Restoring the Roar: One simple way to give baseball fans everywhere something to cheer about

Category: Preservation

Published on Thursday, 07 July 2011 00:00

Written by Matt Simmons

This, obviously, is a website for diner lovers. But us diner lovers also tend to have a widespread appreciation for slices of Americana that hold a rich and romanticized past. Consequently, a lot of us diner lovers are also baseball lovers. This is a story for baseball lovers who can recall when some of the sport’s long-​term laughingstocks were actually among its most proud franchises. With the adoption of one simple change, baseball can save communities from languishing through endless futility from their hometown teams. And it’s not a salary cap…

Emerging from the concourse with my mother-​in-​law beside me, the exhilarating appearance of a major league baseball field beneath a bright blue sky envelops my senses. Though it’s the day before the 4^th of July, this trip to Comerica Park to cheer for the Tigers against the world champion Giants is a belated Mother’s Day present. This fledgling annual tradition included my own mother just once ~ the same year she passed away due to post-​surgical complications.

Mom was a devoted Tiger fan from her youth. In 70 years of rooting, she witnessed 7 postseason appearances and 3 world championships. Back when only 2 teams qualified for postseason play, she suffered through a 22-​year drought. As a grandmother, she languished through 12 straight losing seasons ~ including a 2–year period in which Detroit compiled a whopping 225 losses. Just 2 seasons ago, Mom basked in 146 days atop the Central division. Her Tigers led by 7 games going into the final month of the season, and were still up by 3 with only 4 left to play. When Detroit was forced to a tie-​breaking game by Minnesota, Mom watched them squander an early 3-​run advantage, surrender a 1-​run lead in the 10^th, and ultimately lose the game and a playoff berth, 6 – 5 in 12 innings.

That was the last Tiger game she ever saw.

Yet, there are currently millions of baseball fans who would find my mother’s experiences worthy of envy.

Fans of the Baltimore Orioles last saw their team qualify for the playoffs in 1997. The O’s have finished with a losing record every year since, failing to win even 70 games each of the past 4 seasons.

Those who cheer for the Kansas City Royals last witnessed a winning season in 2003. The Royals followed that campaign with 3 consecutive seasons of 100+ losses. They preceded that campaign with 8 straight losing seasons. That’s 16 of the past 17 years in which Royals fans haven’t even seen their team achieve mediocrity.

Those who continue to support the Pittsburgh Pirates arguably warrant the most sympathy. The Bucs have cranked out 18 consecutive losing seasons ~ without managing to reach 70 victories since 2004.

Who can help the fans of these teams, while helping to prevent other fan bases from suffering the same fate? Major League Baseball can. And they can do it by firing these teams’ owners.

MLB has the power. They twice doled out lengthy suspensions to the late and legendary Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner.

The league’s current top priority is finding a way to force out Dodger’s owner Frank McCourt due to financial incompetence. On the field, the Dodgers have actually qualified for the playoffs in 3 of McCourt’s 7-​plus seasons as owner. But the storied organization just resorted to filing for bankruptcy in order to make payroll, so MLB is working diligently to convince McCourt to give up his team, or to seize it from him and sell it themselves.

In other words, they are going to fire him. While they’re at it, MLB should draw up pink slips for Peter Angelos and David Glass. They should have Robert Nutting in range of the chopping block, as well.

Fans of the Orioles, Royals and Pirates will recognize those names as the respective primary owners of their favorite teams. If Major League Baseball were to adopt a simple policy, the fans of these teams could be freed from hopelessness. The men who have taken the teams they support and run them into the ground would be each be replaced with someone who would have to field a competitive team quickly, or suffer the same fate. These fans could be rescued by just one new rule.

The ⁵⁄₁₀ rule.

If the ownership régime of an MLB franchise can’t produce a .500 or better team over a five-​year period, fire them. If they can’t steer their team into the postseason once in a period of 10 years, fire them. Fire them with a press release, a billboard, or Donald Trump. Just do not continue to allow owners who clearly view their team’s fans as a low priority to constantly disappoint them, without any accountability.

