Plenty of people play fantasy baseball so join me as I engage in my own form of fantasy baseball.

Let’s say we get to the end of the regular season and we decided to extend the playoffs and allow all of the teams to participate, no matter their won-lost records or place of finish in the standings, However, we exclude the top two teams in each league, giving them byes to the semi-finals, better known as the league championship series. We pair the other 26 teams by whatever means we would like.

In the first rounds, let’s say, the Orioles (75-87) would play the Athletics (75-87) and the White Sox (67-95) would play the Tigers (64-98) in an American League round, and in the National League the Phillies (66-96) would play the Giants (64-98) and the Reds (68-94) would play the Mets (70-92). These games, either one game or a three-game series, would be played anywhere in the country, wherever there is a suitable baseball facility and preferably where is a likelihood of good weather to avoid snowouts.

The winners of these games or series would not advance to another round. They would just pack their equipment bags and go home. Do not, however, disparage these teams because they are not in the final four.

The entire country would be able to see these games because all of them would be televised, of course, mostly on the many ESPN outlets, because ESPN would be happy to pay the going rate for rights to post-season games. Content counts.

This all sounds silly, doesn’t it, but this is what college football bowl games have become. The thought struck me the other day while I was watching a few minutes of the Pinstripe Bowl at – where else? – Yankee Stadium. Boston College was playing Iowa, and I couldn’t understand why Boston College and Iowa were in a bowl game.

Not that I follow college football closely, if at all, but I figured if this was a bowl game of note – or of my youth – I would have heard something about these teams and what a great matchup this was.

Well, I looked up the teams’ records and found, if nothing else, the teams appeared to be evenly matched, each having compiled a 7-5 record during the season.

That record, though, was not the bare minimum that a team needed to qualify for a bowl game. Six is that number, and I learned in my research of this year’s bowl games that three teams that won six games did not receive a bowl invitation: Buffalo, Western Michigan and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

On the other hand, 78 teams received invitations to fill 78 spots. That is a startling number for us who haven’t been paying attention.

Did anyone watch Middle Tennessee (6-6) beat Arkansas State (7-4), 35-30, in the Camellia Bowl; Marshall (7-5) defeat Colorado State (7-5), 31-28, in the New Mexico Bowl; Louisiana Tech (6-6) crush SMU (7-5), 51-10, in the Frisco Bowl; Georgia State (6-5) down Western Kentucky (6-6), 27-17, in the Cure Bowl and Florida Atlantic (10-3) blow out Akron (7-6), 50-3, in the Cherry Bowl. ESPN televised all of those games except the Cure Bowl, which CBSSN carried.

All it takes to create a bowl game apparently is a sponsor and a TV time slot. Put two 11-man teams in different-color uniforms, blow a whistle and start the clock. Team names on the uniform shirts help but obviously are not necessary.

As in baseball, team names matter in the N.F.L. Fans wouldn’t go for a post-season game between teams with New England and Cleveland on their shirts. But college? Make up names and ESPN and the fans apparently will go for it.

One more thing. Come up with a catchy name. I wouldn’t suggest the Cereal Bowl.

AFTER BLANK BALLOT, WHAT NEXT?

After my infamous blank Hall of Fame ballot last year, I seriously considered an even more striking gesture this year. Having absolutely nothing to do with the blank ballot, I seriously considered giving up voting for the Hall of Fame altogether.

Before taking up that issue, though, I want to get back to the blank ballot and the reaction to it, especially from a jerk of a television commentator named Casey Stern.

Stern had a radio show and thought it would be great fun to ridicule me for submitting a blank ballot. Stern, however, was either too lazy or too dumb to do his homework.

He reacted as if my blank ballot was the first ever submitted in a HOF vote. Had he cared to find out and was not out just to have childish fun at my expense, he would have learned that my blank ballot was not the first submitted last year. He also could have found out from Ryan Thibodaux, the master of HOF voting record keeping, that eight blank ballots had been cast in the previous five years.

That information, though, would have spoiled Stern’s play day. When I tried to reach Stern to enlighten him, I was told he was on vacation, and he never returned my calls. This is a class guy, an announcer who was once so careless between innings of a playoff game that he uttered a notorious “M.F.” into an open microphone. As I said, a real class guy.

Now about that blank ballot, if memory serves me correctly, three former players were elected – Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez. If I had voted for anyone, I would not have voted for any of that trio.

