1652
1
March 08, 2005^10:19pm
Reedster^1
Japanese team may use online voting to determine whether to go to the bullpen
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/csm/20050301/ts_csm/obasuboru
International
AthleticsNation.com
361
719
0
Now this is absolutely ridiculous, but funny.  And... maybe not far-fetched.

&box-Whether such a system will be introduced remains uncertain, but the suggestion has created a buzz in the conservative world of Japanese baseball. Shinya Sasaki, a TV baseball commentator and former pro player, scoffs at the plan. "That idea is nonsense," he says.

But he doesn't deny that Japanese baseball has slipped from the lofty mantle it occupied when he was on the field in the 1950s. "Young people are leaving baseball because the actual games played at stadiums have lost excitement," he says. "The tempo of games somehow needs to be sped up."-box&

Immediately coming to mind is Bill Veeck.  You just know that were he around for the internet revolution, this is EXACTLY what he would do.  That... and have a "little person" waiting in the bullpen.