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Bruce Dowbiggin

Shift Work: MLB Tinkers While Its Fans Burn

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Imagine there are two banks across the street from one other. One bank leaves the door to its vault open. The other— with twice as much money inside— had a sophisticated lock on its vault. But bank thieves only want to rob the bank with the larger payday, not the easier target.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Shift in MLB. Making your work way harder than it needs to be. Banning The Shift was just one of many issues that took all winter to (not) resolve in the collective bargaining brouha. (It has been shelved for further study.) If you want one indicator of MLB’s detachment from reality The Shift would suffice.

As we wrote last April , “If you want to make heads explode, bring up the subject of The Shift among traditional baseball followers. The Shift is the defensive configuration now widely employed that places three infielders on one side of the infield to counter a batter’s tendency to hit the ball in that direction.

Seeing a second baseman in short right field gobbling up ground balls that might have been hits— before baseball analytics geeks convinced managers of the data– has a particularly corrosive effect on many fans.

Why, they ask, does the batter simply not drop down a bunt the opposite way for a sure hit until they adjust the defence? Or, if that’s not macho enough, adjust his swing to send the ball the opposite way rather than into the jaws of a stacked six-man defence? 

Good question. In the old expression, home-run hitters drive Cadillacs, singles hitters drive Fords. If you hit the ball over the heads of everyone into the stands 40 times a year, who cares about all those smoked ground balls that get swallowed up? You’re getting paid for homers.The rational person says let probability work, assuming enough hitters will eventually adjust to the reality of The Shift. However, hitters want to stick with what got them to the majors. They fear change. Something about the look of The Shift makes them unhinged. Naturally, baseball purists want a rule against it NOW!  Not for them risk management when aesthetics are involved. They’re like the people who refused to wear seat belts because Henry Ford didn’t install them. Go figure.”

Indeed, go figure. The 2022 MLB season got the go-ahead this week when players rejectred the advice of their executive council to accept an offer from owners to start a 162-game season. (Of note, this might be the first time the MLB owners have ever cracked the solidarity of players in their interminable 60-year running battle.)

There are boatloads of dollars involved, rights to international players, draft lotteries and revenue sharing in the CBA. Most fans could give a flip about the dollars and cents. What they’re interested in is what will baseball do to improve the product? The DN is now universal. And, as we mentioned, the game has been slowed to a charade of batters working counts, defying The Shift and parades of situational pitchers.

As NBC Sports notes, the average time of nine-inning games in 2021 was 3:10, a 20-minute increase from 2010 and five-minute increase from 2019, the previous full 162-game season. Balls-in-play have reached historic lows as batters look to hoist everything over the fence.

The new CBA did address a few hangovers from the Covid accommodations. There will be no seven-inning games for doubleheaders and (sadly) no “ghost runner” on second base in extra innings. Teams are now restricted in how often a player can be shuttled back and forth from the minors.

But the biggest issues on pace-of-play have been sent out for study and a vote later on. Specifically, as part of the deal the MLB Players union granted MLB the ability to unilaterally implement changes with a 45-day notice in 2023. Banning The Shift will be among the proposals considered.

Also MLB seems on the verge of finally adopting a pitch clock. While sports such as tennis and golf have adopted a clock to speed up play, baseball has been resistant, allowing players to fritter away time by tightening gloves, pre-pitch routines, etc. Stalling is the bane for the sub-three-hour game.

The time clock will force a pitcher to deliver a pitch 14 seconds after receiving the ball with the bases empty, 19 seconds with runners on base. The average game time decreased from 3:02 to 2:41 after the pitch clock was adopted in the minor leagues.

While no one seems to asking for it, MLB is also talking about bigger bases to reduce  the distance between bases. If that’s supposed to bring the stolen base back then bring it on.

Something many people, IDLM included, have asked for is removing the human factor in calling balls and strikes. As we wrote last October the failure rate by MLB umps is bracing.  “For instance, Angel Hernandez missed 356 of the 4833 pitches he called this season for 92.6% accuracy. Brian O’Nora (91.8% accuracy), Jerry Meals (93%), Rob Drake (92.1%), CB Buckner (92.7%) Doug Eddings (92.6%), Larry Vanover (92.5%), Ron Kulpa (91.8%)  and the legend Joe West (92.2%) are among the many who leave something to be desired.”

You’d think a league dealing with something trivial as the size of bases might want to work on balls/ strike calls. But no, there seems no interest in using the virtual strike zone to end this charade. Sort of like MLB hitters forgoing half the diamond to hit into The Shift.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

 

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Canadians Thinks America Owes Them. Trump Has Other Ideas

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Breaking: It’s now being reported that in the 2024 U.S. election, zero Canadians voted for Donald Trump. In fact, zero Canadians voted for anyone on the ballot. They’re not allowed to. And yet rage monkeys in the Canadian media seem to have the idea that Canada is— and should be— an immediate priority of POTUS 47.

