Major League Baseball plans on testing a rule change in the lowest levels of the minor leagues this season that automatically would place a runner on second base at the start of extra innings, a distinct break from the game’s orthodoxy that nonetheless has wide-ranging support at the highest levels of the league, sources familiar with the plan told Yahoo Sports…Oh, please. A free runner on second? Baseball is still our national past-time. (Yeah, I know, football is our most popular game). But baseball is summer afternoons, hot dogs, fresh air, sunshine, and a ballet of magical mysticism. Messing with baseball is a fools errand. Having a runner on second, with two out was a drama played out between the runner, the shortstop and the pitcher. It is a ballet of inches and milliseconds. Yet, the runner had to earn second base.He had to work to get there.
And MLB wants to give that away. It's a horrible idea and baseball will be lesser for it.
3 comments:
That proposed rule change is blasphemy. It is intended to "speed up and make exciting" a game that is traditionally not bounded by the clock.
There's got to be a dollar decision driving this. Extra innings don't help stadium sales, they quit selling beer & concessions in the final innings. You probably have to pay OT to stadium staff.
Don't know the economics of the TV/Radio market, but I imagine extra innings cut into planned ad revenue for other programs, plus disrupting the schedule in local markets.
Yeah, follow the money. Somebody's making it or losing it, or they wouldn't be doing it...
Next thing you know, all the players won't bat for themselves.
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(I guess we know now who follows only the National League.)
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