Stuffing the Ballot Box?

Today, the MLB announced that they deleted between 60 to 65 million all-star ballot votes. Up until today, out of the eight field positions and the designated hitter position, Royals players led the votes in every position except for one of the outfield spots which was held by Mike Trout.

Now while it's hard to argue that several of the Royals aren't deserving of an all-star spot, it's hard to make a case for a player such as their second baseman Omar Infante. Beating out the Astros' Jose Altuve to this point, Infante is only hitting .227 with no homeruns, no stolen bases, and only 18 RBI's. Maybe if he had a glove like Ozzie Smith, could some sort of case be made, but Infante doesn't possess a strong glove either.

So far the MLB hasn't revealed how they determined which votes to delete and which ones they kept or even how it has affected the voting so far. If they deleted all votes in the Kansas City area, then Royals players who are deserving of being considered an all-star such as Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Alex Gordon will be hurt in the process. Plus who's to say that another team wasn't stuffing the ballot box too, but just not as well as some suspected the Royals of doing.

Officials from the MLB insist that they haven't found any signs of cheating and have even cited that strong following the Royals have built online in the past couple of years. Even so, they still threw out millions of votes. One in five votes approximately since 300 million votes have been tallied so far, on pace to break the all-time mark of 350 million taken in 2012. This also takes in the fact that the MLB stopped accepting paper ballots at the games, converting the whole process to online only.

So with everything online now, could the Royals be the team that has cheated in some form or at least "stuffed the ballots" better than any other team? Rob Neyer of Fox Sports said on the subject, "But I’ve talked myself into thinking that nobody has hijacked the balloting this year. If only because if it were that easy, a) somebody would have done it before, and b) somebody would be doing it this year, for some other team."

While voters have been restricted to 35 votes per email address, the average online user has multiple email addresses. Is this really different than the paper ballots though? In the past, it was suspected that employees of ball clubs would fill out a massive amount of ballots, favoring their own team's players, and stuff the boxes with those ballots. Doing it this way, it is a lot easier to stuff the ballot box in favor of your team than it would be online.

So how would the MLB remedy this? Should a system be setup based on players stats purely that send them to the all-star game? If this is the case, then players such as Cal Ripken Jr. or Derek Jeter would have never got to have their last hurrah in the spotlight, which led to some of the game's most memorable moments.

Should players vote? While this seems the most fair, players in the past have also carried grudges against particular opponents that would eliminate some of the best players who were less likeable. Imagine if there was an all-star game in the early 20th century, but Ty Cobb never made it because he was so hated. Cobb was one of the best players of all-time, but he was also one of the most hated by his opponents.

Should the writers vote? This could have been a viable solution pre-internet and television just as it was originally with the Hall of Fame voting process, but even writers have shown that they too have biases against players that they don't like. If the writers were in control of the all-star ballots, players like Barry Bonds would have had a lot of trouble getting into the all-star game.

The best solution is to limit the ballots a fan could submit. With the 35 votes per email address, it is worth it for a "fan" to create multiple email addresses and vote 35 times with each email address. I suggest limiting the votes to one vote per email address. This way it is not really worth it for a "fan" to create multiple email addresses and vote because of the hassle it would create. The true votes would still go through and just like the political election process, each person's vote would carry no more weight than the next person.

The Best Rookie Class of Major League Baseball

In Major League Baseball, every year that passes brings a crop of new talent to replace the players that have retired, released, or were injured throughout the season. Some players make their debut with an extraordinary amount of hype and others sneak up on the fans. Fans love to compare their favorite team's new rookie to other all-stars and legends that have played in the past, but the majority of rookies will never live up to the hype. This obviously means that some rookie classes will be better than others, especially when reviewed in hindsight. That's why I present to you the best rookie class in Major League Baseball history...the 1986 class.

The rookies of the year for 1986 were Jose Canseco for the American League and Todd Worrell for the National League. While there have been better rookie of the year winners, the 1986 class also featured many more players that would end up in the Hall of Fame, all-star rosters, and became impact players for their organizations.

