Shortened baseball season a chance to get creative

So baseball, you’re really going to do this? In the midst of a worldwide health crisis that has killed more Americans than the Vietnam War, you’re going to stage a made-for-TV, 60-game sports exhibition?

OK, but you are going to have to make a promise. If this goes south and players and/or staff get sick with COVID-19, you have to shut it down.

But given that stipulation, let’s accept that the restart is going to happen and move on. A couple of points:

This is not a baseball “season.” A Major League Baseball season is 162 games. An ESPN story found four World Series winners who were below .500 after 60 games. Sixty games is the professional baseball equivalent of clearing your throat.

This is an exhibition, to remind us of what we liked and enjoyed about the most leisurely and comforting of sports.

And it should be treated as such. No need to worry about the traditions of the game. That went out the window sometime between the second and third month of bickering between the owners and the players.

Go ahead and get creative. This “season” is already going to go in the record books with an asterisk the size of the on-deck circle.

First, stop the whining about the DH. We paid our penance, we watched enough pitchers wave helplessly at big-league stuff. Why is it logical that a pitcher can be a specialist, but a hitter can’t?

Let hitters hit. No one can explain why an overweight, slug-slow, wooden-gloved veteran can put the barrel of the bat on the ball. But he can. They can’t play anywhere in the field, but some guys can just hit. Let ’em.

Putting a runner at second base in extra innings is a dog whistle for traditionalists. How did he get there, they want to know.

I know the answer to that. He was put there by the overlords of baseball so games, already too long, don’t last forever. I’ve tried and failed to muster outrage to this.

If soccer teams are tied, they decide the game with penalty kicks. The NFL has sudden death. The NBA has clock-ticking overtime. Only baseball makes you play until you drop.

Which, you will say, is one of the charms of the game. Right. Meet me at Oracle Park in the bottom of the 12th, with the fog blowing in and the seagulls shivering. I’ve got your charm right here.

As for the fans, they are cardboard. That’s the brainstorm for our local squads. The Giants and A’s have decided ― debates continue about who was first ― to offer fans the chance to buy a cardboard cutout of themselves, which will be placed in their seat in the ballpark.

The A’s went the extra step by announcing that if your cutout is hit by a batted ball, you’ll be sent a souvenir baseball. So great, now some intern has to watch every foul ball so he/she can identify which cardboard head is hit.

It seems like a lot of trouble for very little reward.

Still, it is better than the owners’ latest scam. They are gearing up to announce, magically, that they’ve found a way to allow fans to come to the games. Not that ticket sales have anything to do with it. They’re just trying to bring America’s pastime back to the field.

Horsepucky. Not having fans in the stands wasn’t a precaution. It was a promise. They told us, despite our skepticism, that they found a way to play games without endangering anyone or taking foolhardy risks. Don’t worry, they said, we’re going to play games with no fans.

You don’t get to take that back now. People are dying. We’re concerned and if pressed we’d admit we’re scared. And you want us to trust you? To say you have our best interests in mind? I don’t think so. Man up and accept a season without fans.

So, now that we’ve thrown everything out the window, we may as well get creative, right? This would be a great time to try some outside-the-box ideas.

The electronic home plate umpire is a must. How much time is eaten up with debating whether or not a slider caught a corner of the plate? Video says it did. Move on.

I’d mic the players. All of them. Not to be on air all the time, but just to have them available. It would be on their terms. They’d have to agree to go live.

So, after launching a three-run bomb, while Freddy Ballgame is out in left field tossing the ball around before the start of the inning, the announcer could say, “Freddy, it looked like that fastball caught too much of the plate.” And Freddy could expound.

Not that he’d have much to say. Major League Baseball players trail far behind other professional sports in media savvy. NBA players speak in public almost daily. They know how a microphone works. At the 49ers, players speak at a podium in an auditorium.

But baseball still acts like the media sneaked into the clubhouse and ought to be thrown out. Will Clark used to sneer that reporters were “green flies,” which I never understood because that would mean we were hanging around ... well, you know.

If baseball could do anything for itself in this weird interlude, it would be to improve its public image. With the NBA and NFL playing at the same time, the contrast will never be more clear.

Players, managers and staff need to get out there and work it. Sell the game. Sell themselves. Will that make the traditionalists uncomfortable?

Hey, it’s only 60 games.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius