There is no question the older people get, the more they complain about change. With spring training games being played, we have heard a lot of former MLB players and current veterans complaining about the pitch clock.
We love the game of baseball and its traditions. We also love the pitch clock.
Some of the recently retired players have waxed poetic about baseball not having a clock, the only major professional sport not measured by time. Hate to break it to these folks, but it’s still not.
Baseball is still measured by 27 outs. If it takes three and a half hours to get to that, then that’s how long the game will be. There is still no time limit like the 60 minutes of game time for football and hockey or the 48 minutes for basketball.
All the pitch clock is doing is preventing the ridiculous adjustment of batting gloves, jerseys, batting helmets. and other protective equipment by hitters, and the constant fidgeting on the mound by pitchers, taking extra time so can “recover” from the previous pitch.
When Mike Hargrove was dubbed the “Human Rain Delay”, he was an anomaly. Now, pretty much every hitter in the game was stepping out after every pitch redress themselves.
It was a ridiculous amount of non-action. Both the hitters and pitchers abused the system and the powers that run Major League Baseball, usually clueless in matters both on and off the field, made the correct decision here.
The sport is trying to get the casual fans back. The hardcore folks are going to be engaged no matter what happens. However, the inaction caused games to be averaging three hours long, and because the action came in spurts, the casuals found something else to do.
Professional sports are in the entertainment business.
As for the other rule changes? We still don’t like putting a runner on second base to start an inning in extra frames. With the pitch clock trimming time off the game, we don’t see a need to change the rules of the sport now. A compromise could have been playing under the regular rules of the game up until the 12th, and then using the “ghost runner”.
The bigger bases aren’t a big deal and likely won’t be noticeable, but limiting the number of pickoff throws a pitcher can make again changes the fabric of the baseball.
And we don’t like banning the shift either. We know that both basketball and football have tied the hands of the people playing defense, but we feel baseball is better than that. The reason for the shifts was hitters being taught to hit with “launch angles” to go over the defenders instead of exploiting that the opponents were leaving a vast part of the field wide open.
Banning the shift won’t stop the increasing number of strikeouts plaguing the game, but the success the Guardians had last year might. Cleveland’s contact approach paid off for them and if they have another great season in 2023, maybe other teams will adopt putting the ball in play.
Can’t understand why anyone would be against the tedious dead time during a game though. It doesn’t make any sense. Get on the rubber and pitch, get in the box and hit.
Pretty simple to us.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 