"Lex Alexander Should Be
Commissioner of Major-League Baseball"
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I think the baseball players' association is entitled to get whatever it can out of the owners, given the owners' history of greed, stupidity and bad faith. However, I realize that not everyone agrees with me. Here's one responsible dissenting viewpoint. Chi Tribune; free registration reqd.

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Do you think there's nothing wrong with major-league baseball that couldn't be cured by the just hand of a vengeful Old Testament God, or at least by the resurrection of Kennesaw Mountain Landis? Then you've come to the right place in cyberspace. Clearly, for the good of the game, a benign despot must fill the game's long-empty office of commissioner -- and rescue the game from the owners and others who would destroy it. With your help, I can do that.

Here's my platform.
Here's what I think about radical realignment. Hint: I'm against it.
Everything I needed to know in life I learned from baseball.
Here are my answers to questions from the public.
My lifetime stats (relax -- I had a short career).
The Major-League Baseball site.
Jay Jaffe's Futility Infielder baseball journal and Web log.
Suggestions for additions/improvements to this page, and other comments.

• Bud Selig as permanent commissioner? Please. This is the same genius who let a couple of million dollars stand in the way of preventing the 1994 strike. Nice work, pal.
• No interleague play. If God intends the Mets and the Yankees to face off, he will let them both win pennants in the same year, as we now have seen. Exception: A complete slate of exhibition interleague games, proceeds going to charity, the day before Opening Day each year, with such natural rivals as Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, etc.
• No radical realignment. What Faulkner once wrote about the South also applies to baseball: It's a place where the past not only isn't dead, it's not even past. The two leagues have had distinct cultures, character and records (and, informally, rules) for almost a century. Any needed geographical realignment should take place within each league.
• No artificial turf. It increases the risk of injury, and it's just not as soothing as grass.
• No home run porches. I'm all for ball parks with character, but I'm also all for character in our batters, and if a lefty can't yank one at least 335 feet, he has no business getting a home run in the major leagues.
• No DH. If you want to get out your frustrations with a stick, you must also unite with your teammates for the common defense.
• The rule book says the strike zone goes all the way up to the batter's armpits, so any pitch over the plate between knees and pits shall be called a strike.
• It's now Henry Aaron Stadium on Ted Turner Way. Under my administration, we will have our priorities in line.
• Either we trim the playoffs or we trim the season so that Game 6 of the Series doesn't always get played on the second biggest partynight of the year.
• A serious salary cap and revenue sharing, predicated on the notions that tickets should remain affordable and no team showing a modicum of due diligence should lose money.
• Players put the butts in the seats. So players get the bulk of the money.
• But TV contracts will run no longer than two years. That will help keep the money available for salaries responsive to the market (i.e., TV game viewership).
• No player under contract to any major-league team shall be permitted to receive any valuable consideration in exchange for autographs.
• Pete Rose does not go into the Hall of Fame until he 1) confesses, 2) repents and 3) apologizes, not only for the original gambling but also for all the lying and whining he has done on the subject in the past several years.
• No more Anheuser-Busch barley-pop being fobbed off in major-league baseball stadiums as "beer" at $5 a cup. To emphasize their role as an important part of their respective communities, teams will sell only locally produced microbrews at their stadiums, and each such microbrew shall be personally taste-tested and approved by the Office of the Commissioner of Major-League Baseball.
• And Schott, Selig, Steinbrenner and Reinsdorf are all looking for honest work before sundown.

A: Because this is not "Jeopardy," I won't insist that questions be phrased in the form of a question. For readers who aren't familiar with the situation to which Senor R. refers, during a game between the Rockies and the Marlins in which Galarraga hit a grand slam, he was hit in the elbow with a pitch on a subsequent at-bat. He charged the mound and was ejected. The pitcher, Dennis Cook, was not ejected, but he and Galarraga both were both later were fined and suspended for three games (Cook was fined $1,000 and the amount of Galarraga's fine was not disclosed). As your commissioner, I would decree that any untoward onfield behavior (regardless of real or imagined provocation and irrespective of the player's race, creed, ethnicity or choice of pizza topping) be punished immediately by amputation of the offender's left pinkie with rusty pruning shears (and we'll move up the extremity with repeat offenders). We will certainly expect aggressive baserunning and expect pitchers to defend the inside part of the plate, but really, now, Galarraga can hardly suggest that he was merely trying to steal the mound safely, can he?

