MLB Commissioner Emeritus Bud Selig on Friday said he would "be happy" if games could get back to lasting only two hours and 45 minutes. Selig threw out the ceremonial first pitch ahead of Dodgers-Brewers NLCS Game 6, and also said that it was "hard to be critical of teams that chose to [do] long-term strategies to rebuild back to contender status." Selig: "Tell me another way, especially if you're in a medium to small market, but even in a big-market club, that you can rebuild if you don't have a farm system that's producing top-notch talent. There is no other way." He added, "So all these people that (complain) and yell and scream and holler -- if you ask, 'What's your alternative?' They don't have one" (AP, 10/19).
GET ON WITH IT: In Montreal, Jack Todd writes today’s playoff baseball games are becoming "almost unbearable." They "start late and finish later." Chilly fans, "wrapped up like polar explorers, sit there after midnight, looking stunned, cheering mostly for the games to end." It is the "modern way" (MONTREAL GAZETTE, 10/22).
POSITIVES & NEGATIVES: In N.Y., Bill Madden wrote there is "no doubt, from the TV ratings standpoint, MLB moguls were rooting hard for a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series." In their minds, the "ka-ching, ka-ching prospect of two of baseball’s oldest and revered franchises from major markets far out-weighed the fact that this would be a matchup of one team with the most bloated payroll in baseball versus another team that could soon be under indictment." The Dodgers are "squarely in the crosshairs of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation surrounding the procurement by MLB teams of international players, particularly those who have defected from Cuba" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 10/21).