Players such as Barry Larkin, Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Bobby Bonilla, John Kruk, Wally Joyner, Danny Tartabull, Ruben Sierra, Andres Galarraga Robby Thompson, Darren Daulton, Bob Tewksbury, Kelly Gruber, Cecil Fielder, Cory Snyder, Bobby Witt, Dan Plesac, Terry Mulholland, Mark Portugal, Doug Drabek, and Jim Deshaies exceeded their rookie limits during the 1986 season. The same season also saw the debuts of players such as Mark McGwire, Bobby Thigpen, Jay Bell, Greg Swindell, David Cone, Bo Jackson, Kevin Seitzer, Terry Steinback, Kevin Brown, Pete Incaviglia, Mike Stanley, Mitch Williams, Fred McGriff, Duane Ward, Greg Maddux, Jaime Moyer, Rafael Palmeiro, Kal Daniels, Dave Magadan, John Smiley, Bip Roberts, and Benito Santiago. The 1986 class would provide some of the most important players for the next decade in Major League Baseball.

This includes the all-time home run leader (Barry Bonds) , one of the best shortstops of all-time (Barry Larkin), the debuts of one of the best pitchers of all-time (Greg Maddux), and several other players that would arguably be in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (Rafael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff, Jose Canseco) if not for the fact that they played during the steroids era and were either suspected of cheating, caught cheating, or just overlooked because of the era their power peaked.

This class had it all. Power, speed, defense, pitching, closers, and team leaders. It even had a two sport star in Bo Jackson. While some of these players might not have been the nicest guys in baseball, they definitely had the most talent as a rookie class.

The only classes that could rival the 1986 class of rookies is the 1951 class (Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Minnie Minoso) and the 1982 class (Ryne Sandberg, Wade Boggs, and Cal Ripken Jr.).

Picture shown is 1986 Donruss Wally Joyner rookie card

California Infrastructure in Dire Need of Repair

In California, it's inevitable that a large earthquake will occur again. While the shaking ground may seem second nature to those who live in California, the majority of the shaking is barely noticeable at all to the residents. Even then, when a stronger magnitude quake strikes, the first thought in many Californian's heads is if the particular quake they're experiencing is the next big one. But what if it was?

While California won't fall into the ocean like some movies such as Escape From L.A. and San Andreas, there is the real threat of significant damage, especially within the state's infrastructure. As with the rest of the country, much of California's infrastructure is susceptible to massive damage due to the neglect by the government to maintain what has already been built.

In a report released by the United States government, one in nine bridges are deemed dangerous. Seven-term Republican congressman Ray LaHood who was the secretary of transportation during President Barack Obama's first term, has been quoted as saying, "I don't want to say they're unsafe. But they're dangerous."

In California, residents have already witnessed what can happen when infrastructure collapses. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area while the country watched on TV. With game two of the World Series underway, the ground shook violently to a peak magnitude of 6.9 during rush hour. Thankfully because of the Series, the rush hour was considerably lighter than normal, but highest number of fatalities due to the quake occurred because of infrastructure failure.

Forty-two people were killed due to the Cypress Street Viaduct collapse on Interstate 880, when the upper deck portion of the double decker freeway collapsed, crushing cars on the lower deck. More famously, the upper deck of the Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed onto the lower deck, fortunately killing only one, but still scaring America as they watched the national news coverage of the chaos.

Southern California isn't immune to the infrastructure damage caused by earthquakes either. In 1994, Northridge was struck by a 6.7 earthquake at 4:30AM. Interstates 5 and 10 both suffered massive damage to their freeway bridges, as did California State Freeways 14, 118, and the 210. Several Cal State Universities suffered massive damage as did 11 hospitals that had to transfer patients out to other hospitals that escaped severe damage.

Because of the damage caused by the Northridge earthquake, California's legislature passed laws to strengthen building codes, but many of the roads, bridges, and dams were ever touched. This leaves nearly 20 percent of the bridges in California to be rated a D- by structural inspectors.

America itself has over 70,000 bridges, which means approximately 8,000 of them are in dire need of repair. Congress needs to step up before bridges start collapsing like they have in Minnesota and Washington. California needs infrastructure repair work even more because of the possibility of earthquakes. Without a public works program in place, deaths and disaster are a high possibility in the state of California.

Photo by Robert A. Eplett for FEMA

Umpires on the Offensive

In professional sports, it's not uncommon for emotions to run high, especially in pressure situations. Sometimes when this happens and the outcome doesn't go a player's way, on occasion they'll voice their frustrations at those officiating the game. Baseball is no different, but in more recent years a new trend appears to be rising. The umpires are the ones on the "attack".

