from Amazon
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Expanded playoffs
"Yeah, expand it because [standard reasons].”
“No, leave it as it is because [standard reasons].”
Please, do not post if you are going to give [standard reasons].
What I am surprised about is this:
Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt is concerned that adding wild-card teams or increasing the length of the division series would make a long season even longer.
“If they’re going to do that, they need to shorten the season then. That’s a lot of games and that’s a long time. Even in the playoffs now we’re going potentially to Nov. 5,” he said. “Sometimes they think we’re just robots, but you’ve got to think of potential injuries. On pitchers, that’s a lot of throwing. Position players, some play every game all year. It just takes a toll on the body. If they’re going to do that, they’ve got to think a lot about the ramifications.”
Does Affeldt realize that if they cut the number of regular season games that he’s going to be paid less? The number of games is a workplace safety issue. If it was up to the owners, they’d have the players play for ten months. If it was up to the fans, we’d have them play for eleven months. (What, you’d rather hear Harold Reynolds talk from November through March? I didn’t think so.) The players should play for as long as they think they can play, AND THEN, their salaries would be based on that (i.e., revenue collected). Really, if players said that they should only have a 120 game season for health reasons, and that their salaries would be cut by 25%, then the owners would fight and eventually give in.
The reality is that players have always been willing to sell their body for money. It’s not the owners and fans who think the players are indestructible, but the players themselves.