Written InhaleSports Contributor Jack Selby
We hear it all the time: “The youth are losing interest in baseball.” “Baseball is dying.” “Mr. Selby, you cannot use the house mic at a Chuck-E-Cheese to spout your political theories.” Taking these in reverse order, this is a free country, and if I want to use the P.A. system at a renowned children’s restaurant chain to tell people why James A. Garfield was a coward for being shot, then that’s my right as a tax-paying citizen. Second, baseball is absolutely not dying. The sport is more profitable than ever, attendance is the highest it’s ever been, and 40 million people just watched Game 7 of the World Series, so despite all the doom and gloom forecasters who try to etch the sport’s epitaph any chance they get, baseball’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
But perhaps there is some truth to the youth turning away. Baseball’s biggest problem is that a sport long derided for being “boring” has gotten even longer as attention spans have gotten shorter. Games are routinely lasting over 3 hours, and the problem is only expedited in the playoffs, with longer commercial breaks and more frequent managerial decisions. Even us diehard fans can find it excruciating to watch a 9 inning game take over 4 hours to complete. Combined with managers making more mid-inning pitching changes, delaying the game to argue or look into potential replay use, and relievers who can take over 30 seconds between pitches, baseball has a time problem. But fear not sports fans, for there is one simple solution to this problem, and it’s a mere two words:
Speed Gator.
That’s right, what I’m proposing is a caged alligator at all 30 Major League ballparks that will act as a visual cue and an imminent threat to all who dare to hold up the length of the game for selfish intentions.
Now, let’s make it clear: When I’m talking about a caged alligator, I’m not talking about a mascot ala the University of Florida, nor a carton symbol of a gator like the one used for the Saturday Night Live sketch “Maine Justice.” I’m talking about a real life, fully grown, legitimately dangerous alligator.
Here’s my proposition: Whenever a pitcher is taking too long on the mound, whenever a hitter is stepping out of the batter’s box or calling for time at a frustrating rate, or whenever a manager is delaying the game increasingly so, out comes Speed Gator. A Gator will preferably be handled by a neutral third party representative (similar to their replay system,) in order to ensure fairness. And much like the currently thinner Rick Ross in a butter aisle at Harris Teeter, the mere presence of Speed Gator will cause the offender to start sweating bullets. If the offending party continues to delay the game, Speed Gator will be released from his cage at the end of the inning, and the offender must attempt to return to the dugout while trying to avoid Speed Gator, directly in his path.
The advantages of Speed Gator are virtually limitless. For starters, the fan interaction would be marvelous. The roar of the crowd would be akin to that of a playoff home run. You can hear the chants now, “Let’s go Ga-tor! *Chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp*.” Washington Nationals fans may recall Roger Bernadina, an outfielder during many of the team’s lean years nicknamed The Shark, and fans would cheer for him by mimicking chomping jaws with both arms. Well now that act can spread nationwide (not Nationwide, although if Peyton Manning is interested in financially backing this proposition, I would be happy to take his call,) and at a much more herpetologically correct level with an alligator compared to a shark. Marketing would be through the roof, as more fans will want to come to see Gator, more merchandise with the gator’s likeness will be sold, so Speed Gator is a guaranteed money maker, as demonstrated through this splendiferous graph I have composed.
Plus, the added drama would a tremendous benefactor for the game. The life-or-death tension would add a whole new dynamic to America’s Pastime™. You think Madison Bumgarner was nervous coming out of the bullpen to pitch five innings of relief in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series? Well just imagine him trying to do that with a species that managed to survive the mass extinction of the dinosaurs staring a hole through him. You think Joe Maddon might think twice about bringing in another reliver if it means him risking going home with an odd number of appendages? The mere addition of Speed Gator can make a meaningless late-August game between the Brewers and Phillies feel like the Wild Card game.
What are the potential problems? For one thing, some people will try to proclaim this to be barbaric and inhumane, not to mention being a potentially uncomfortable situation for Speed Gator. But who cares? Those people are dorks. Second, the MLBPA is (in)famously regarded as the strongest player’s union of all the major sports leagues, so it might run into some initial resistance from union reps about not wanting to expose their labor force to a significantly risk of casualties. But you know what people love even more than fully-intact limbs? Money. And with baseball’s implementation of revenue sharing, in addition to Speed Gator’s aforementioned surefire drawing power, that means more money for everybody involved. And you don’t even have to pay Speed Gator! He’s an alligator; he can’t appreciate a Rolex or a Blu-Ray. Besides, the players all have fully fledged health insurance anyway, so there’s nothing for them to lose.
Think about the lifetime of memories that Speed Gator will create, about how your 6 year old son’s first sports memory will be going to a ballgame with his dad on the day that Pedro Baez had to free his arms from the jaws of life after taking his normal 32 seconds in between pitches. While he’ll generally be handled by a neutral observer, deals can be worked out ahead of time to bring in a special honoree. Think about how whipped into a frenzy a crowd will get seeing legends like Cal Ripken, Jr., Derek Jeter, and Harold Baines to a lesser extent be brought out as guest cage holder, further bonding the history of the game with the future of it. It adds strategy too, as there will now be an even greater risk for a fielder trying to make a catch in foul territory than merely running into a wall. Think about some of the iconic moments in baseball, and how they would have changed with the presence of an alligator. Would Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech had been even more expedited if he had felt the warm, muggy breath of Speed Gator breathing down his neck telling him to wrap it up? When Mark McGwire accidentally overstepped 1st base on his 62nd home run trot, would he have been able to go back and touch if he knew it meant heading back in the same direction as a hungry, vengeful gator?
I don’t know the answers to those questions. But what I do know is that Major League Baseball needs to look no further for the solution to their time problems with the added bonus of a new lifetime of memories than at the legend known as Speed Gator.
That’s all we have for this week’s Hot Take Bakery. Join us next time when we ask the question: “Can a literal pig in a blanket help lacrosse expand Westward?”
