The Scoring Glut

These scores just in...

22-11, 19-5, 19-2, 16-12, 11-10, 13.2-6.5, 4-3e.

Yep, it's baseball season, and you need a slide rule to read the American League scoreboard under the Green Monster at Fenway.

The ball is juiced, pitching sucks, the strike zone is smaller every year...the critics want answers as to why scoring is up. And they want solutions that will bring it back down.

Raise the mound, they say. Call that armpit-high strike again. Speed the game up, keep the batter in the box.

Well, they're all wrong. You want to bring the pitcher back into the game? Take ol' "Off-Kilter"'s handy five-point plan and put it to immediate use.

1) I've always why professional golf was the only sport that required its athletes to pass a qualifying school before allowed to play in front of the big galleries. Seems like big-league pitching could use the same requirement.

So, I say you need to either be able to a) throw in the 90's during three separate clocking on three different radar guns; b) demonstrate command of three or more pitches before a combine of pro scouts; c) present a resume of sufficent minor league success as exemption under the "skills equivalency" department.

And dammit, if you wind up any given season with no wins or an ERA over 6.00, you don't deserve to stay up. If that means That each major league staff is reduced to six or seven pitchers, so be it. A guy named Old Hoss Radbourne once threw five complete games in a six-day span just before the turn of the century, so don't tell me that Roger Clemens' arm can't function without four days' rest.

2) Contracts, schmontracts. Make work for a living. No more than half a million dollars can be given to any big leaguer in guaranteed salary; after that, it's all gotta be incentives. There's no reason that a guy like Jack Morris should be given the big money' cause he won 20 games for the best team in the league on a four-plus ERA a few years ago. Make him go out and earn it again--each and every year.

3) Shorten the game length to three innings. hell, it doesn't take a math major to figure out that 12-9 divided by three equals 4-3--from hit-fest into a tight, one-run affair in a matter of minutes.

Lull the average fan into a false sense of complacency: more extrainning games means more excitement, right? Lower scores should remind diehards of 1968 and the Year of the Pitcher, and for those who say baseball take too darn long to begin with, have I got a 60-minute solution for you.

4) Mandatory jail time for hitters who take called third strikes. You want to see some pressure-filled at bats? Watch those 1-2 counts turn into foul-ball festivals, as anything near the strike zone gives even guys like Junior Griffey and Robby Alomar images of Leavenworth and Alcatraz.

5) Play all games in the Polo Grounds. yeah, I know, New York's venerable ballyard was destroyed a long time ago, but I want it back. I kid you not: 483 feet to center field, 460 and 440 to the "power" alleys. Short porches at the foul poles, but let's see Karl Rhodes, Cory Snyder and Tim Raines have three-homer days there.

If that causes a schedule delay of some sorts, hell, shorten that damn 162-game season. Siphon off any excess games to Philly's recreated Connie Mack Stadium (468 to center, over 400 in both of its alleys) or the Old Yankee stadium (a simply indecent 497 feet to straightaway center).Simmer for a few months, then serve. Rabbit ball THIS! [Wicked cackle heard in background.]

Hey--such drastic actions must be taken. Certainly Tony LaRussa must have been wrong when he said that The Game is better than all of us, right? Right?