Q: I'm 46 years old and until this past weekend, I felt like you over interleague play. But judging by how excited I was and am overinterleague play, as well as the positive reception by the fans that filled the parks this past weekend, I'm all for giving it a chance. -- M.R., 6/16/97

A: I'm not. It's a question of fairness: How fair is it when (to use a hypothetical example) the Braves have to play the Orioles and the Marlins get to play the Red Sox?
The only way interleague play would work fairly would be for every NL team to play every AL team at least once. If every NL team plays every AL team twice, which they'd need to do to achieve at least some economies of scale on travel expenses, and if they played a home-and-home schedule, more than half of a team's season would be spent in interleague competition, not against the teams with which that team competes in its own division.
I propose a compromise: Each year, every team plays one interleague exhibition game the day before Opening Day, with proceeds going to charity. Obvious rivals such as Mets-Yankees and Cubs-White Sox would play annually (and you could make a big trophy or something that the winner would get to keep until the next year's game), and other teams without obvious rivalries could rotate or draw opponents by lot. If other parts of my platform are enacted, such as eliminating the DH and the home run porches in AL parks, the "differences" between leagues that seem to be driving so much of this desire for interleague play would be greatly diminished.

Q: What do you think of Jerry Reinsdorf's trading away the heart of his pitching rotation and publicly giving up on the White Sox' pennant chances? Shouldn't the commissioner void such trades, which obviously are not in the best interests of the game? -- M.C., 8/5/97

A: I could go one of two ways here. I could veto the trade on the grounds that it is not in the best interests of baseball (Reinsdorf's comments to the contrary, the White Sox were not, in fact, out of the pennant race just yet). Or I could take a longer-term, and slightly more Machiavellian approach, and let him do the deal, on the grounds that the attendant negative publicity will make it much easier to accomplish the larger goal of getting him and owners like him out of the game. Comments?

Major League Baseball
350 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022

To contact the executive-search firm that's helping the owners find a new commissioner, send snail mail to:

Heidrick & Struggles
245 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10167

You can also send e-mail to individual team owners (well, maybe) at these club e-mail addresses:

Atlanta Braves
Boston Red Sox
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
Houston Astros
Los Angeles Dodgers
Minnesota Twins
New York Yankees
Oakland Athletics
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Seattle Mariners
Toronto Blue Jays

These Major League Baseball teams have official sites:

Arizona Diamondbacks: www.azdiamondbacks.com
Atlanta Braves: www.atlantabraves.com
Baltimore Orioles: www.theorioles.com
Boston Red Sox: www.redsox.com
Chicago Cubs: www.cubs.com
Chicago White Sox: www.chisox.com
Cincinnati Reds: www.cincinnatireds.com
Cleveland Indians: www.indians.com
Florida Marlins: www.flamarlins.com
Houston Astros: www.astros.com
Kansas City Royals: www.kcroyals.com
L.A. Dodgers: www.dodgers.com
Milwaukee Brewers: www.milwaukeebrewers.com
Minnesota Twins: www.wcco.com/sports/twins
Montreal Expos: www.montrealexpos.com
N.Y. Yankees: www.yankees.com
Oakland Athletics: www.oaklandathletics.com
Philadelphia Phillies: www.phillies.com
Pittsburgh Pirates: www.pirateball.com
San Diego Padres: www.padres.org
San Francisco Giants: www.sfgiants.com
Seattle Mariners: www.mariners.org
St. Louis Cardinals: www.stlcardinals.com
Texas Rangers: www.texasrangers.com
Toronto Blue Jays: www.bluejays.ca

These teams do not (yet) maintain official Web sites:
Anaheim Angels
Colorado Rockies
Detroit Tigers
New York Mets
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
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