Here’s Globe & Mail/ CBC wind therapist Andrew Coyne about ten exits past normal on the idea of Donald Trump on Canadian soil. Okay, on Alberta soil. “We’re going to roll out the red carpet for the wannabe dictator of America at the very moment he is moving to suppress dissent with armed force?” (You mean like the Truckers Convoy?)

Cartoonist Michael DeAdder, who likely cries if you use improper pronouns, says “Hold my kombucha”. His latest etching has Trump asking a veteran what he did in the war. The witty retort is “Fought against people like you”. Get it? Trump murders six millions Jews. But The Hill keeps this guy working, and the laughs just keep on coming. Free speech!

The presumption is jaw-dropping. Even as Trump’s approval rating hits 53 percent, Canadians online were echoing Democrats’ fever dreams of forming a shadow government to take over from Trump via coup. This sense of impunity at a distance is why the Canadian government— along with other drive-by virtue signallers UK, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia— have imposed sanctions on two sitting members of the Israeli cabinet. They know it will rile Trump’s America.

For ordinary Canadians, Trump became a post-it note to justify giving Team Liberal another swing at ruining the nation. “We used to be such friends! He’s a tyrant.!” This just in: Love him or hate him Trump is employed by Americans to do their bidding. He’s not a sentimental buddy of Canada who’ll cut us some slack for old time’s sake. He has no remittance from Canada to please the Laurentian elites. If your defence is non-existent and your military gender-obsessed: you had it coming.

Are his policies jostling Canada? Absolutely. Read Art of the Deal. The 51st state jibe when Justin soiled himself was rude. But it worked on pliant Canadian liberals. Now the The Little Banker is disavowing the dissolute decade of Trudeau while employing Conservatives’ policies on defence spending, inter-provincial trade and border security. Hell, he’s naming longtime Tories to his personal staff.

In the end Carney knows this ain’t mock Parliament. That his dossier begins and ends with satisfying the beast to the south. None of this should be a surprise. Yet Canadians dozed when Trump made clear in his election campaign that the American economy is the greatest in the world. If you want to fish in that pond it’s not going to be for free. That means tariffs for a range of U.S. industries that couldn’t compete in a Biden world.

We can argue how well tariffs work, but Trump wants them to reduce taxes on the people who elected him. Not the Canadians who fly first class but pay economy. And who have pushed his approval ratings into the 50s, higher than ever before. (Likely to spike higher after the No Kings Riot season peters out.)

No wonder Canadians preferred the guy before Trump, the senile sock puppet whose government was run by anonymous figures using the auto-pen. Sleepy Joe let Canada slide into mediocrity and financial peril without any judgement. It was comfortable. Then The Donald had the nerve to expose the ditch Canada was in.

Canada, Trump pointed out,  was delinquent on its defence, harbouring Chinese drug lords, printing money like Canadian Tire and its banks were involved in money laundering. That was the nice stuff. Try Organized fentanyl networks operating with impunity in the largest cities of the nation So dumping on Trump in salty cartoons allows Canada’s Mod Squad to ignore the real issues that should have been litigated in the April election.

We have written extensively about the ruse that was played on gormless Canadians in  “U.S. Voters Smelled A Rat But Canadian Voters Bought The Cheese” We have catalogued Canada’s drug and money laundering disgrace in “Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?” We’ve described the real-estate bubble economy created by Trudeau and sidekick Carney that threatens to crash the economy and ruin seniors’ pensions in

In the end, it is still la-la-la-la We Can’t Hear You. Trump-obsessed Boomers more concerned with the equity in their jumped-up bungalows gave the finger to the next generations and blamed it all on Orange Man Bad. In the monotone of Canadian political comment it all seemed so easy. Turn against Trump. Cash another dividend. Cheer on MSNBC and CNN bitch sessions.

The Family Compact don’t get it. Their Antifa heroes down south plan demos and “nonviolent” activity to crater the public resolve. In Canada that still works. But in the U.S. the Covid reverb is hitting the natural governing class of the nation. While they craft fine phrases about democracy the consumers remember them using a virus to stop society.

