MLB Proposed Rule Change: There Goes Tradition

[Neil K Walk]

Baseball - and "American" sports in general, really - is only an institution for making money anymore. With naming rights, television deals and advertising the product has already been diluted by corporate interests IMO. Indeed, most of the people who go to these events on weekdays are usually there for "networking."

Those who go to games in order to partake of the "action" are actually at a disadvantage IMO. I've been to Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers and Penguins games where I'm so far away that I can't even tell what's going on, and a lot of the time the whole experience is ruined by drunken and obnoxious fans. I'd much rather watch them on television.

[SFCRetired]

I mark my calendar when pitchers and catchers report each year so I am what you call a diehard baseball fan. I got to watch my first pre season game yesterday, Yanks and Phillies.

they were talking about rule changes and speeding up the game and I sat there shaking my head.

If you want to speed up the game then shorten the time between innings and quit pandering to advertisers and the almighty dollar. It is not rocket science. Greed will end up killing baseball and actually it has had an effect on my devotion to teams and players already. Although I don't always prescribe to this way of thinking but in this instance I do. "How much is enough" really?

You have already priced me out of going to games, and I used to take that trip to St Louis at least 4 or 5 times a year. Now I watch them on TV and listen to radio. And their recent TV deals are historic and it still isn't enough.

And put a time limit between pitches.

I even heard a suggestion of putting advertisements on uniforms. It's bad enough I have to watch advertisements behind the catcher all game long.

[Photojeep]

I admit I haven't read all of the previous posts but I'd like to add something a friend said recently.

He is and always has been against the intentional walk and believes he has a workaround: If a pitcher walks a batter with 4 straight pitches, that batter goes to 2nd base. And all runners ahead of that batter will advance one base accordingly. That is, if there is a runner on second, he moves to third. If there are runners on second and third, the runner on second goest to third and the runner on third scores. He believes this will deter even the "stealth" intentional walk by making the pitcher actually throw, or attempt to throw, a strike.

Of course this will have no affect on the length of the game but I found it intriguing.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a baseball fan so it really doesn't affect me at all.

Just wanted to share.

Best,
PJ

[veryzer]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

The best way to speed up games and to add interest would be a "one pitcher change per inning except for injury" rule. Every team carries a bunch of extra relief pitchers now, and it's common to bring them in for one or two batters. Fewer relief pitchers, more pitch hitters on the bench with the same size roster, so you get some of the interest of no DH even with the DH. And no long breaks while the third pitcher of the inning takes his warm up tosses after walking in from the bullpen.

Not to mention the glacial pace of games once September call ups happen and managers can mix and match for a couple innings.

[Wadcutter]

Pretty good article here on the subject:
http://www.realclearsports.com/artic...ime_98491.html