We love the game of baseball. We’ve loved it since we remembered seeing our first game way back in 1965.

And despite living in northeast Ohio, where a winning baseball team didn’t come around for 30 years, our love for the summer sport never waned.

However, right now baseball is under attack and the surprising thing is, it seems to be attacking itself. Over the last few years, they have enacted and proposed some rule changes, and some we like, and others seem to be gimmicky.

For example, we like the universal DH. The argument that the National League game had more strategy is hogwash. For the most part, if there was a runner on base with less than two out and the pitcher was coming up, he was bunting. That’s not deep thinking.

And the “double switch” isn’t rocket science either.

We also like the proposed time clock in between pitches. When people have complained about the length of games, we’ve said for years the problem was batters stepping out of the box after every pitch to supposedly adjust some kind of equipment.

Get in the box, stay in the box and for pitchers, get the sign and throw the pitch.

It seems though like the people who run baseball are kind of just throwing crap at a wall and seeing what’s going to stick: Pitchers have to face three batters, putting a runner at second for no reason to start extra-inning games, and the one we really don’t like…banning the shift.

We find it unconscionable that a rule will prevent a team from playing defense the best way. What’s next, telling Shane Bieber he can only throw his knuckle-curve once per at bat?

This year, we’ve seen the Guardians go “old school” and go back to a contact approach, putting the ball in play. Jose Ramirez is pretty much a dead pull hitter. Teams shift on him in every single at bat.

You know what? He’s still hitting .283 on the season. Why? Because he’s a good hitter. He doesn’t strikeout a lot. Yes, he gets some hits taken away by the shift, and a couple of teams have employed four outfielders against him. He still gets hits.

In our opinion, getting rid of the shift rewards the bad hitters, the ones who refuse to make adjustments and keep trying to pull outside pitches. That’s more inferior hitting than great pitching.

The new schedule also seems weird. We understand that having three wild card teams means playing in a weak division is an advantage because you play teams 19 times, but it wasn’t an issue in the AL East for a long time when the Yankees and Red Sox had the edge because the Orioles, Rays, and Blue Jays were in a down cycle.

The talking heads don’t like it now because the Twins, Guardians, Brewers, and Cardinals now have that advantage.

We’d also like to see if fans really like interleague play. Yes, it’s good to see Yankees-Mets, Giants-A’s, Cubs-White Sox, but is anyone clamoring for Guardians-Rockies? Instead, we think fans here would like to see the Yanks and Red Sox more often. They aren’t getting that with this new format.

It’s like the folks who say college basketball is better than the professional version. Yes, if you are comparing Duke-North Carolina to watching the Kings and Rockets do battle.

But what about the Bucks-Celtics vs. say, Eastern Michigan play Dayton?

We are stuck with the schedule, but let’s hope smarter people get together on the shift and keep it. It will take a while, but eventually, players will learn to hit the right way again and the sport will be better for it.