As I sit here, spending another leisurely evening watching Cubs baseball on the tube, several questions about America’s grand old game seem to baffle me. Some of these questions are specific to the Cubs, while others pertain to the Major League game as a whole.

For instance,

• • When a pitcher is coming back from an injury, he often throws a “simulated game” before returning to the roster. What is a simulated game? Do they use simulated batters and simulated umpires and simulated fans and simulated beer vendors selling simulated beer?
  • I have all the respect in the world for the guys who wear Major League uniforms. Although I never played the game in an organized manner, I have seen hundreds of games and I still don’t understand why guys who hit a grounder and sprint down to first base sometimes slide head-first into the base. The little I know about physics or whatever would tell me that you lose momentum when you slide. Why not run through the base?
  • What’s up with the recent trend of longer pants worn by baseball players? Tradition would dictate wearing pants just below the knee, with long socks meeting the cuff of the pants. A lot of these guys wear pants that bunch up at the top of their cleats. You wonder what competitive benefit these too-long pants have.
  • Have you noticed the recent trend by umpires to throw a baseball out of the game every time a pitcher throws it into the dirt? Are these balls then relegated to the batting practice bag or are they wiped off by the bat boys and put back into play? I thought one of the pregame preparations was for the umpires or bat boys to rub up each of the game balls with a special mud from a certain river bottom. So they’re already a little dirty when they’re put into play.
  • On another baseball note, when did players begin to throw balls into the stands at the end of each inning? As long as the teams can afford it, this is probably a good thing. With what it costs to attend baseball games these days, it’s nice that more fans leave the game with souvenirs.
  • Speaking of the price of admission, with the rather limited success the Cubs have had over the last several years and the skyrocketing ticket prices, how are they able to routinely sell out Wrigley Field each day? According to the Cubs’ web site, ticket prices range from $22 to $315 per seat per game. And if you want to sit in certain seats in the front row at field level, you have to be the high bidder in an auction. When I was still in high school, we attended a game on a Tuesday afternoon. The place was nearly sold out, but we paid $2.50 for a lower level covered grandstand seat along the third baseline. Those seats now go for up to $42 per game. Had we decided to watch from the bleachers, we would have paid 75 cents. Bleacher seats today range in price from $54-$76 for the prime dates.
  • Those of you who know that with my liberal leanings I would generally side with the working man over management may find the following a bit puzzling. When Cubs’ pitcher Carlos Zambrano recently started yelling at his teammates after a tough first inning, he was sent home by the manager. In the old days, if the manager and general manager determined that a player should be suspended for bad judgment, they would call him into the office and give him the news. It took several days for the final word on Zambrano’s punishment to become known. The Cubs had to consult with Major League Baseball and the players’ union before making the announcement. Meanwhile, he is still under contract that pays him tens of millions of dollars and if the Cubs made the tough decision to drop him from the squad, they would still be liable for that salary for the remainder of the year. Two questions come from this: when did we begin allowing the inmates to run the prison? And, do you suppose if there was a salary cap of maybe $2 million per year per player it would cost less than $300 to purchase a seat in the best part of the ball park?
  • Here’s a general baseball question: I know it’s not politically correct to say anything about races, but a fan would have to be blind not to notice the number of Latin American players in pro baseball. I am certainly not in favor to limit the number of foreign-born players in Major League baseball. The best guys should play, regardless of their race or ethnic background. My question is, what is it going to take to get more players born in the United States on pro baseball rosters? I suspect that we are a victim of our own prosperity. The dedicated athletes are generally multi-sport stars in high school and may not eat, drink and breathe baseball like the kids do in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

That’s about all the questions that come to mind for now – unless somebody can tell me why the Cubs can’t get into the World Series when they have such a talented roster year after year. The first person that figures that out deserves a deep-dish pizza and an Old Style.