Bass: What if baseball makes radical changes to revive the game you loved?
CHICAGO – I love watching baseball at the ballpark, but I had no idea the count was 1-2 when Tony La Russa intentionally walked the Trea Turner in the sixth inning. Not until someone mentioned the absurdity later.
How could I miss it?
It was easy, sadly.
I had drifted, engaged in off-and-on conversation with Frank, one my college-paper pals here at Guaranteed Rate Field for White Sox-Dodgers. We were talking about how to fix baseball, fitting during a game that would run 4 hours and 13 minutes. For nine innings.
Even for an 11-9 game, there was too much dead time for 253 minutes. A sport whose action once begged our attention, whose inaction once promoted drama and discourse, has gone from National Pastime to America Idle. The pace is hurting baseball.
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Which is why I see hope next season, when big changes might be coming. I ran this by Frank.
He was cautious. He does not want to overhaul the game, but misses how it used to be played. So I asked him essentially the same question I had posed to a group of baseball fans at my speaking engagement.
What if these changes bring back the game you want?
* * * * * *
It is March 28.
The season was supposed to start in three days instead of a week late. Today, as I stand in front of this group to discuss the state of the game, baseball is rushing through Spring Training Lite. Owners and players exited the lockout with something, but, hey, what about us? Confusion and frustration are understandable.
We walk through the basics and context of the deal. I show how baseball recovered from previous crises and what it can learn. Let’s face it, the sport is hurting, and most of the folks I see today reflect its fan base. Older. White. Male. What I see in the mirror. (Proof the next ballpark giveaway should be an AARP membership.)
The games are getting up there, too. A nine-inning game averaged a record 3:10 last season. A decade earlier, it ran 2:51. Thirty years before that, 2:33. Rewind another decade, 2:25 – 45 minutes faster than last season.
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Worse, the games drag. Even if we learned what WAR is good for, we now have homer-strikeout-walk marathons dominated by an array of seemingly cloned relievers and drained of color by analytics experts who beat the system.
Is it any wonder attendance sank to about 28,200 per game in pre-pandemic 2019, the lowest since 2003? Would it surprise you if this year ends up worse (about 25,100 through Tuesday), even with a summer boost?
As bad as all this might sound, it might be the best thing that could happen to baseball. What if we needed to get to this point before something drastic happened?
“What if this crisis,” I asked, “produces baseball the way you want it?”
Overshadowed in the labor deal came a potential gift for us. The two sides formed a committee that can enact changes to the game, with just 45 days’ notice in the offseason. Management can stack the panel, with six members, versus four for players and one for umpires. If all goes well, commissioner Rob Manfred could take some of the minor-league experiments – such as adding a pitch clock, curtailing infield shifts, enlarging bases, limiting pickoffs and adopting robo-umps – to the major leagues.
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At first, the folks here do not seem all that excited. But as we break down what the changes could bring, the energy of the room shifts.
Think the beauty of baseball is no clock? Maybe, when the pitcher got the ball from the catcher, the batter stayed in the box, and the game had pace. Now everyone is a human rain delay. The thing is, baseball DOES have a clock. Rule 8.04 gives the pitcher 12 seconds to deliver the ball with the bases empty. Ever see it enforced?
Next season, the rule might be 14 seconds – and 18 or 19 with runners on base. And enforced. Could that bring a pace reminiscent of baseball in its more popular days?
The group now overwhelming supports a pitch clock. For the same reason, it is open to limiting pickoffs, too.
Limiting the shifts also is sounding good, if that encourages hitters to put the ball in play again. So might enlarging bases, if it promotes stealing. Imagine a game that showcases smallball (and not just the long ball) on offense, and athleticism on defense. The robo-umpires? That might be a harder sell. Maybe a challenge system.
When we are done, the group seems more alive, with more hope. It is satisfying to see the enthusiasm.
We don’t know which experiments will come to the major leagues and how they will affect the game. We won’t know until we try them, hone them, add to them or dump them. That is not failure. That, as Thomas Edison said, is learning what won’t work to get closer to what will.
The alternative is for baseball to keep doing what it is doing and hope for different results. Insanity. You might like today’s game, but too few do. When the average baseball viewer is about 57 years old (and maybe older since the results of five or six years ago), why not adapt? If the experiments don’t work, why not try something else?
The NFL adjusts rules to produce the game it wants.
The NBA even instituted a shot clock. MLB has adjusted the mound, the strike zone and so much more, but tends to move slower.
Just like the White Sox-Dodgers game I attended.
* * * * * *
Which brings us back to Frank.
Our conversation at the game continued in text messages, and Frank clearly is open to some significant changes in baseball. As much as he appreciates the tradition, he sees the value in moves that revitalize the game.
Frank likes the pitch clock, bigger bases and robo-umpires, but not limits on shifts or pickoffs. He also likes the Atlantic League rule I mentioned, which mandates a starting pitcher go at least five innings or the team would lose the designated hitter for the rest of the game – although Frank would make it six innings (barring injury).
I am open to anything.
It might keep me from missing the next time La Russa tries the unorthodox. And there will be a next time. This is what he does. He also left the starting pitcher in the game way too long.
That, I did notice.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mike Bass Cincinnati Reds MLB rule changes improvement
