It’s a start, I suppose. I love the game, but it has not escaped my attention how few kids watch baseball anymore, and the marathon games have a lot to do with it. If we want a future for the sport, they have to speed things up! They could always start enforcing Rule 8.04, which says if no one’s on base, pitchers must deliver the ball within 15 seconds after they have it in their hands. It’s supposed to be called a ball, but I’ve only read about it, not ever seen it. But I’d much rather see them lower the mound, stop changing pitchers every inning, and enforce a standard strike zone (yes, boys, instant replay):
The verdict from Major League Baseball’s pace-of-game committee is in, and according to Fox Sport’s Ken Rosenthal, tomorrow MLB will announce three rule changes designed to speed up games:
- Managers must challenge replays from dugout.
- Batters must keep one foot in box unless an established exception occurs.
- Play to resume promptly once broadcast returns from commercial break.
If properly enforced, these changes might actually have the desired effect of speeding up the game without measurably altering it otherwise. The first one change probably won’t do much—I can imagine a worst case scenario where managers amble out to argue with an umpire, before returning to the dugout to challenge—but the second two could.
The game of baseball was meant to be seen live and inside the confines of a ballpark on a sunny afternoon.
It was never meant to be watched on television.
It was never meant to be interrupted by commercial announcements.
The game has been slowed down intentionally in order to allow for a “word from our sponsor.”
Baseball players were never meant to be millionaires. They were supposed to have a second job in the off-season in order to make a living.
Ballplayers were meant to live in our communities in regular houses and not in gated mansions where the unwashed masses couldn’t speak to them.
The Capitalists ruined the game of baseball just like they’ve wrecked everything else in society.
How dare those ballplayers make so much money?
It’s the effing union!
We gotta get rid of the union that has destroyed the grand old game.
Same goes for the basketball players. the concussionists — I mean, the football players, the toothless hockey players, the soccer kickers, the tennis stars, the boxers, the golfers, and the gophers.
Baseball started heading downhill as soon as Abner Doubleday didn’t invent it.
I’ve pretty much given up on all professional sports, even the so-called minors. Ticket prices are obscene, games are uninteresting to watch (more an endless testosterone fueled pro-war ad spot than game), rules are apparently just guidelines. Part of the reason I’m dumping cable all together.