Bowie Kuhn's for Rob Manfred
Mr. Manfred: I'm sorry to have to express my deep concerns about how you and your friends at ESPN and FOX are destroying baseball.
If you are. There is no other guilty of such mess with the Rules.
When in 1973, they were celebrating the first game of the season, at Fenway Park, and Ron Blomberg, of the Yankees, the first designated hitter in history (Rule 6.10), was walked by Luis Tiant, I thought what had happened to him. worse to our game. But no, you have overcome all ignominy against baseball.
You may already know that I was baseball commissioner for 15 years, from February 1969 to September 1984; and before that, he had been legal counsel for Major League Baseball.
I had numerous difficult, notable cases to solve, but I died in 2007, at the age of 80, with a clear conscience for not having harmed baseball as a sport, nor as a show, nor as a business.
I loved and respected baseball so much that I was able to convince the owners and general managers of the National League not to approve the DH. I couldn't do it in the American League because their teams were hitting so much less than the other leagues and they wanted more action.
Do you believe, Mr. Manfred, that at the time of the hour, you can be sure that you have not harmed the tradition and sporting sense of baseball?
I doubt it, for having been the creator of ghost runners, of bat boys and bat girls regulated by clock, prohibited shifts, timed pitchers and batters, managers prevented from directing their pitchers as they see fit, not forced to have one pitch to no less than three batters, and four minutes of television advertising for every three outs, instead of the minute and a half that was really necessary.
Their mistake has been to say "yes" to everything the executives of ESPN and FOX say, because they pay three billion dollars per season, just to broadcast the All-Star Game, Playoffs, World Series and some games of the season.
And from that spectacular scroll, is where the 17 million 500 thousand that you charge for your functions come from. That is to say, he is selling good baseball so that it becomes a sport make me laugh.
That you receive such fees seems very good to me, whether you deserve them or not. "To whom Pope God gives it, may Saint Peter bless him!".
What worries me in these heights of the Hereafter, which you call the Hereafter, is not your money, but so much harm that it has caused baseball, something so dear to millions of people around the world.
Good luck, despite everything… Bo
