Why do baseball managers wear full uniforms?

   

Joe Torre

 

By. Garth McLennan, Sports Editor
he 2009 MLB playoffs have been
brilliant so far, but watching so much

baseball so
close together

“Could you imagine Alain Vigneault on

basketball; I understand that both are played
indoors, but the guys behind the bench are
all wearing nice, tailored suits. Could you
imagine Alain Vigneault on the bench at
GM Place with shin
guards and shoulder
pads on, complete

me the bench at GM Place with shin guards epee ee
odd to iy and shoulder pads on, complete with the py) jackson down
attention. team’s socks and jersey?” with the Lakers, how
It’s made about him directing
me realize traffic on the bench

that baseball is the only major sport where
the coaches, or managers, wear the same
uniforms as their players.

Really, it’s a little embarrassing. I
mean, what’s the point of it? I know that it
has become tradition and everything, but
watching an old man trot out to the mound
to relieve a pitcher or to the plate to argue
with an umpire just looks silly. I know that
Joe Torre is one of the most accomplished
and respected individuals in the game, as he
well deserves to be, but come on, he’s a 70-
year-old man.

The thing is, baseball is the only
sport that does this. Look at hockey and

in L.A. shorts and a sleeveless jersey? Call
me crazy, but I think that a slick black suit
looks more professional.

With football coaches, they’ re all
wearing heavy jackets, and I get that. In
most NFL cities, it’s near freezing right now,
and the football coach has a lot more to do
than a head man in hockey, basketball or
baseball. But what about soccer coaches?
They’re wearing suits and like their
counterparts in hockey and basketball — it
looks sharp, not like they’re trying really
hard to hold on or drag out their glory days
as players like baseball managers so often
do.

 

Tyranny in Toronto

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Maple Leafs’ overbearing influence on NHL bad for the game

   

Richard Peddie, Maple Leafs CEO

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

t seems like general knowledge at this

point, but the Toronto Maple Leafs

might be the most infuriating franchise
in the history of professional sports. They
really are the evil empire of hockey and it
just seems like year in and year out, they
have this irrefutable control over the NHL
and surrounding entities.

You don’t have to look any further
than the recent Phoenix fiasco involving Jim
Balsillie and his repeated bids to acquire
the troubled Arizona team and transplant
them to Hamilton in Southern Ontario.

 

exactly what occurred just a few weeks
ago when the Leafs visited Vancouver. The
game started at 4:00 p.m. Pacific so that
Toronto wouldn’t feel out place with the
time change.

The blatant and sickening Leafs love-
fest that occurs every Saturday during
Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) is enough
to drive even the most casual NHL fan
crazy. Can someone please explain to me
how the Maple Leafs manage to play on
HNIC during prime time, the most coveted
time slot out there, every single week of the
year, regardless of how bad they are? It’s
all part of the endless Toronto power play.

Now, there Edmonton and
are a host “We're talking about a team that since the _ St. Louis are
of issues NHL expanded beyond six teams has failed duking it out
pertaining spectacularly at every opportunity with a — the final_
‘0 ____ Jaughable combination of inept management, ?!#Y°! spot in
Balsillie’s ; ; the West on the
Benen dreadful scouting and drafting, poor coaching :
inability dart hip.” final day of the
to geta eng awn ownership. season? Who
hold of an cares, we'll

NHL club, not the least of which includes
his increasingly personal problems with
commissioner Gary Bettman, but the Leafs
are a huge part of this whole thing as well.

As the whole hockey world is aware,
Toronto has a stranglehold on the very
lucrative Southern Ontario market and has
gone to considerable lengths to keep it that
way. They have a virtual monopoly over
the region and gobble up ridiculous profit
margins each year because of it. Combine
that with perhaps the most arrogant and
self-serving ownership in the game and you
have a very old, very powerful franchise
that is unwilling to part with even a little
bit of the treasure trove they rake in from
Southern Ontario.

But the problems with Toronto go
beyond them just protecting their territory.
The League bends over backwards to
accommodate their every wish and it can
become more than frustrating being a fan
of another highly successful and profitable
Canadian team. Just look at the scheduling
done by the League’s brain trust this year.
Do you think that when the Canucks fly
out to Toronto they can just demand that
the game starts at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, or
10 p.m. Eastern? Of course not, because
that would be absurd. But wait—that is

give ‘em Toronto-Carolina, even if the Leaf
are 12 points out of the post-season. That’s
the attitude HNIC, which also gives us
constant ramblings from Don Cherry about
how much he loves Toronto, has stuck to
for years.

The attitude from Toronto fans caps
it all off. This is a team that hasn’t been
remotely competitive since before the
lockout and hasn’t been to a Stanley Cup
final in 42 years, but from the way the vast
majority of Leafs fans act, you’d think they
were a never-ending dynasty.

It would be different if the Maple
Leafs were a successful team on the ice,
but they’re not. It’s okay for the New York
Yankees to make demands because they’re
perennial championship contenders. In
Toronto though, we’re talking about a team
that since the NHL expanded beyond six
teams has failed spectacularly at every
opportunity with a laughable combination
of inept management, dreadful scouting
and drafting, poor coaching and awful
ownership.

Enough is enough. Is Toronto a
popular team? No doubt, but the ironclad
grip they hold over the NHL and the way
they abuse that power is detrimental to the
league and to the game.

19

 

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