I’m a baseball purist at heart, so it’s no surprise that pitching clocks, bigger bases and ghost runner rules bother me a little bit. That being said, I am looking forward to the start of baseball season this year – as I do every year. But the rule changes make me stop and consider the direction of the sport.
You see, baseball is America’s pastime and it is meant to be played leisurely. Yet, the powers that be claim that in order to make it “marketable“ efforts should be made to shorten the game into predictable times. I believe that by doing so, however, they are changing a fundamental aspect of the sport: there should be no clocks except to make sure the game starts on time.
Baseball in general has been resistant to change throughout the last hundred or so years. I mean, the Chicago Cubs didn’t even have night games until 1988. The last major rule change that rocked the baseball world was the designated hitter rule - which was adopted by the American League in 1973 and been ignored by the National League ever since.
So it goes without saying that multiple changes for a single season are going to be met with quite a bit of resistance. I don’t know if it will drive fans away or attract them. But I do know if you tinker with something too much you might just break what you were trying to “fix.” Some of the new changes are already causing issues, even in Spring training - just ask the Atlanta Braves how an automatic strike ended a bottom of the ninth tie-game on the first day of pre-season.
But, If you like baseball you will have to get used to it because I can’t imagine these new rules not impacting games in significant ways. Even the new pick-off rules seem, to me, take away a fundamental aspect of the game; the pitcher can now only step off the rubber twice in an at-bat or it’s a balk.
All this is an attempt to shorten the game.
The last time I checked, games lasted on average about three hours with the odd game here or there hitting extra innings and lasting longer. That’s about how long it takes to play a football game.
The games don’t need to be shorter. If you went to a game and complained about its length you shouldn’t have went to the game to begin with. I can see where this is going, though. Picture this: designated inning times with a big clock counting down in the background. When the time is up, the game is over. Oh, wait: that’s what basketball, football, and soccer already do. I guess they just didn’t want to make it that obvious.
