SCG club speaker knows baseball’s score

l scorer Rodney Johnson was the guest speaker at the Sun City Grand Sports Memorabilia Club meeting Wednesday afternoon, though he almost missed it entirely.

Johnson, who also oversees the official scoring for the Arizona League, said a mishap earlier in the day nearly derailed his plans.

"Our official scorer who was supposed to be at Surprise Stadium did not show up for the 10:30 game this morning," Johnson said. "I had to go down there and catch everything up and then get here as soon as I could."

After catching his breath, Johnson spent the rest of the meeting not only speaking about what keeps him busy day in and day out, but also his ideas to improve the game of baseball.

Johnson said he and several others were sitting around the press area at Chase Field recently when the subject turned to Major League Baseball's playoff system. Johnson said while baseball's system is much better than that of the NBA and NHL, there is still room to improve.

"The wild card is the problem," Johnson said. "It kills the excitement of the pennant races. Why do we have teams fighting for a playoff spot that may not have to actually play each other? That doesn't make sense."

Johnson said Major League Baseball should expand to 32 teams and create four divisions of four teams.

"That way we would have eight pennant races every year, and only winners would make the playoffs," Johnson said. "And don't try to tell me expansion is a bad idea. The talent pool for baseball is bigger than it's ever been."

Johnson even went as far as to suggest cities for expansion. His choices? Salt Lake City and Buffalo.

"We came up with several possible cities, but for my purposes and to more easily create the divisions, I went with Salt Lake and Buffalo," Johnson said.

In addition to his role as score keeper, Johnson is also involved with the Society for American Baseball Research. Johnson, who is president of the Arizona chapter of SABR, encouraged everyone in attendance at the meeting to get involved.

"SABR is a great organization for a variety of purposes," Johnson said. "If you have an idea for research, there is someone in SABR who will be willing to talk to you. If you want to just shoot the bull about baseball, there are plenty of people who will want to do that. It's a fantastic organization to be involved with."