Bad Ideas In Baseball

Tim Marchman gives his take on some things baseball would be better off getting rid of.

They are good ideas, and he gives sound advice for each one. They are:

• Tall Catchers
• Pulling your best hitter for a pinch runner
• Pitchers batting ninth
• Calling in the closer with a three-run lead
• Managers in uniforms

I more or less agree with everything, except I like how managers still wear uniforms. I mean I like it because of the absurdity of it. It' pretty pointless, but it doesn't hurt anyone and it's a neat tradition to have. It's not like batting the pitcher 8th, where the evidence suggests it helps a team win. If wearing a suit in the dugout would prove to increase your teams production, than yea make the change, but that's not the case. With that said, baseball shouldn't be so strict about it. If Francona wants to wear sweatshirt he shouldn't have to actually have the jersey top underneath.

If baseball allowed managers to wear suits, would the managers want to? It's one thing to wear a suit on a basketball court, but would managers want to scuff their nice shoes on the pitching mound? And if they didn't, sneakers with a suit just look silly.

Now that I think about it although managers wearing jerseys is a ridiculous idea, I'm so used to it that having them wearing anything else would start to look silly, and I think that would be hilarious, in a good way. So I think I'll change my mind on this one. I'd love to see Don Zimmer try to dress nice, or watch Lou Pinella go crazy in an Armani suit, and especialy would like to see Jim Leyland keep his cleats on with a sport jacket.