The appetite for Gavin Newsom blovaitors and Jen Psaki fart catchers is crashing in America. Riots may be coming in the U.S., but it won’t be like  George Floyd and Covid and the pussy hats. At some point Canada’s docile classes better wake up, too. America owes them nothing. They need to earn the respect.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Simone Biles Fails To Stick The Landing Going After Riley Gaines

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Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them. George Orwell

Or, in the case of Olympic legend Simone Biles, only gymnasts believe in the incendiary issue of trans men competing in women’s sports. Biles, who has made a secondary career as an object of pity, took exception when former swimmer Riley Gaines, an opponent of trans men competing against women, sent a picture of Minnesota softball team that recently won a state title with a pitcher who is reported to be transgender.

“Comments off lol,’ Gaines wrote in response to the post which wasn’t permitting any comments from the public. “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”

That brought Biles into the fray. ‘You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. ‘You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! ‘But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!’

She then poked Gaines again, saying: ‘Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.” (Gaines husband is 6-foot-4)

The loser reference was to Gaines having lost to a trans swimmer in an NCAA race. Since then Gaines has launched a campaign to outlaw biological males from competing with cisgendered girls and women. She has testified in the U.S. Congress and has appeared in numerous interviews espousing a position supported by the vast majority of Americans.

One might think the proof of this position— unquestioned as recently as a decade ago— would be obvious. But Biles and  gender radicals who’ve tried to make trans into the Emancipation Proclamation of the 21st century are not giving up the fight.

Here’s someone named Nancy Armour in USA Today. “There is no scientific evidence that transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over cisgender women athletes, but that hasn’t stopped Gaines from claiming they do..” When legislation banning trans men in girls/ women sports was presented in the U.S. Congress 106 Democrats voted against the motion. The chattering class on CBC, MSNBC and CNN likewise have a cohort of those opposing the ban.

But it was the outburst from Biles that most appalled fans who’d worshipped her as the GOAT of Olympic gymnastics and then sympathized with her victimization by Dr. Larry Nasser. Even when she bailed on her teammates at the 2024 Games they cut her slack. But suddenly a woman who’s preached against body shaming and intolerance was deriding a fellow athlete’s body and mocking her complaints.

Critics were quick to post Biles’ hypocrisy about compassion, citing her own tear-stained testimony about how she was taken advantage by a doctor. Here’s how we described her psychological distress last August during the Olympics. “Prominent among them was gymnast Simone Biles who described the abuse she’d suffered from a male trainer and on social media as the greatest female gymnast in history. Even as she added more golds to her mantle she’d seemed unable to find peace in her accomplishments.

“Due to mental blocks, she’d had to step away from the sport for a time to get her head straight. She had a lot of company from fellow competitors who described sexual harassment and intimidation on social media for their unhappiness. (Hence the constant mental health commercials on the TV broadcasts.)”

Now the same role model is mocking Gaines? It seems unthinkable. As for the claims that men have no advantage against women, it was pointed out that there are zero women who try to reverse the equation, going into men’s sports. They show the hard truths about competitive records of men versus women in a range of sports. They describe the physical risks for women playing against larger, stronger men. Here. Here. And here.

It’s still stunning to see Biles toeing the radical LGBTQ line while asking for traditional pity of a victimized woman herself. Or the amount of support that the cause has garnered from progressives throughout society. When did people became so obtuse about the growth this societal contagion?

We wrote earlier this year about how such notions take hold. MacDonald Laurier Institute fellow Mia Hughes charted a history of similar social contagions such as bulimia and multiple-personality disorder. “In 1972, British psychologist Gerald Russell treated a woman with an unusual eating disorder involving binging and purging. Over the next seven years, he saw a further 30 woman presenting with the same condition. In 1979, he wrote a paper published in Psychological Medicine, in which he gave it the name bulimia nervosa….

“Then something remarkable happened. The illness swept the globe like wildfire… affecting an estimated 30 million people by the mid-1990s, the majority of whom were teenage girls and young women. The explanation for this rapid spread is what philosopher Ian Hacking calls ‘semantic contagion’ – how the process of naming and describing a condition creates the means by which the condition spreads. The epidemic of multiple-personality disorder in the 90s was spread this same way… Multiple studies demonstrate the media’s culpability in the spread of social contagions.”

The new contagion is trans athletes. USA Today is just one example of how influencers try to legitimize campaigns to boost their own self esteem. As the battle to reverse the trans incursion shows, there are only too many willing to play politics in the gender debate. Like the pro-Palestinian movement in North America the trans athlete hoax exists is a bubble where reality and fiction can co-exist, knowing they’ll never be put to the test.

Orwell called it doublethink “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Biles and the liberal elites have it mastered. Nursing their grievance while finding it a fault in others.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, Bruce is regular media contributor. The new book from there team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin is Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. In paperback and Kindle on #Amazon. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/

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