by Lundberg - October 20, 2009 - - 3 Comments »
I am not a baseball purist; far from it. For example, I thought it was great when A-Rod yelled HA! against Toronto (smart play, why not?) and I love when Manny Ramirez gawks at his homeruns (wouldn’t it be great if he pulled a telescope out of his back pocket to look at the next one?). It isn’t a coincidence that those guys are maybe the two most interesting characters in the sport. With that said, I have watched more playoff baseball this year than I have in a long time (most likely due to the Yankees return to an elite level. As I wrote before, planet Earth is a better place when the Yankees are good).
What I have learned is what I already knew…even at its best, baseball is too damn slow and boring. If you are younger than 50 your attention span cannot possibly handle it. I refuse to believe that it is possible to watch a game from the first pitch to the last out without doing something else. So, how can we welcome baseball to the 21st century? Here are a few of my suggestions…
–Eliminate umpires. I just don’t think they are necessary anymore. There has to be some sort of technology, adjustable to height, that can quickly and accurately measure balls and strikes. This goes for close plays on the basepaths and fair/foul calls as well. To ensure the call is correct you simply have a replay booth who can take a look at the play and quickly deliver the right call (there should never be a missed call in baseball). The best part of this suggestion? You eliminate arguments with umpires. Do I really need to watch a manager put his hands on his hips and move his mouth for an extended period of time? Has a call ever been overturned this way? “You know what mr. manager, when you told me to go bleep myself it really made me realize that he was safe.”
– Create a pitch clock (football has a play clock and basketball has a shot clock). If the pitcher doesn’t release the ball before his time expires, the batter is awarded a ball. If the batter does something to disrupt this, he is given a strike. 15 seconds or so seems about right.
–Do not allow pitchers to warm up after they come out of the bullpen. Isn’t that the point of the bullpen?
–A limit of one throw to a base per runner (you can throw again to attempt to get an out but if it is unsuccessful the runner is awarded a base). The game is more entertaining when there is running. There is not enough running.
–No conferences at the mound, period.
–Shorten the season by about 20 games. They should be playing the World Series right now. It is October.
Baseball’s glory years revolved around newspapers and the radio. It is the perfect sport for those mediums. Unfortunately, there are things like television and the internet around today. I don’t think baseball should be too stubborn to adapt. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to continue playing Scrabble (I just recently started playing. I can’t believe how fun it is), surfing the internet and writing blogs about how slow it is while I watch.
But maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe I’m right. I’m going to go look for an umpire to ask.
Tags: A-Rod, baseball, manny ramirez, slow, speed, Sports, umpires, yankees
There is already a “play clock” if you want to call it that, they just dont implement that rule, it’s something about 12 seconds that the pitcher has to throw a pitch, if he doesnt, then the batter is awarded a ball…they just never enforce that rule.
They need to.
Don’t forget the greatest double play turned of all time by manny…When he caught a fly ball jumped up the wall, High fived the fan then proceded to throw the ball in to double up the runner at first. If that was me I would walk of the field and retire.