Speaking of weird sports: rowing.
I think I’d make a good coxswain. After all, everybody knows that, if there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s screaming at rowers. I’ll often go down to the park in the hopes of finding a kayaker to yell at. And since the extent of the coxswain’s non-yelling-centered physical activity seems to involve sitting down, I think I am in peak physical condition to assume the awesome responsibility of shrieking Team USA to victory!
I know, I know. I promised you a discussion the designated hitter. But this is important, dammit!
Oddball sports are the lifeblood of the Olympics. Every four(ish) years, otherwise reasonable people find themselves suddenly espousing passionate opinions about arcane athletic pursuits that nobody watches: Water polo! Taekwondo! Gymnastics! (Oh, bite me! You know I speak the truth!)
So it is with volleyball.
To be clear: Not women's beach volleyball, which, far from being meaningless, is the epitome of sports and should have its own cable channel devoted to showing it 24-7-365-World Without End, amen!
No, I speak of the more prosaic indoor volleyball, about which I have developed strong opinions over the last 23 minutes! Specifically, about the "libero."
If you've been watching Olympic volleyball (and who hasn't?), you've surely noticed that one player on each team wears a different color shirt than their teammates.
This is not, as one would reasonably assume, a result of a laundry snafu. Rather, the mismatched player is the "libero," a position invented in 1998 because volleyball wasn't convoluted enough.
Generally, the libero is the team's best defensive player. Not to be confused with the team's most defensive player. That would be Sheryl. You just can't say anything to that girl!
Where was I? Ah, yes:
The libero plays a very specific role. They are not allowed to serve. They are not allowed to spike. They are mainly assigned to play defense--but the defensive permission does not extend to blocking their opponent's spikes, which they are not allowed to do, but which would seem to be a key defensive function, but what do I know? I'm just the guy who's been watching volleyball for, now, 32 minutes. Anyway.
Liberos are allowed to make spectacular dives (which I believe are called "digs") to prevent a spiked ball from hitting the ground (which would be bad). They are also allowed to be the "second setter"--i.e., the person who volleys the ball after the first setter so that a third person can smack the ball over the net. The libero, then, plays the role of the middle person in the Human Centipede that is a volleyball team.
Sorry.
Now, I grant you that saving a spiked ball ("digging") is an important skill. From what I've observed, though (46 minutes!), liberos are not very successful at doing this. This phenomenon becomes more befuddling when you notice that the "spiker" very often smacks the ball right in the libero's direction. Like, "Here, libero! Dig this!" Which on the face of it seems like poor strategy if we assume the liberos can do their job. I mean, if they're ostensibly the best defensive player, wouldn't you want to keep the ball away from them? You don't see baseball players intentionally hitting the ball in the direction of the gold-glove shortstop, right?
I should really coach volleyball.
I mentioned earlier that the libero wears a different colored jersey. This is supposedly to make the player easier for the officials to identify, in case they do something useful--uh, I mean, un-libero-like, such as blocking an opponent's shot.
I suspect, though, the opportunity to clothe someone in an alternate color jersey was in fact the main impetus for the position: It was a marketing ploy. I mean, you have any idea how many volleyball groupies there are?!?
No, seriously, do you? I'm thinking six?
However many there are, you don't want them to stop buying Team USA merch! So you have to give them more inventory to choose from! You only have the standard t-shirt? Real fans will spend the extra $49.99 for the libero hoodie!
Seven-Inning Double-Headers
As a result of the pandemic, the 2020 baseball season didn't get underway until late July. Rather than a 162-game slog, the season was a 60-game sprint. Realizing, though, that some games would still be rained—or, as in fact often happened, quarantined out, Major League Baseball decreed that missed games would, as usual, be made up through double-headers, but that, not as usual, each game of the double-header would be only seven innings.
Now, this obviously shaves some time off games and so could be seen as in keeping with MLB’s attempts to speed up the pace-of-play. And the rule either benefits or hurts teams in pretty much equal measure: A team that loses a seven-inning game by one run could reasonably complain that they were "cheated" out of a couple of opportunities to mount a comeback, but they are just as likely to find themselves winning a one-run game that could be frittered away by a shaky bullpen. In the grand scheme of baseball, those things tend to even out over time.
Some things, however, don't even out. This season, for example, the New York Mets have already had a ridiculous number of games postponed. Their very first series of the year was postponed when several Washington players tested positive for Covid. Subsequently, foul weather in the New York region forced several more postponements. By the end of May, the Mets had already experienced ten postponements, and as I write this, they are playing in their 62nd double-header of the year. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but only slightly.
Think about what this means: Even if the Mets "only" had those ten postponements, then that would mean they would play twenty seven-inning games (the ten games being made up, plus the ten additional games forming the second half of the double-header). At the end of the season, then, the Mets would have played 40 fewer innings than they were scheduled to play (assuming no need for extra innings in these games)—or the equivalent of more than four fewer games than in a standard season. At the same time, teams that play in domed stadiums or in generally delightful climates like San Diego might see no postponements. So if, say, San Diego faces the Mets in the post-season, the Padres' players will have four-plus games more worth of wear and tear, bumps and bruises, arm strain and exhaustion. That hardly seems fair.
Seven-inning games raise other questions of fairness: If a pitcher throws seven innings and gives up no hits, should he be credited with a no-hitter? Does a starting pitcher still have to complete five innings to qualify for a win (as he would in a standard game)?
And here’s some REAL chutzpah. Most double-headers are scheduled in the classic “single-admission” format: One ticket gets you into both games. So, even though the game you would normally be seeing is shorter than usual, you’re still getting two games and at least 14 innings of baseball for the price of nine. SOME of these games, though, are scheduled as “split” double-headers with, say, one game starting at 1:00 and the second starting at 7:00. In these cases, fans must buy tickets to each game separately—but each game is only guaranteed to be seven innings. You will not be too shocked to hear that the teams don’t cut the price of each ticket by 22%.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has decreed that double-headers will revert to nine innings next season. Unless the inequities outlined above are addressed, then the seven-inning version does, indeed, need to go.
Up next: Designated hitters.
