Posted on 02/08/2017 7:13:31 PM PST by SMGFan
Lower levels of professional baseball, as well as the upcoming World Baseball Classic, will have a radical rule change. When games reach extra innings, teams will begin their at-bats with a man already on second base. If it works well, the rule could eventually work its way to MLB.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
why not just make everyone start out with a 2/2 count and swing from the opposite side of the plate?
Noooooooooo!!!
Baseball extra innings are fine just the way they are.
Tired of the whiners who complain the game is too long.
The games would probably be shortened if the teams didn’t have bullpen pitchers who might only pitch to one or two batters, or possibly three. The days are gone when a starting pitcher routinely played the entire game.
I tried to tell y’all that baseball was goin’ to hell when they foisted that designated hitter on us.
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The NL players and fans would love the DH style of play.
It eliminates the almost automatic out by a pitcher at bat, permits real hitters to prolong their careers when no longer adept at fielding positions and allows regular players who are rehabbing from minor injuries to contribute with their bats.
Amazing idea! Also, they should ban smoking and stop selling beer at the seventh inning!
Soccer creeping into baseball. Here’s an idea for minor league ball; if neither team is good enough to win in 9 call it a tie. They already drop to 7 innings in doubleheaders.
There is way too much $$$$$ at stake in the MLB to fluff around with extra inning rules. Minor leagues—not so much.
They want to shorten the length of the game. Here’s two ideas.
Intentional walks are just waved to first.
There is a designated leadoff area at 1st base which a runner can’t leave until a pitch is thrown. If the area is a little tight the pitchers won’t be throwing over to 1st a lot.
The second one could speed up the game a lot.
If baseball is taking "too long and gets boring", they need to put the ball on a 3" tee on home plate then use a crooked bat called a, "Big Bertha" to try to knock the ball into a cup 500 yards away. And make the fans whisper.
Shootouts in hockey are bad enough. Let’s not have another artificial way to decide a game.
There were very few stats available then compared to today. We also came up with a factor for pitchers that made it easier or harder to get hits or strikeout by batters.
We even let some of the speedy guys try to steal.
It was a lot of work (no calculators!) but it turned out pretty good. We only played a few dozen games until we got tired of it, but it was fun while it lasted.
We had more fun playing whiffle ball. We then started using those old practice golf balls with the holes and broomsticks for bats. It was really hard to get a hit, but when we did, it really took off.
Then we rode our bikes a lot.
I am generally seriously down on all professional sports. Too many jerks. The guys from the 50s and 60s were heroes to us. They seemed to us to be normal people who shut up and did their jobs. We rarely heard about the messed up parts of their lives. When free-agency came, it was good for players but it ruined it for us kids. Before it, a lot fewer players moved around. The stars stayed with their team for years. Only the losers got traded a lot.
I have totally abandoned watching, listening, reading about pro sports. This gave me a massive amount of time to live MY life rather than caring about the screwed up lives of athletes who generally care about the fans.
Same for movies and TV. Mrs. RWA and I have a TV somewhere in a closet. We used to bring it out to watch DVDs but it's hard to watch a movie when we can't stand the actors' personal lives. We read a lot and do things together or with our adult kids. We have a nice large yard and a dog who liked to run and chase things. We have various gardens to work on as we upgrade the neglected property we own. The house is slowly coming around, too. We like to walk or sit out at night and maybe have a fire. It's a simple life, unencumbered with the foolish lives of entertainers. I don't recognize the names of most actors and athletes. I can't tell you who the stars are on most sports teams. I didn't know who was in the super bowl until a couple days before the game. Didn't watch it. Feel fine.
We need to start training pitchers to go nine, or at least more than six, innings, and we need to start training hitters to hit the other way, hit behind the runner, and bunt. (Bunting is especially effective against an “unhittable” pitcher.)
Play the game teh way it was played for over a century, until the specialists took over, and you’ll have a faster, more exciting game.
And if you’re going to institute a pitch clock to enforce the long-standing rule that requires a pitcher to pitch within a certain amount of time, then have an actual penalty. If nobody is on, call it a ball. If there are runners on, call it a balk. Watch how much faster pitchers get.
More foul territory would help too. More foul territory, more foul outs. More foul outs, speedier game (a bit, anyway.) And while it’s not that exciting, it’s more action than a strikeout.
Why? The DH destroys strategy for a touch less than one run per game. No, thank you.
A popular idea, but a bad one, IMO. We've all seen that pitch intended to be a wide one for an intentional walk that gets away and causes some mayhem with the baserunners. That's interesting.
Furthermore, there are those occasions (extremely rare, but they do happen) where a hitter decides he's had enough of this and swings -- and gets a hit.
What they ought to do is require the catcher to keep one foot in the catcher's box, thus preventing them from lining up up the baseline and making the ball impossible to hit.
There is a designated leadoff area at 1st base which a runner can’t leave until a pitch is thrown. If the area is a little tight the pitchers won’t be throwing over to 1st a lot.
And kill the stolen base once and for all? Stolen bases are exciting. Good for the game.
And again, what about the errant throw that gets away and instead of second, now the runner's on third? You'd eliminate that in the name of saving a minute or two.
It's not about the time of games -- it's about the pace of games. I'll watch a four-hour baseball game if something is happening, if it's close and teams are playing baseball instead of just trying to hit homeruns. Or if it's a pitchers' duel and they're trying to make a run or two. That's much more interesting than a two-and-a-half hour game in which 12 pitchers appear and everyone who doesn't hit a homer strikes out.
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