I have been clear in my position on cheaters. I don’t vote for them. Whether or not they have been caught using steroids or other PEDS, Bagwell and Rodriguez have long been associated with steroids. Raines was an admitted cocaine user. Cocaine might not do for a player what steroids do, but they are and have been illegal, and Raines testified under oath that he began sliding headfirst because he kept a packet of cocaine in his back pocket and didn’t want to mess it up by sliding on it. Honesty on the witness stand does not excuse a player’s use of illegal drugs.

So much for last year’s ballot. As I said, there wasn’t going to be a ballot this year. As I wrote here recently, I don’t think any writers should be voting for the Hall of Fame. Jane Forbes Clark, its chairman and gatekeeper, doesn’t deserve our assistance. Among other reasons for that view, she has kept Marvin Miller out of the Hall for more than 15 years, and that is unconscionable.

So I initially ignored the ballot on my desk, planning to do nothing with it but keeping it for reference when results are announced Jan. 24.

But I bungled my plan, mentioning it to my youngest son and oldest grandson. Separately, they made a strong case for not executing my plan. I kept the ballot on my desk and three days before the deadline invited them to register their best arguments. The result: I voted.

But whom did I vote for? All I can say is, if Edgar Martinez, Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero and Jim Thome ever used steroids, I have never heard about it.

Martinez is the only vote worth explaining. In his first eight years on the ballot, I didn’t vote for Martinez but in retrospect probably think I should have. But then, had I voted for him a year ago, how would Stern have filled his air time?

I was about to seal the envelope when I decided to rethink Jones, Guerrero and Thome. I didn’t want to vote for four; that’s at least one or two too many to be inducted in a single year; it dilutes the honor. But I found it difficult to separate the three additions to my ballot. Many, if not most, writers these days would find it easy to vote for four players. They would find it easy to vote for 10 and more, if they could.

I strongly disagree with that thinking. There is just no way 10 players are good enough to be worthy of induction. Writers who vote for 10 are taking the easy way out. They don’t want to take the time and effort to separate the players into the best and others.

The Hall of Fame should be for the elite of the elite. Otherwise the honor is diluted. We can disagree on whom we think the elite of the elite are, but one thing I know is they aren’t all of the players on voters’ lists of 10.

A few years ago Hall officials pared the voting rolls by about 100, knocking off older writers who were no long active or covering baseball on a daily basis. That was a mistake. I know of several writers who are no longer working but covered the players who are now eligible for the Hall of Fame. They would serve as more intelligent and conscientious voters than many of those voting.

I am in the group of writers who have been stricken from the voting rolls, but I understand I am exempt because I won the J.G. Taylor Spink award about 15 years ago. I frankly don’t think the award warrants an exemption. I’d rather that it gives me the right to designate two or three writers who should still be voting. Maybe that will happen when Miller is elected to the Hall.

What did Bud Selig know about steroids and when did he know it? What did the former commissioner know about Bob Bowman’s bad behavior and when did he know about it?

By no means am I equating Bowman’s behavior with steroids, but Selig’s reaction to both provides grounds for solid speculation. See if you agree that there might be a link in Selig’s reaction to both.

First, I have to explain my reference to Bowman’s behavior. As Major League Baseball’s president of media and business, Bowman was a digital genius and made billions of dollars for M.L.B. and its 30 club owners.

Bowman, for example, developed a spinoff company of M.L.B. Advanced Media, BAMTech, and sold a majority share to Walt Disney Company for $2.58 billion.

But not all was blissful in Bowman’s 17 years with M.L.B., and his contract was not renewed. Last month M.L.B. announced that Bowman, who is about 61 years old, was leaving baseball. No reason was given, and Bowman offered no explanation.

“I had no idea; I thought he was leaving to make more money,” said a high-ranking executive of a major league club who usually knows everything that is happening. He and I and many others learned otherwise in a remarkably reported article in the Wall Street Journal last week. Written by Rachel Bachman and Brian Costa, the article said Bowman was pushed out by M.L.B.

The reason, the Journal said, was Bowman’s treatment of employees, subordinates, colleagues and others outside M.L.B. Advanced Media, or BAM, as it is commonly called.

And there was this:

“People familiar with Bowman say he engaged in a pattern of behavior that included propositioning female colleagues, allegedly conducting consensual relationships with subordinate coworkers and cultivating a culture of partying and heavy drinking with employees outside the office.”

And this:

“During the week of the All-Star Game in July 2016 in San Diego, MLB Advanced Media hosted a party at which women were allegedly hired to entertain attendees, according to two people who attended. These people said the women, who arrived at the party by bus, were widely believed by attendees to be escorts. Some of them were heard encouraging attendees to leave to have sex quickly so that they could return to solicit another attendee before the party was over, according to one person who was there.”

