Are You Listening, Bud?

Another day and another bad idea from Major League Baseball. In his annual All-Star chat with fans, Commissioner Bud Selig talked about many things. Most of them were predictable (he evaded a question about the Dodgers and said no major realignment was "imminent')  but one was another one of those ideas that is just plain awful.

Selig said he wouldn't mind tweaking interleague play so that the designated hitter is used in NL parks. Conversely, pitchers would hit when NL teams visited AL stadiums. Selig likes the idea, he says, because NL fans would get a chance to see how game is played with the DH and AL fans would enjoy seeing pitchers bat.

I find that hard to believe. I know fans of both leagues and none of the Senior Circuit rooters have any interest in the DH. They find the concept, if it is brought up, loathsome. While some AL fans are affirmed backers of the DH, there are some who haven't warmed up to it after 39 years.

Personally, I was an AL fan first and the DH was OK back then. Because of the rule, I was able to see Hank Aaron play his final two years. He was well past his prime and in no shape to play the outfield, so DH was the only position he could have played.

Since the Brewers have moved to the NL, though, I have no interest in the Junior Circuit brand of ball. It's slower and lacks the strategy of the NL version.

Hopefully, this was just a trial balloon and Selig will hear it burst.

The Mets and Fan Owners

A lot of owners say they care
about the fans, but But Bill Veeck
really seemed to mean it.

Major League Baseball has reportedly turned back a group of fans that wanted to buy a minority stake in the New York Mets. This word comes after Met's owner Fred Wilpon announced last week he had an investor lined up he tries to escape the mess the Madoff scam has made of his finances.

It's too bad that the fan-based group, buythemets.com, which was organized by business professionals, was so quickly turned down. I know baseball prefers its owners rich so they can spend their way out of financial jams (and maybe so they trade capitalism war stories at pricey restaurants). But that model has proven anything but rock solid.

From the Montreal Expos, which had to be taken over and moved to Washington, D.C., to the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, rich owners have had their problems in recent years. Maybe it's time to try another way.

Some point to the model of the Green Bay Packers, a team owned by community stockholders. Obviously, that model has looked pretty good the last few years with the Packers consistently winning. And the buythemets.com group would operate in a similar way.

There would be no guarantee, of course, that a community-owned team would win, as one blogger notes. But as we've seen there's no guarantee with the current model of rich owners.

Baseball for years barely tolerated Bill Veeck, probably the most populist owner ever. They never gave him a break. But fans adored him, whose autobiography, "Veeck--As In Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck," reveals him to be part baseball visionary and part P.T. Barnum, was never liked by the other owners.