Certainly, there would be opposition to this rule, so unlike MLB, I’ll be proactive and snuff those arguments out right now. For instance, the Toronto Blue Jays haven’t qualified for the playoffs in 17 years. The past 11 seasons have been overseen by Rogers Communications. Since the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1993, they haven’t been bad. They’ve finished over .500 most seasons and haven’t lost 100 games in any of them. Yet, if the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule was currently well-​established, Rogers Communications would be fired. Their first objection would be that they play in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, whose payrolls are routinely among the highest in all of MLB. That factor didn’t stop the Tampa Bay Rays ~ whose payroll is consistently in the bottom third of the league ~ from recently making the playoffs twice in three years. While it’s indisputable that the league could stand to improve its financial competitive balance, fixing that issue would not automatically fix the competitive imbalance on the field. One need look no further than our other major sports leagues. Despite rules that create more equitable payrolls than in baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL still have chronically awful franchises. Even if MLB instituted some sort of salary cap, they will continue to have lousy organizations. That’s because lousy organizations start with lousy owners. Fans shouldn’t have to suffer through an incompetent owner for more than 5 years. Nor should they have to suffer through a brazenly mediocre one for 10. If Rogers Communications thinks their mere proximity to the Red Sox and Yankees is an acceptable excuse to deprive their fans of seeing even a single playoff game for 17 years, then an owner must be brought into Toronto who finds such relentless mediocrity unacceptable.

If the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule were instituted retroactively today, you would hear many people object on behalf of the owners of the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Nats haven’t finished close to .500 in four full seasons under Ted Lerner, twice losing in excess of 100 games. The Bucs haven’t even cracked 70 wins under Nutting, losing 105 times last season and finishing 34 games out of first place.

Ironically, each of those teams is currently hovering slightly above .500, and the Pirates are actually within striking distance of first place in their division.

Yet, if the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule were already well-​established, and one or both of those teams were to finish 80 – 82 this season, the owner would be forced out and it would show my proposal is too rigid and extreme, right?

Wrong. I’m willing to concede that every rule needs a loophole to cover special circumstances, and I can save MLB the trouble of coming up with a convoluted one. Let the fans decide. If an owner’s team fails to fulfill the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule, then that owner has to garner a minimum number of fans’ signatures on a petition, allowing him or her to stay. I’ll let MLB come up with the number based on population within a certain proximity to the team’s stadium. The important thing is, fans would wield power without having to withhold their patronage, as unproductive owners would actually have to lobby to keep the people who support their teams from firing them. And we’ll limit the petition extension to one year. In the season after being spared by signatures, an owner’s salvation will have to be produced on the field.

Imagine if the Nats and Pirates were actually in the midst of make-​or-​break seasons. Come trading deadline time, they would feel compelled to make a significant move. Such a move might not only propel them to finish above .500, but it might help them contend or qualify for the playoffs. This season would quickly transform from yet another campaign that implores those teams’ fans to be patient during rebuilding, to one where they could actually be cheering during games that have playoff implications into late September.

So, let’s step out of retroactive hypotheticals and into present-​day reality. Baseball is virtually certain to expand its playoffs in the near future. There may be 5 playoff teams from each league by the end of next season. There has even been talk of eliminating the divisions and inviting the top 6 teams from each league into the postseason. Either way, you’re looking at 33 to 40% of MLB’s teams qualifying for the playoffs. And the moment that baseball expands their playoffs, owners like Rogers Communications and Peter Angelos will have even fewer excuses to oppose the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule. It will be the perfect occasion to implement it.

The problem, of course, is that MLB has not shown the tendency to be either daring or progressive. As just one of countless examples, it’s obvious they don’t want Mark Cuban to join their fraternity of owners. All Cuban has done as owner of basketball’s Dallas Mavericks is take a team that had missed the playoffs 10 consecutive years (a challenging feat of futility in the NBA), and oversee 11 straight postseason appearances, culminating in a championship this year. Fans in Baltimore, Kansas City or Pittsburgh (where Cuban was born) would throw a parade if Cuban bought their team.

While baseball’s brass is working so diligently to get rid of Frank McCourt for disappointing and embarrassing them, they should consider the millions of fans in communities across their league who have been disappointed and embarrassed for years. The difference between McCourt and the owners of those teams is, MLB won’t have to go through the trouble of firing those owners.

The ⁵⁄₁₀ rule would do it for them.

Baseball isn’t like most industries in America. Unlike your local department store, restaurant or gas station, an MLB franchise doesn’t have another business within close proximity attempting to offer the same product in a superior manner. Yes, MLB’s customers can devote their time, attention and income to other things. But if they want to see the sport played at its highest level in person, or follow it through their local media, they’re stuck. They’re stuck with the same owner, for better or worse on the field.

With the ⁵⁄₁₀ rule, fans would no longer be stuck with the worse.

While the game of baseball can exist without fans, Major League Baseball cannot. The people who support this league by providing gate receipts and television ratings deserve an honest effort toward winning from their favorite organizations. When MLB sits idly as certain owners repeatedly fail to give their fans any legitimate hope, their message to the fans in those communities is clear: We don’t care about you. So why should the fans of those wildly unsuccessful organizations continue to care about Major League Baseball?

It can all be changed with one simple rule. A rule that can be implemented and enforced ~ don’t let MLB tell us otherwise. All parent corporations in America have rules for their franchises. All franchises have to adhere to certain uniform standards in order to avoid damaging the image of the parent company. So, here’s your new standard to enforce upon your owners, MLB. Finish .500 at least once every 5 years. Make the playoffs at least once every 10. Otherwise, you will no longer have the right to own one of the league’s franchises.

Thousands of teenagers recently graduated from high school in the Pittsburgh area. Not one of them was alive the last time the Pirates finished .500. Millions of parents have raised a son or daughter from diapers to adulthood without having any significant baseball to cheer about by the time their child started a new school year. The Pirates have been around since 1882. They’ve had 13 players enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And Major League baseball has allowed Kevin McClatchy (’96 – ’06) and Robert Nutting (’07 – present) to make them irrelevant to a generation.

I remember inheriting my passion for baseball in 1978. I was 8 years old, and my dad, a Philadelphia native, was watching his beloved Phillies battle the Dodgers in the playoffs. Over the course of following that series with my dad, the Phillies became my favorite team, and they have remained so since. I remember sobbing uncontrollably when Garry Maddox, a perennial gold glove centerfielder, made two consecutive misplays that cost the Phillies the game and a chance at appearing in the World Series. Yes, it hurt, but what led up to that moment was exciting and interesting and it fueled my anticipation for the next season. 8 year-​old fans of Pittsbrugh, Kansas City and Baltimore have never come anywhere near having moments like that. These days, when my insufferable father expresses concern that the Phillies may only win 98 games instead of 105, or that they may get knocked out of their imminent fifth-​consecutive playoff run without earning a championship ring, I remind him to be grateful that he didn’t grow up on the other side of Pennsylvania.

The ⁵⁄₁₀ rule wouldn’t fix all of baseball’s issues. But it would give every fan of every team the essential element for having an emotional connection to their present-​day team. It would give them hope.

There’s a century-​old song that is played at every game in every Major League venue from Yankee Stadium to Oriole Park. One line, referring to the home team, declares “If they don’t win, it’s a shame.”

If they don’t win for five years…ten years…the lifetime of a high school graduate…the shame is not only on the team’s owner, but also on you, Major League Baseball. One simple rule would give all of your fans the hope to root, root, root again.

Do you care about them enough to implement it?