An umpire is supposed to be an unbiased official who calls the game down the middle. As fans know, this doesn't always seem to the case, but for the most part umpires do try their best when calling balls and strikes, out or safe, foul or fair. When a player or coach disagrees with the umpire and voices their opinion, it's not usually a personal attack on the umpire, but rather something that is more heat of the moment. With this in mind, as long as the player or coach doesn't go on a cussing tirade on the umpire or put on a physical show that for some fans can almost be comedic, an umpire will usually and is supposed to give a little leeway to those who disagree with him.

In the last couple of years though, some of Major League Baseball's umpires have been the aggressor, making the call, then attacking the player the that the call was against. As an official, an umpire needs to be more of a rock and less emotional on the field. Yes, they're human, but at the same time they need to keep their composure more than anyone else on that field. It's hard enough being a player, especially at the pro level, but to have not only your opponent trying to beat you, but also the umpire trying to pick a fight with you, is enough to make a player snap.

In the Atlanta Braves game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 7, pitcher Alex Wood was clearly not getting the same calls as the opposing pitcher, Gerrit Cole. Though not happy, Wood kept his composure for the most part. He never said a word to the home plate umpire Mark Carlson and with his body language, never showed Carlson up either. Wood bit his tongue while the inning continued. After the third out, while walking to the dugout, Carlson followed Wood to the dugout and starts arguing with the Braves pitcher. Wood kept his cool, never yelling, never cussing, and he even smiled for a second as the conversation from his end appeared to be more casual. If you watch the video closer, it appears that Wood mouths the words "Please stop this" to Carlson, referring to Carlson's aggressiveness. That's when Carlson tossed the Braves pitcher out of the game.

"As I was walking away, I guess he decided that it was going to be good to throw me out of the game, which I didn't think was appropriate," Wood said in the postgame interview. "I didn't try and show him up, didn't say anything to him during the inning, didn't even know I got tossed until I got up into the clubhouse."

"I thought they were just talking," said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez.

Other similar ejections have occurred this season as well. Bryce Harper felt the wrath of umpire Marvin Hudson and no one on the Washington Nationals even to this day knows why. After calling a (bad) strike on Harper, in a game against the New York Yankees on May 21, Harper stepped out of the box and gradually shook his head. He kept his mouth shut and his head shake wasn't exaggerated by any means. Out of the blue, Hudson tossed Harper.

Hudson was later quoted as saying, "...one thing led to another and I had to run him. I had to eject him."

He offered no exact explanation of why though. Nationals manager Matt Williams was yelling at Hudson from the dugout, but if anything, Hudson should have ejected Williams, not Harper.

When the instant replay rule was instituted, part of the rule that was passed along with it was that managers and players can't argue with the call after the replay call has been made, otherwise there would be an instant ejection. Some people wondered if this would lead to a possible build up of aggression by the players or managers when they disagree with a call, but can't get their two cents in. The irony of it is that it appears that the umpires are the ones with the pent up aggression. Especially on balls and strikes which is the only thing left that players and managers could theoretically argue still.

Two of the top five umpires for most career ejections in Major League Baseball are currently active and are widely known for their quick tempers. "Cowboy Joe" West in a 2011 players poll was voted by 41 percent of players as the worst umpire in the MLB. He is known for his quick temper and ranks fifth on the all-time ejections list by MLB umpires.

Fourth on the all-time list is current MLB umpire Bob Davidson. During an Astros and Phillies game in May of 2012, Davidson bumped into the Phillies' catcher on a strike three passed ball, allowing the Astros hitter to reach first base safely. Davidson then yelled into the Phillies dugout "You think I wanted to block his ass?" before tossing the Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. Several days later, the MLB suspended Davidson for "repeated violations of the Office of the Commissioner's standards for situation handling". It wasn't the first time Davidson had been suspended for his actions on the field.

It's already hard enough to be a player or a manager in baseball. It doesn't help when you not only feel the umpire is purposely miscalling the game, but then the umpire goes on the offensive if you don't look happy about their calls. While players can frequently be suspended or fined for not agreeing with an umpire or for their actions that lead to an ejection, it's rare when an umpire is fined or suspended for their actions. If the MLB took more time to review the actions of their umpires on the field and hold them accountable, it should hopefully improve the problem. If an umpire doesn't improve his on-field actions and aggression on the field, they should be let go since there is no shortage of people trying to make it as an MLB umpire.