Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

MLB

How MLB’s dreaded ‘book’ infects every aspect of baseball

Having sold its soul for TV money, MLB is now losing its mind. Some considerations submitted for your consideration:

Since Addison Reed joined the Mets, last Aug. 30, he has entered to pitch the eighth, often blown away batters, then been replaced by the closer. That happened, again, Friday, when Reed was relieved with a 5-1 lead. Closer — remove the C and what’s left? — Jeurys Familia became the wildly illogical game-winner after allowing the Dodgers to tie the game, yet remained statistically perfect in save opportunities as blowing four-run leads doesn’t qualify!

Not long ago, Terry Collins, baseball lifer, would not have pulled an effective reliever after only a few pitches. Why? Because that would have made no sense.

So why does he now regularly do what once made no sense? Because everyone else does! Pitchers are now plug-in robots and managers are bound by “The Book,” the latest edition filled with science fiction read as repetitive formulas for success.

No need to be special to be designated a specialist. Every team now carries a Mariano Rivera! Friday’s blown save belonged to Collins and all other “by the book” managers.

Last week, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Mets’ 1986 championship, vivid recollections flowed of the sensational 16-inning Game 6 NL clincher in the Astrodome.

That extraordinary game’s lasting beauty is in its timing; it was played on a Wednesday afternoon, thus we remember where we were and whom we were with as it ran 4:42.

Today? There is no today; it’s a tonight. Doesn’t matter if an extraordinary World Series or league championship game runs just nine innings, most of the country’s population will be in the same place (on a couch, in an easy chair or in a bed), in the same condition (sleeping or fighting sleep) and in the same company (alone).

TV, today, doesn’t pay MLB to start a New York team’s potential pennant clincher any earlier than 8 p.m. That 1986 thriller today would best be recalled by fans on Guam.

And now fewer regular-season Saturday afternoon games are scheduled for 1 p.m. The best time to take the family to a game — but only for the last 100 years — isn’t the best time for TV and TV money, so guess where MLB lines up.

Citi Field on Sunday night.Paul J. Bereswill

And given that Sunday’s Dodgers-Mets, tickets sold as a “Family Sunday” promotion, became an 8:08 start for ESPN money, kids could run the bases with Mr. Met at 11:30 p.m.

MLB, while adding replay rules overwhelmingly applied to unintended purposes, nonetheless has again stated its goal to speed the pace of play.

Saturday, bottom of the first, an infield tapper gave the Rays a 2-0 lead. The Yankees huddled on the mound. Michael Pineda didn’t throw another pitch for 1:32, which doesn’t seem long, but try doing absolutely nothing for 92 seconds.

And where is MLB when Comcast, which holds full or partial TV rights to seven MLB teams including the Mets and the moribund A’s, removes the Yanks’ YES network from 900,000 area homes, absurdly claiming its subscribers don’t much care about the Yankees?

Where was/is Rob Manfred to publicly, loudly and angrily call out Comcast for such a claim? Or is it that fans, again, can go to hell before MLB messes with TV?

Then there’s the shameless, ongoing inverted New York reality, showing the reverse of what used to be a matter of conspicuous sense. Where Shea and old Yankee Stadium logically showed empty upper-deck seats and filled field-side seats, the best seats now go empty while the worst are crowded.

In 2009, when this Stadium opened, Bud Selig said he personally reviewed the seat pricing and found all “affordable.” That remains a demonstrably preposterous claim. This Yankee Stadium is a greed mill; it has no soul, no baseball buzz, both lost to the insidious desire to out-scalp the scalpers and rely on corporations to purchase seats at prices that would cause revulsion among stockholders and compliance officers.

But MLB keeps playing by The Book, a book of avaricious business strategies, unintended rules, idiotic stats and delusional game plans. First its soul, now its mind.

Sad stat of affairs

Alex RodriguezPaul J. Bereswill

Graphics of the Weak: For all the stats thrown at us, when’s the last time, as seen listed Saturday on Ch. 11, the Yankees’ starting lineup included three — Aaron Hicks, Alex Rodriguez, Dustin Ackley — batting under .200?

MLB Network let us know that in the Cubs’ 4-1 win over the Phils, Saturday, Kyle Hendricks pitched his “second career shutout.”

SNY continued to scroll NHL playoff records that confound: “Tampa Bay, 3-3-1, at Pittsburgh, 3-5-0.” Huh?

Reader Mike McIntee figured MSG Network would correct its graphic, “Marciano defeats Lewis,” 1951, as a great Garden event. How could any sports network not know that it’s Joe Louis? But there it was, “Lewis,” again.

Francesa right, says Francesa

There’s no mystery in Matt Harvey’s decline, which Monday may have been reversed. Shortly after Mike Francesa shouted that Harvey’s just bogus Mets-issued “hype,” Harvey showed up unhittable.

That’s when Francesa revised his take to declare that he essentially discovered Harvey, identified him as the next Tom Seaver “the moment I saw him!”

Then, until Monday, it was all downhill for Harvey.

And, of course, after declaring the Thunder “awful” (he denied saying it, but an un-lost tape proved he did), thus they’d be destroyed by the Spurs in the second round, Monday night they played to advance to the NBA Finals. As professional “experts” run, only a fool or a fraud — or both — could dismiss a talented team such as OKC as “awful.”

Last week, Sitting Bull combined his arrogance and ignorance — the main ingredients in bigots — to condemn and mock Sports Illustrated for running a cover story on soccer. He then acknowledged he knows nothing about soccer — as if he knows a lot about other sports — yet continued to trash the world’s most popular sport on the megalomaniacal grounds that he knows nothing about it!

He should stick to meteorology.


More bigotry: How does ESPN’s Dan Le Batard, a Cuban-American who ridiculed those who’d prefer MLB players to play “the right way” — to hustle to first and demonstrate modesty after hitting home runs — as code for playing “the white way,” explain what happened last week?

After the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig, a black Cuban and chronic counterproductive showboat, posed at least a double into a single, his African-American manager, Dave Roberts, yanked him. Does that mean Puig’s black manager wants him to play “the white way”?