Part 1 of 2

If I were the Czar of Sports (which, trust me, would not be a bad thing), things would run a lot differently in the sports world. The National Pastime's problems are plentiful-but they can be fixed. So sayeth the Czar.

Institute real spending limits and revenue sharing

We might as well tackle the toughest one first. Everyone knows that the competitive balance is completely out of whack in baseball. In the last 7 years, 19 teams have made the playoffs. But 10 of them have made it 3 or more times (with the Yankees and Braves involved every year). They are the same teams over and over and, most of the time, they are the ones with the highest payrolls. Fixing this competitive imbalance is complicated. But let's try.

First, there has to be a spending limit and a spending minimum. No more allowing the Royals to coast along with a payroll 1/6 the size of the Yankees'. But also, no more letting the Yankees spend whatever they feel like simply because they are the Yankees. It's all well and good for George Steinbrenner to proclaim it's his money and he made it, but come on. It's the Yankees. They play in New York. Of course they're going to bring in more money than the Milwaukee Brewers. And how do the Yankees make more money? Through television and radio contracts, as well as advertising sales. In the NFL, the league makes these contracts and divvies up the cash. But baseball's a free-for-all, which aids the big market clubs and harms the smaller teams.

Sure, there's already a "luxury tax" in baseball. But the problem with the current system is that whatever luxury tax the Yankees have to pay to the small market teams doesn't have to go into payroll. The owners of these clubs can (and usually do) pocket the money.

Here's how we'll fix it. At the end of each season, let's see what every team spent on payroll. The average of the 30 teams (adjusted with a slight increase) will be the maximum allowable without taxation. That means it won't just be the Yankees forking over some cash.

Next, there will be a spending minimum, which we'll say is whatever the 6th lowest payroll of the previous year was. At the end of the next season, if a team has not increased their payroll by more than the amount of revenue sharing, or if their payroll is under the minimum, there will be some kind of penalty, with the eventual end result of the team being contracted or taken over by Major League Baseball.

Drastic? Yes. But serious restructuring of payrolls and more free cash flow from the richest to the poorest clubs is absolutely necessary for a league to achieve competitive balance. The NFL is a perfect model for this. Over the last 6 years, 29 of the 32 teams have made the playoffs. Granted, there are 4 extra playoff spots. But of those 29 teams, 14 of them have made it just once or twice. Different teams in the playoffs leads to more national interest.

Shorten the game

There were 15 games played this year on America's birthday. And what could be more American than baseball on the 4th of July? Well, only if you had 3+ hours (and about $300) to kill. The average time to complete these 15 games was 3 hours 1 minute.

To be fair, one game went into extra innings. But that 11 inning game lasted 3:50. I'm pretty sure it was a three-hour marathon after 9. And there were three complete games pitched that day, which is above average. Since those games are usually shorter (they lasted 2:10, 2:23, and 2:34), those games actually brought the average down. But unless you were lucky enough to watch one of those games, your hamburgers and hot dogs were cold by the time you got home. And Heaven forbid you went to the Yankees-Orioles game that took 4:12. That's right-4 hours and 12 minutes. For a 9-inning game. Throw in traffic and you spent 6 hours watching a baseball game.

How can these games become shorter? Let's start with getting hitters into the batter's box and keeping them there. No more walking around for 10 minutes between pitches. Get in there and stay there. No stepping out once you're in. No asking for time. And the pitchers get the same treatment-once the batter is in the box, make a move to a base or throw a pitch. There should be no other options. And let's have some repercussions. If the batter doesn't follow the rules, an automatic strike is given. For the pitchers, a ball is awarded. Drastic? Yes? Necessary? Sure seems like it.

How about we limit the number of throws to first a pitcher can have? I don't know how many times an at-bat has taken 25 minutes simply because there's a runner on first and the pitcher throws over 76 times. And we're not talking Rickey Henderson on the basepaths either. Stolen bases are way down. Possibly because baserunners get bored and forget where they are.

Fewer commercials would be great. Asking for the world now, am I? Well consider this. When you tune into a game, there's usually advertising behind the plate (often superimposed by FOX). Sometimes there's an advertising logo on the screen with the scoreboard. There's the Aflac Trivia Question and the Dodge Fan Cam and the Verizon Call to the Bullpen. How about you give me one fewer commercial per half inning and sell the naming rights to anything and everything you want? I'm fine with that.

Adjust the schedule

Move Opening Day so it falls on the Sunday or Thursday closest to April 1. As it is now, the season could start as late as April 6 because baseball insists on starting on a Sunday. Why? Who knows. But there's very little competition in terms of other sports at that time, so whether it's a Sunday or a Thursday really doesn't matter.

Ending the season is a different matter entirely. The season ends on a Sunday, which in September (or October) is a ridiculous time to end the baseball season. Football gets all the attention on Sundays, so what happens to the final day of pennant race baseball? It ends up on ESPN2 and is lost in the shuffle of NFL games. And the day before the baseball season ends is filled with college football games. Baseball shouldn't want this, and neither should the networks. The final day of the regular season should be the last Wednesday in September (unless it's Sep. 30, in which case the season should end on Sep. 23). Wednesday, as you no doubt know, is ESPN's normal night for a doubleheader anyway, and they can show 2 (or 4 if you include ESPN2) pennant race games, along with clips from other games, on a day in which they have no sports competition. They also have Sunday through Tuesday to show important games, along with FOX's national broadcasts on Saturday. This gives baseball national exposure on the final 5 days of the regular season, with virtually no competition from other sports.

Under this scheduling, the regular season would last between 176 and 179 days. This season began on April 3 and ended on October 2. The Red Sox (just as an example) played 162 games in 183 days. They had 18 scheduled off days, in addition to the 3 days off around the All-Star Game. 21 days off? Way too many. Under our new system, teams would have 14-17 days off. Period. And if the union protests, we'll just go to Congress. That's the only way to get anything done nowadays.

Another proposed schedule improvement is to have one day in September in which there are no games played. This would give the league a chance to schedule a make-up game involving any pennant race teams (they could make this coin flip day for tiebreakers or some other made-for-TV event we can think of). Next...

Expand the first round of the playoffs to a best 4-out-of-7

Teams play 162 games only to face the prospect of getting eliminated in a mere 3 games. In football terms, picture playing a 16-game regular season and then getting knocked out of the playoffs after just one quarter. In a short series, one game can mean everything, and it's really not fair to teams who have worked for more than 8 months to get to that point.

We could very easily make the division series best 4-out-of-7 without impacting the schedule too much. Since we now have the season ending on a Wednesday, the division series could begin on Saturday. This leaves Thursday and Friday for any makeup games/one game playoffs, rather than the usual one day. On Saturday, two series can start, with the game 2s on Sunday, along with the other two series starting. The schedule for each series would mimic the schedule for the ALCS and NLCS. This will unfortunately schedule four games to be played on a Wednesday and a Thursday, but how different is this from having the three midweek playoff games on one day that we have now?

The first round series would then end at the right time for the ALCS and NLCS to begin on Tuesday/Wednesday, and the World Series to begin on a Saturday. The last possible day for Game 7 of the World Series would be (depending on the year) between October 25 and 31. This keeps baseball within the April 1-October 31 confines that everyone wants, would allow for best of 7s in each round, and should keep the networks happy as well.

There are more where these brilliant ideas came from, but I'll let you absorb these for now. Next week the Czar of Sports will throw a few more ideas your way...