How to improve baseball.

Baseball is a grand game, America's past-time, and a wonderful exhibition of chess played on a field large enough for spectators to enjoy even in colossal stadiums. Baseball has the best tradition in sports, is ingrained in the psyche of people from New York to Cuba to Japan, and baseball is continuing to grow across the world, culminating in a true World Series. In comparison, think how often the Super Bowl "world champions" hail from the United States.

But could baseball be made better? You bet it could.

The biggest problem with baseball is that cowardice has been built into the game. This is shocking considering that men are hurling a round rock toward batters sixty feet away at speeds approaching, and sometimes even surpassing, 100 miles per hour. Baseball allows for collisions at home plate, where careers have been shattered, even in a relaxed All-Star Game when Charlie Hustle could not dial back his Ty Cobb enthusiasm.

So what is the cowardice I talk about? It's not the anemic bench-clearing brawls that in hockey would hardly draw a penalty. These "brawls" are usually little more than dances with staring contests and nine times out of ten the participants emerge without a single punch being thrown. To call these soirees "brawls" is insulting to tavern parking lots all over the nation.

No, the cowardice in baseball is the intentional walk. It's vile, it's disgusting, and it's un-American. Can you imagine Joe Frazier entering the ring and being told he cannot throw a left hook? Or Mike Tyson being prohibited from throwing combinations?

That happens in baseball all the time. Mighty Casey comes to bat and the opposing team walks him. Casey's team is therefore prevented from throwing its left hook or its lethal combination. Of course some will argue that it is strategy and baseball is a team game. Bull. It's not strategy, it's yellow fever. Team game? Baseball is the most individual team game ever invented. In football, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc., each individual does not have to, one at a time, have the spotlight shone on him in such an individual way, as is the case with batters.

Mind you, kickers in football, free throw shooters in basketball, and players taking penalty shots in hockey and soccer, are also individually highlighted the same as baseball hitters. But - and this is the grand slam of buts - in those cases none of them is being told they have to kick with their wrong foot or shoot while wearing a blindfold. And they are certainly not prevented from participating entirely, as the intentional walk is designed to do. This is no small matter. Can you imagine cricket matches where opposing teams could prevent the best batsman from playing? It's inconceivable and a slap across the face of fair play.

Here's how you improve baseball. If a batter is walked, the team whose batter was walked makes a decision. They can either allow the batter to take first base for free, or they can defer, such as when Casey is at bat, allowing the last out on their team to come off the bench and take the base in his place. This way the walked batter gets to first, but Casey still bats with a fresh count. Now that's the American spirit!