Mikey D

First, congrats to Grace's Phillies!!! I actually stayed up to watch the game last night (and paid for it this morning...oye...) and was rewarded with a well-played clinching game (well, on the Phillies side) and the pleasure of watching grown men dog pile on one another and spray each other with champagne. It's a beautiful site; baseball's celebrations are always my favorite.

But after watching last night's game, I have a change in how I would like the game to be run, so here me out.

Question: What's the most embarrassing moment for a pitcher in a game? In my opinion, it's when the manager makes that long walk out of the dugout to the pitcher's mound after a rough outing, takes the ball from the pitcher without saying a word, and the pitcher makes that painful walk of shame back to the dugout alone. Think about it. In front of 40,000+, the game is stopped so the leader of the team can personally take a player of his out of the game. I mean, it's bad enough you got pounded by the other team, but then for your manager to give you a public display of humiliation is even worse!

Substitutions happen all the time. Batters pulled from the on-deck circle. Fielders switched. Even in other sports...players check-in, run-off, or change shifts. But only one substitution is made public in the middle of the field by the head coach. I say this needs to change. For now, my focus is baseball. Now it would be easy for me to recommend just having a new pitcher run in from the bullpen without having the manager to come out and personally take the ball from the old pitcher, but that's lame. I want public embarrassment for all.

Case in point: Rafael Furcal last night. The man had three errors in one inning, which prompted my response to Grace, "Joe Torre should walk out to shortstop and take his glove." Yes! Why do pitchers always have to suffer after doing awful? Joe Torre should have made that long, slow, 0ld-guy walk to shortstop, put out his hand, and Furcal should have placed his glove in it. Furcal would then make the walk back to the dugout while the fans shower him with boos. Then his replacement would come bolting out the dugout, take the glove out of Torre's hand, make a few practice throws to first, and the game would continue. Brilliant I say!

And why stop there? Pedro Feliz of the Phillies last night made Brandon Inge look like a silver slugger. After watching Feliz strike out on three pitches, the next time he came up and took an awful swing and a miss, Charlie Manuel should have walked up to home plate and took the bat right out Feliz's hands personally. He didn't deserve the opportunity to bat, but he did deserve to be booed all the way back to the dugout.

Hey, you might think I'm horrible for wanting to see people booed and publicly humiliated, but I think fair is fair. Baseball is steeped in tradition, and the manager taking the ball from the pitcher is part of that. So if you're not going to do away with tradition, you might as well add to it.

At least for my enjoyment.

~Mikey D