd. There is no crying in baseball.

The Los Angeles Dodgers buzz-sawed the NL West, winning nearly seven of every 10 games. The Atlanta Braves, only the third team since 1900 not swept in a series all season, caught the New York Mets and won the NL East crown. Atlanta was in first place for just six days. Both teams will finish with at least 100 wins. But like the 7-Train from Manhattan to Citi Field, the Wild Card Mets’ road to the playoffs has more stops. 

Philadelphia snuck into the Wild Card playoffs when the Milwaukee Brewers went flat. Without overpaid and immature shortstop Fernando Tatis, Jr., the San Diego Padres still made the playoffs, thanks to the bat of Manny Machado and savvy of manager Bob Melvin. 

Next year, as the fans anticipate a stable year with a prompt start, MLB is making more changes. While eliminating the infield shift seems to be a good thing, MLB will impose a pitch clock intended to make games faster. Why sacrifice TV revenue by cutting time between innings when rattling pitchers and batters is an easier decision to make from an ivory tower?

And in a move that no one saw coming, because no one cared, MLB is making the bases bigger. Bigger? With less distance between bases, does that mean the Mets’ 6-foot, 280-plus lb. first baseman Daniel Vogelbach will become a base stealer? After seven seasons, his first stolen base will be his first stolen base.

Major League Baseball sure knows how to ruin a good time.