12 Day's To Go

The first regular season pitch will be thrown in a mere 12 days, and yet even before the gates have opened for the 2008 season we already have suspensions and bad blood brewing. Of course I am talking about last weeks melee between the Yankees and the Rays which has ended up costing the Yankees Shelley Duncan and Melkey Cabrera. While I do think that Duncan knew exactly what he was doing when he slid spikes up into second, I also think that these suspensions are really intended to be a warning to the entire league rather than a punishment to these particular players. In in aftermath of the Mitchell report no doubt the front offices want this season to be as clean and wholesome as possible, but lets face it, bad blood and rivalries sell seats.

Now I am not advocating that Baseball go the route of Hockey, I am just saying that a little bit of tension between rivals goes a long way towards adding an exciting dimension to the game. We don't want players injuring themselves needlessly in bench clearing brawls, but lets be honest, we all still remember when Pedro Martinez picked up Zimmer by the ears and threw him to the ground.

My point with all of this is that I worry that baseball 2008 is going to be sterile to the point where if a pitcher brushes a batter off the plate he is going to get a three game suspension and the manager will be fined. These guys are highly competitive athletes and there are going to be a few punches thrown this season. Don't turn baseball into a boxing match, but lets be fair in terms of suspensions, especially when someone deserves an "accidential" high spike.