Based on the unparalleled results M.L.B. gained from Bowman’s efforts, it was obvious that Bowman also did his job and did it extremely well. However, he did not challenge Rob Manfred’s decision not to renew his contract, and his statement to the Journal for its article acknowledged his questionable behavior.

That acknowledgement only heightens the question: Why didn’t Selig take any action, severe or mild, when he learned of problems with Bowman?

Disclosing the problems, the Journal wrote, “At least 10 years ago former M.L.B. president and chief operating officer Bob DuPuy was told of concerns about Bowman’s behavior by BAM employees and raised them with former M.L.B. commissioner Bud Selig, according to people familiar with the situation.”

Despite DuPuy’s warning, the article noted, Selig did nothing. “Bowman remained with the company as it grew increasingly lucrative for team owners.”

Selig didn’t fire Bowman. He didn’t take him to baseball’s woodshed. He took no disciplinary action. He leveled no harsh reprimand. He didn’t even say don’t do it again. Why not?

Selig didn’t say anything. Instead, his spokesman from his days as commissioner, Rich Levin, issued a statement, saying, “It is highly inappropriate for the Commissioner Emeritus to publicly discuss any private conversations he has had with former employees.”

OK, if Selig won’t say why he ignored Bowman’s bad behavior, I will speculate on the reason.

As I have said, Bowman was generating hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of dollars for M.L.B. and its club owners. Why would Selig want to dismiss Bowman and kill that golden goose?

In his more than two decades as commissioner, Selig was never one to disturb the status quo. For example, he would do nothing about a club’s tampering with another club’s player, even when it was obvious, unless the player’s club lodged a complaint.

Now what about Selig and steroids? The pattern is not dissimilar. When the money is rolling in, stuff it in your pocket and put your head in the sand.

Selig has always claimed he didn’t know about steroids, when players were found to have been knee deep in them, and when he discovered their presence in baseball the union blocked his effort to initiate testing.

Selig, however, has never explained how he didn’t know about steroids when, as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, he received a memo from the commissioner, Fay Vincent, on June 7, 1991, reminding the owners that the previous November Congress had passed a law making unauthorized use of steroids a federal crime.

Selig ignored Vincent’s memo and continued to ignore it when he became commissioner in September 1992. He ignored it in 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa competed in their personal home run derby.

He ignored McGwire’s use of androstenedione, a steroids precursor, saying in reply to my question, “I like Mark. I’m not going to do anything to hurt him.”

If Selig could ignore steroids because they made baseball more exciting and compelling for the fans, he could easily ignore Bowman’s bad behavior and whistle ignorantly on his way to the bank.

Manfred, who succeeded Selig as commissioner in January 2015, didn’t do anything either initially even though, according to the Journal, he was well aware of the Bowman stories before he became commissioner.

Pat Courtney, M.L.B.’s chief communications officer, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on Manfred’s position.

According to the Journal, two incidents earlier this year prompted Manfred finally to act. In October Bowman allegedly verbally abused a co-worker, and in July Bowman allegedly shoved an executive from the Red Sox ownership group.

From the Journal’s description of Bowman’s verbal and physical outbursts, Bowman seemed like a good candidate for anger management rehab. As chief of human resources before he became commissioner, Manfred could have ordered Bowman to submit to such a course. But both Manfred and Selig ignored the potentially combustible problem.

Interestingly, when Manfred was a candidate to succeed Selig, Bowman was considered a candidate, possibly an even stronger candidate than Manfred. But Bowman declined to run for the office.

“I support the better candidate,” Bowman said at the time. In retrospect, perhaps Bowman either knew he had offended too many people or didn’t want his skeletons coming out of the closet.

I didn’t really know Bowman, having had only a few telephone conversations with him. But my experience was very different from that of Craig Calcaterra of NBC Sports, who wrote:

“Bob Bowman called me at home on a couple of occasions because he didn’t like things I wrote. He was a yeller. Tried to be a bully. Definitely a guy who thought his power entitled him to the sort of deference most people don’t get.”

I, on the other hand, appreciated Bowman for his honesty and his candor. In one phone interview I recall, I made it obvious that I didn’t agree with his position, but he nevertheless answered my questions forthrightly and carefully explained his position. I have found very few members of M.L.B. management as honest and as candid as Bowman.

MANFRED: OUT OF TOUCH OR LYING?

