FanNation

Baseball is a great game. It's real. It can be fun or boring, exciting or dull, quick or slow. There are heros and goats, stars and grunts, prima donnas and working class joes. In short, baseball is a reflection of life in general, out there for all to see and, until relatively recently, without the airing of dirty laundry to distract fans from the game itself. The game itself is a thing of beauty. A few standard dimensions - sixty feet six inches, ninety feet from home to first and base to base, then no standards. Field shape, distance to the outfield wall, height of the wall, size of foul territory. All these can be and are different from field to field. I love it. You love it. Niether of us would be here spending time reading and writing about it if it were otherwise. So the Pirates are terrible ? Maybe so, but then again, maybe not. It's early and you never know. The beauty of baseball. And, hey, if they break .500 for the year, a lot of fans will be happy. The Mets on the other hand, projected by the pros, writers and talking heads alike, to win their division or at least make the playoffs, are struggling mightily. If they merely break .500 there will be a lot of very unhappy fans. The thing is, even if the Pirates finish under .500 and the Mets don't make it to post season play, their fans will remain fans and look forward to a fresh start next year. The beauty of baseball. Things I would like to see: Agree or not ? Restore the height of the pitching mound to 15 inches. The mound was lowered to increase offense. We have plenty of offense and much of it is due to factors associated with the batter's conditioning, preparation, etc., and a dearth of good pitchers. Restore the mound height and give pitchers back some of the advantage they had and apparently really need. Get rid of inter-league play. Get rid of the DH. Sports writers, stop writing about how much money every player signs for. I don't care how much they make. They sign or don't and if they do, for how long. That's enough information thank you.