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Posted By: David Smith

You want to "fix" baseball? Here si what you do:

1) Make ALL ball players have their blood tested for illegal drugs and other performance enhancers. There needs to be a level playing field so that some players don't feel they have to cheat to succeed, that their natural ability and hard work ALONE will allow them to make the BIG show or not.

2) Have a set rule about how many times a team can be on ESPN and stick to it. Also have a MINIMUM number of times that a team has to be shown.

In the early days of ESPN baseball coverage, I would watch almost every game they telecast. That way, I cold see all the players and all the teams. Then, they shifted and started showing only a certain number of teams and my interest wained. Once they started broadcasting the Red Sox and Yankees almost exclusievely, I almost totally stopped watching. In the few games I did watch (NONE involving the Red Sox or Yankees) the announcers had to bring up the Red Sox or Yankees for some reason and ESPN had in game breaks and most of thsoe were about those two teams. This past Post Season, I mainly watched the NL games. I only watched parts of the World Series because I am SOOOO tired of hearing about the Red Sox.

3) Have a cap on what Amateur Draft picks can make. With the BIG dollar teams paying stupid amounds of money to Free Agents, thus driving up the price of even bad players and Salary Arbitration ALSO being affected by this, it makes it hard for small dollar teams to compete. Then, they are also at a disadvantage when Player A wants X amount of dollars to sign and if he doesn't get it, then he will not sign and go back into the pool for next year. This hurts the small dollar teams two ways. First, if they sign the player, it takes money away from other parts of the organization OR the organization has to raise ticket prices. Second, if they sign Player A and he is a bust, then they have spent money on a guy who was NO HELP to the Majro League team. So, if the Major LEague team was counting oin this guy to be on the BIG club in a few years and isn't, then they ahve another hole to fill. Finally, if the guy is Drafted and doesn't sign, then the team has lost out on a player who might have helped them.

By having a salary/bonus cap on Amateur Draft picks, if small money teams have a bad draft, they are NOT penalized financially for it. This would also induce some players to sign who otherwise might not because this way, no matter who Drafts them, they are going to get about the same amount of money from one year to the next and getting it this year and also getting experince is better tahn waiting another year.

4) If there is a salary/bonus cap on Minor League players then the Major Leagues would have to have a MINIMUM team payroll they would have to meet. A salary floor. This would keep the Owners from just pocketing the extra cash they make from Revenue Sharing and also make the Minor League players work harder to get to the Majors.

ALL of these things would make the game MORE fair to ALL teams and also increase fan interest because THEIR team might actually have a chance of winning every couiple of years instead of every couple of decades.

David