Seldom, if ever, does a commissioner admit to being out of touch with events in his sport, but that, in effect, was what Rob Manfred did last week in regard to the Miami Marlins’ payroll-slashed strategy this off-season.

Manfred was promptly accused of lying, but it’s not known for sure if he was lying, out of touch or suffering from a sudden attack of transient global amnesia.

Manfred dug his hole on the Dan Le Batard radio show in Florida when he said he didn’t know during the approval process of the team’s new owner that he planned to slash the team’s payroll from $115 million to the $85 million-$90 million range.

Owner Bruce Sherman and C.E.O. Derek Jeter initiated that plan by trading outfielders Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna and second baseman Dee Gordon.

Le Batard said on ESPN radio that Manfred’s claim was “a lie.” Then the Miami Herald reported that Manfred’s contention was “disputed by two people directly involved in the negotiating process.”

Consider this, however. Even if Manfred was correct in his assertion that the commissioner’s office knew nothing of the plans of Sherman and Jeter, why wouldn’t the commissioner figure that salary slashing would be the plan?

The Marlins, no matter who the owner has been, have been notorious payroll slashers. Worse, they have been demolition practitioners, H. Wayne Huizenga immediately after the Marlins won the 1997 World Series; Jeffrey Loria a year after the Marlins won the 2003 World Series.

Did Manfred think the new owners would keep the payroll intact after paying an astonishing $1.2 billion for the team that cost Loria $158 million?

While the Marlins’ sale price may be astonishing, it might be a sign of what is to come. Sale prices of all teams are expected to rise dramatically because owners believe legalized sports gambling is on the horizon.

The United States Supreme Court has heard a New Jersey case that could lead to legalized sports gambling in all states that want it, and all states are expected to want it because an estimated $150 billion, maybe more, is bet on sports every year in this country.

A lawyer confirmed that Loria figured legalized sports gambling into his asking price, figuring that the new owner would profit from the team’s share of future gambling proceeds. This is a topic for another time, but people I talk to say it’s on its way.

Not to disparage Derek Jeter, but it’s unlikely that he has ever read anything George Santayana ever wrote. Surely, though, he is familiar with Yogi Berra.

Whether or not Berra uttered any of his infamous Yogiisms when he and Jeter spent time together with the Yankees, the shortstop and captain might have heard Yogi’s “it’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Santayana, the late 19^th Century and early 20^th Century American writer and philosopher, wrote something that fits with Berra’s observation:

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

The history we’re talking about here is the history of the Miami Marlins, the team of which Jeter is chief executive officer and minority owner. Jeter was the Yankees’ shortstop who batted .346 against the Marlins in the 2003 World Series that the Marlins won.

Jeter was also the Yankees’ shortstop when the Marlins won the 1997 World Series, though he had no connection to that World Series because the Yankees lost to Cleveland in the division series of the playoffs.

Following both of those World Series, however, Jeter was aware of developments in the Marlins organization, and in his present capacity, he has ignored them. He has not learned from history (Santayana), and he has done the same thing all over again (Berra).

And I suspect if Berra were alive, the first time he encountered Jeter the first words out of his mouth might be “déjà vu all over again.”

What would Yogi be referring to? Well, in the event you had already begun your winter hibernation, resting up for next baseball season, the Marlins are doing it again, stripping their financially strapped franchise of their best players, slashing their payroll as previous owners did following World Series championships of 1997 and 2003.

The Marlins, who did not win the World Series last season, have traded second baseman Dee Gordon and outfielders Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna. Stanton has 10 years and $295 million left on his contract, Gordon three years and $37 million. Ozuna, two years from free agency, had a $3.5 million salary last season.

Demolishing their team has been a routine practice for Marlins owners. This decimation, ordered by Bruce Sherman, the new owner, is the third in two decades. H. Wayne Huizenga began the practice after the Marlins won the World Series in 1997, and Jeffrey Loria, who recently sold the Marlins to Sherman, copied Huizenga after the Marlins won the World Series in 2003.

The victims of the owners’ actions were the fans. The owners didn’t give the team a chance to repeat, depriving the fans of the excitement of watching the Marlins try to repeat.

Loria, always quick to defend himself, always pointed out that he gave the team a chance to defend its championship, said he didn’t shed players until a year after the Series victory. The record says otherwise.

First baseman Derrek Lee, right fielder Juan Encarnacion and starting pitchers Mark Redman were traded following the 2003 season. Catcher Ivan Rodriguez and left fielder Todd Hollandsworth were allowed to leave the Marlins as free agents. Starting pitcher Brad Penny was traded the following July 30.

