Hmm … the foul poles …
- Get rid of home plate umpires (except for plays at the plate). The technology is now good enough to let balls and strikes be called automatically and umpires do a lousy job of it.
- Since it is hard to get rid of teams (not that the Marlins aren’t trying) expand to 32 teams in four leagues. Each team plays 22 games against each team in its league and no interleague games. At the end the four league winners are paired to play seven game series and the two winners play again a seven game series.
- Pitch clock.
- Very limited “stepping out” allowed.
- Beards obligatory; long hair optional.
- DH outlawed.
- Any park with a fair distance less than 330 feet will have to have a “ground-rule double pole” at the point where that distance is first exceeded.
And yes, I would institute a rule that if a city pays for a stadium, it acquires an ownership share of the team. Maybe 50% would be fair.
Why would the umps even be what they are at all? Why have ups just at the bases?
Think about it; why is it done that way? Because it always has. But why always do it that way? It was always done that way because budgets would allow no more than 4 umps and having them at each base made sense. But why not have 10 umps? 12? A tennis match can have up to 11 officials. In a major match literally every line has an official. Why not have this in baseball? Why not ALWAYS have outfield foul line umps, home run umps, pitch follow through umps?
id of made it illegal for vin scully to retire from dodger games and baseball announcing in general …