Mike Silva's New York Baseball Digest » Blog Archive » MLB’s Decision Making is a Ship of Fools

MLB’s Decision Making is a Ship of Fools


By Mike Silva ~ October 25th, 2009. Filed under: Mike Silva.

Dave Lennon over at Newsday has an interesting column regarding how MLB’s decision making process works when deciding to call a playoff game. Look, I know the weather can be unpredictable, but the forecast last night seemed pretty clear cut. Give MLB credit for incorporating a “team of experts” to help the commissioner make the decision. This included:

- Half dozen weather services

- weatherbug.com

- Selig’s personal weather guru over in Milwaukee

- FOX network officials

As I was reading Lennon’s column I had to laugh. I imagined a bunch of well dressed Ivy League honchos staring at a computer screen over at weatherbug.com. People, and I might be going out on a limb here, if there is a 90% chance of rain the odds of a delay Saturday night were great. Do you really want to ruin a team’s season because FOX has no substitute programming? Let me put it in language that maybe they understand. If a pitcher has a 90% chance of giving up a hit with the bases loaded I would probably choose someone else. I don’t need a “pitching guru” to make that decision. What makes this even more laughable is how promising the weather is for Sunday and Monday. It was a decision that I could have made sitting at my abode in Long Island. Trust me. I didn’t need to walk around Yankee Stadium in an expensive suit for enlightenment.

This league is so lucky they have a bullet proof product that can’t be screwed up. Oh, we all know they have come about as close to ruining it, but for the most part it’s nearly impossible. Now you know why the umpiring is a mess, we had home field decided by the flip of a coin, and the All Star game actually means something. The league is run by a ship of fools and partner with people actually dumber than they are – network television executives.

Fortunately for the fans of the Angels and Yankees they came to the right decision. That is what amazes me because, based on my odds, it appears we had a better chance of starting Game 6 on time than this collection doing the right thing.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com
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3 Responses to MLB’s Decision Making is a Ship of Fools

  1. Brian Curtiss
    October 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Love your website Mike … But, I actually take issue on one count today! WeatherBug is the most detailed weather service out there, with its own network of what they call their “live tracking” stations. But you make it sound like Weatherbug doesn’t know what they’re doing. They are the government’s “go to” service for federal disasters and emergencies because they have such a detailed reporting network that streams weather as it happens. Their clients include, if you look at their website, the NFL with Sprint – right the on the field at games, Major League Baseball apparently according to you and Dave Lennon, Homeland Security, Verizon Customers, sprint customers, energy utilities, a bunch of TV networks. Sounds pretty impressive to me. And I see them on WGN and their website is by far the most accurate – they have weather from everywhere and it updates in front of your eyes on TV. They’re tracking the weather pretty close in my opinion. I’d go with a service like that if I were a major sports league. Now I see they have a lightning alert network, and the National Weather Service itself uses them according to their website! I kind of think MLB and FOX and Mr. Selig are in good company for using Weatherbug.

    Just because weatherbug also gives you a free website with weather reports, does that make them somehow less credible?

    Oh, and the call was right last night.

    Go yanks…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Brian

  2. Mike Silva
    October 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Brian

    I agree. My indictment was more on the delay in calling the game, and the “weather guru”, more than weatherbug.com

    The amazing part is that you or I could have made that decision from our living room, but MLB and FOX paced around anxiously trying to figure it out.

  3. Brian Curtiss
    October 25th, 2009 at 7:33 pm

    Mike – understood. All I can say is the “yanks in 6″

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