Would champs visit White House?
Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t foresee any problems if the World Series winner is invited to visit the White House.
Both World Series teams have minority managers for the first time, and President Donald Trump has had tense relationships with many minority groups.
“I think as an institution, Major League Baseball has always had the greatest respect for the office of the presidency,” Manfred said. “That doesn’t change, no matter who’s there. Often we’ve had situations where individuals, players, whatever, don’t agree with all of the policies of the individual that occupies the office. I think the important thing is respect for the office.”
Manfred addressed a number of topics before Game 2 of the World Series, including start times and length of games. Boston’s win in the opener took 3 hours, 52 minutes and ended at 12:03 a.m. Manfred said complaints about World Series start times reflect an East Coast prejudice.
“When you start games at 5 o’clock Eastern, it’s the middle of the work day in LA. That’s not quite right either,” he said. “We’re trying to strike a balance and get the point, the window, where we can get the most people all across the country having a meaningful opportunity to watch the game.”
Nine-inning games in the league playoffs averaged 3 hours, 35 minutes, 30 seconds,, up 6 minutes from the 2017 postseason and more than a half-hour longer than this year’s regular season.
“I am always less concerned about it in the postseason,” Manfred said “It is human nature when the stakes go up, things slow down a little bit.”
Molina honored
St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina won the Roberto Clemente Award, a fitting honor for the star who grew up on Puerto Rico and idolized the island’s late Hall of Famer. Manfred and Clemente’s widow, Vera Clemente, presented the award to members of Molina’s family before Game 2. It is given annually to the player who best represents Clemente’s humanitarian efforts. Molina wasn’t on hand to receive the award himself because he is currently in Columbia, coaching Puerto Rico’s under-23 national baseball team in the Baseball World Cup. Clemente also managed the national team while he was playing in the major leagues. Molina is the third Puerto Rican-born player to win the award and fourth from the island. He joins Carlos Beltran (2013), Carlos Delgado (2006) and Edgar Martinez (2004). A nine-time All-Star, Molina is an eighttime Gold Glove Award winner. Clemente died on Dec. 31, 1972, when his airplane that was carrying supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua crashed after taking off from Puerto Rico.
TV ratings off
Boston’s 8-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series opener drew an average of 13,755,000 viewers on Fox, down 8 percent from the 14,698,000 for the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over Houston in Game 1 last year. The viewers were the fewest since 12,191,000 for San Francisco’s 7-1 win over Kansas City in the 2014 opener.