MAJOR LEAGUE baseball's back. But not necessarily for any better, I'm afraid. Baseball just won’t
be the same anymoreI know, Seattle's Ken Griffey will come close to breaking Roger Maris' home run record -- he won't make it to 61, though -- Chicago will have its Tag Team of Thomas & Belle, Gary Sheffield his $61 million from the Florida Marlins and the Yankees and Braves won't repeat.
Those are all the trimmings to a potentially great season. But all for naught. Not even the Padres playing the Cardinals at Aloha Stadium later this month. I'll go but there will be no cheering in the press box for either team.
Nothing can save the 1997 major league season for me. Just as a change in name from California to Anaheim can't help save the Angels from the same fate as last year. I'm already looking forward to football. There's not even the Olympics to make summer sports tolerable.
Why?
Well, for one thing, I've lost interest in my favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. No more Roger Clemens or Mike Greenwell. So I'm going to take a one-year sabbatical from rooting for the Red Sox.
Maybe by then they might get rid of their general manager, Dan Duquette. But I won't hold my breath. Not when the Red Sox CEO, John Harrington, head of baseball's realignment and expansion committee, goes around saying that he would have an open mind about moving Boston to the National League if it helps any alignment.
WHAT? No Yankees to lose to every September? Is this guy nuts or what? Next thing you know, he'll change the team's nickname to the Braves.
He's also the guy who has messed up the charm of quaint Fenway Park by making a five-year deal with Coca-Cola. Atop the "Green Monster" in left field will be three monstrous (well, at least 20 feet high) Coke bottles. Who says things go better with Coke?
Admittedly, baseball will need to address the subject of realignment with the addition of Tampa Bay and Arizona in 1998. Otherwise, Tampa Bay will be joining the American League West.
There's no sense of urgency for the National League to realign because the Diamondbacks will appropriately be in the NL West with San Diego, Colorado, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Knowing baseball owners, with their self-interests, realignment, if any, won't happen without a fight. After all, they can't even agree about a commissioner. So what they've come up with starting this season is a compromise -- another word for half-assed -- known as interleague play, baseball's worst abomination for purists since the designated hitter.
ACTUALLY, I wouldn't mind interleague play if there weren't the DH rule in the first place. That's why I object to it. It's compounding an error, more so if it determines the outcome of the pennant race.
For example, it won't be used in interleague games in National League cities, so AL pitchers, who haven't batted all season, will have to step to the plate. AL designated-hitters will need to play real baseball by taking the field. And AL managers will have to do some late-inning managing for a change.
All for the sake of a few interesting matchups, which I admit interleague play will engender: Yankees-Mets, Cubs-White Sox, Royals-Cardinals, A's-Giants and, oh yes, Expos-Blue Jays, where the Star-Spangled Banner won't have to be sung before the game. Only "Oh, Canada." Oh, brother. But the heck with tradition, right?
Besides, when the New York Mets play an interleague game in Boston on June 13 -- Friday the 13th by the way -- the Red Sox could invite Bill Buckner to throw out the first ball. And hope he doesn't drop it.