Starting pitcher Carl Pavano was the next regular to go, leaving as a free agent after the 2004 season. Shortstop Alex Gonzalez left as a free agent after the 2005 season. In that same off-season second baseman Luis Castillo, who had escaped the 1997 purge, was traded as were starting pitcher Josh Beckett, third baseman Mike Lowell and center fielder Juan Pierre.

Jeff Conine also left as a free agent after the 2005 season. A unique member of the Marlins, he also played for the ’97 champions and was traded after that season.

Another member of the 2003 champions worthy of note was Miguel Cabrera. He was a rookie and lasted with the Marlins for four more seasons before being traded to Detroit with Dontrelle Willis for six players, including Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin.

Cabrera, of course, became one of the most productive sluggers in the game. At least the Marlins didn’t have to pay him. That was something Loria and Huizenga had in common. They didn’t like paying players.

After the Marlins won their first World Series under Huizenga’s ownership, he realized what it would cost him in seriously increased player salaries, declared he was a businessman and wasn’t in baseball to lose money and ordered the demolition of the Marlins’ roster.

When General Manager Dave Dombrowski was finished carrying out the boss’s scorched-earth policy, second baseman Castillo, shortstop Edgar Renteria and starting pitcher Alex Fernandez were the only regulars left unsinged.

Before the ’98 season began, Dombrowski had traded outfielders Devon White to Arizona and Moises Alou to Houston, first baseman Conine to Kansas City, starting pitchers Kevin Brown to San Diego and Al Leiter to the Mets and closer Robb Nen to San Francisco.

Seven and a half weeks into the 1998 season Dombrowski executed the most spectacular trade of his owner-forced flurry of deals. He sent third baseman Bobby Bonilla, catcher Charles Johnson and outfielders Gary Sheffield to Los Angeles for Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile.

As a postscript, Dombrowski traded shortstop Edgar Renteria, whose single won the 1997 World Series in Game 7’s 11^thinning, to St. Louis. That deal left Castillo as the only survivor of both Marlins’ payroll purges. They finally traded him after the 2005 season, and he played five more seasons, finishing his career with the Mets and a .290 batting average.

As for the Marlins, their future is uncertain. Well, it is not entirely uncertain. They certainly seem to have a bleak future, meaning their fans don’t have much to look forward to. Their best players are gone, and for the third time they are faced with an owner who either doesn’t have money to spend on the team or doesn’t want to spend it.

It’s difficult to understand why Major League Baseball approves an owner who pays $1.2 billion for the team but can’t or won’t put money into the team to make it attractive for the fans, who have been treated worse than the infield dirt at Marlins Park.

First, Bud Selig approves a questionable deal that allowed Jeffrey Loria to buy the Marlins from John Henry so that Henry could buy the Red Sox even though another bidder submitted a higher price for the team. Now Rob Manfred gleefully approves Bruce Sherman as the new owner of the Marlins even though Sherman is apparently still seeking investors to defray his cost for the team.

Manfred also applauded the Marlins’ sale price, and why wouldn’t he? It makes baseball look good that a team as bedraggled as the Marlins can command such a ridiculous price.

At the same time the commissioner has urged fans and the news media to go easy on the Marlins for slashing payroll by trading away their best players. He told reporters that new owners need time to evaluate their franchise. On the contrary, prospective owners need to do that before submitting a bid for a team. It’s too late to buy a team and then figure out if you can afford it.

I don‘t often agree with Scott Boras, the player agent, but what he said to reporters last week at the winter meetings was appropriate. Presumably alluding to the new Marlins owners, he said they were acting not like a jewelry store that’s “coveting your diamonds. You now become a pawn shop that is trying to pay the rent of the building.”

It strikes me that Manfred was dazzled by the prospect of having Derek Jeter in a minority ownership role as chief executive officer even though Jeter has as much CEO experience as Sherman has playing shortstop.

Jeter had a good opportunity last week to gain some insight into his new role, but he passed up baseball’s winter meetings and instead attended a National Football League game.

After 20 years of a Hall of Fame playing career, Jeter has achieved his desire to be a team owner. Maybe he understands what his new job entails; maybe he doesn’t. Maybe his new status will generate greater fan interest in South Florida; may it won’t.

Will he be enough to replace Stanton, Gordon and Ozuna in the hearts, the minds and the eyes of the Florida fans? Who knows? He is something, though, that Huizenga and Loria didn’t have when they purged the payroll.