Gammons wrote this piece yesterday, with the lovely headline: “Weather turns Series into worst ever.”
He wrote this before last night’s game, the conclusion of first ever suspended World Series game. It’s actually pretty hard to believe that there has never been a postseason game suspended by rain before. I guess usually they’re really careful about making sure they can finish a playoff game before. Anyway, Gammo says:
If the Phillies were going to win, it is a shame that the feeling was iced.
Funny, it didn’t seem like an “iced” feeling to me. As a matter of fact, because of the suspension of the game, the Phillies celebrated their victory in front of a dry, energized crowd in prime time instead of a soggy, exhausted crowd after a long rain delay at 2:30am. Yeah, what a shame. He continues:
When this World Series finally ends, there will be a great deal of discussion about how to avoid this sort of misery. The first will be to figure a way to shorten the schedule. Say the schedule was reduced from 162 to 148 games (records or no records; the Steroids Era made too many baseball records meaningless)
I actually agree that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to shorten the schedule a bit. Maybe roll it back to the old 154 game schedule. But 14 games is a lot. Anyway, okay Pete, we’ll give it to ya. What else you got?
In the mid-’90s, several owners went to a Miami Super Bowl and discussed the notion of having a 10-day World Series at a neutral site. They’d have to get local fans to buy into destination and vacation packages. There wouldn’t be the feel in Anaheim, San Diego or Los Angeles that there is in New York, Chicago, St. Louis or Boston. But then the Cardinals are the only team since the 2002 Angels to win in front of their home fans. It would be a hard sell, but the notion of a World Series week has some advantages.
May I suggest Punta Mita, Mexico? The Four Seasons would be a perfect headquarters hotel. Anguilla would work.
Wow. I know old people like Gammo like warm weather, but good lord what a horrible idea.
October 30th, 2008 - 7:57 pm
I heard another guy on ESPN push the neutral site idea. I think it would be horrible. They keep pushing that it works for the super bowl, but that’s a terrible comparison since one is a series and one is a single game. Losing the home field advantage would also be a huge shame, since it can make such a huge difference.
October 30th, 2008 - 10:34 pm
It is seriously the worst idea in the history of ideas.