This seems like too many rules for baseball.
You’re right, I hate this idea. I hate ties. I don’t hate extra innings (although they shouldn’t stop the beer sales in the 7th inning). I’ve been to 14+ inning games. They’re fun, on an occasional basis. The Mariners had a very exciting 10 inning game last night. Baseball doesn’t have, and doesn’t need “points.” We have “wins.”
This I fully agree with.
One of the fundamentally great things about baseball is the lack of the clock. That the game plays until someone wins and moves forward with outs. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to see a pitch clock at the MLB level. Baseball should breathe. Pitchers also should not take a minute or more between pitches, so a pitch clock at the lower level to teach them to have an appropriately speedy tempo doesn’t bug me.
For baseball ties are bad. Changing that fundamentally changes the game.
Also salary caps are terrible and everyone who has suggested them should hang their heads in shame.
Ties are for T Ball.
Well, now I’m the king, and I say, again no DH! And, ok, let Joe Jackson in, but not the others on your list.
As the king, I will add this rule:
No in-game interviews.
God, I hate those. Useless because there is nothing ever shared beyond the usual platitudes.
Also, to continue that theme, limit the number of in-booth interviews during TV broadcasts. Seems like this has become a huge thing the last few years, I’m in Atlanta, and almost every broadcast “features” some one visiting the broadcast booth and being interviewed. Meanwhile the game continues on, mostly ignored by the play-by-play guy, because he is too busy asking a cutting question about the summer camp the ex-major leaguer who dropped by the booth is running.
I forgot this one in my OP, but I meant to put it in. This is more or less how I would like to see replay handled as well. The challenge system isn’t nearly as bad as I expected but it’s not great. This would be much better.
#5 - that sounds like a good idea. If a reliever comes in with a 1-run lead, his team scores a run in the 8th, and he gives up a run in the 9th, the starter gets the win; why should it change just because the other team scored its run first (and tied the game)?
#6 - should there still be separate MVPs, Cy Youngs, etc. for the two leagues?
As for youth baseball being “less competitive,” they tried that about 40 years ago when they banned non-USA teams from the Little League World (er, “Championship”) Series; so many people complained, and I have a feeling most of them said, “We want the chance to beat the foreign teams,” that Little League relented after one year.
On a related note, as a safety measure (I grew up across the street from the mother of someone who was nearly killed in a high school game when he was hit by a batted ball), what would your position be on requiring wood bats in youth leagues? Have major league teams help pay for them.
#7 - why can’t a manager be in the Hall of Fame for managing? Owners and other executives, I agree; maybe have some sort of “honorary” membership, or something similar to the Ford Frick award.
Keep interleague play – I, as a Brewers fan living in Florida, enjoyed driving 90 min to Tampa to see my team and would have no other means to do that other than driving 4 hours to Miami or 7 to Atlanta.
No DH – Pitchers can hit home runs, they can bunt a man over, they’re baseball players dammit.
Throwless IBBs – Why waste the time?
Every pitcher introduced to a game MUST finish, at minimum, the inning in which they’re added – This means the starter can go as long as they want, but any reliever added after him must complete the inning regardless of how many outs are in it. The only caveats to this are if the pitcher is injured or gives up 6 earned runs.
I only ask one thing.
To see baseball played as it was prior to all this recent meddling. Reset things to pre-interleague play and I’m all good.
Leave instant replays alone. Allowing instant replays on every play will slow down the game and will become a crutch for the umpires and umpiring will degrade.
Baseball needs cheerleaders, a half time show, and happy hour pricing during the 7th inning stretch.
No such thing as an intentional walk. You have 4 balls in a row and the batter gets a free swing from his own pitcher who can throw underhanded if he wants. Even if he misses then the batter STILL takes a base. Home runs are ground rule doubles.
If you leave the batter’s box between pitches, its a strike.
If you take more than 10 seconds to pitch the ball its a ball (don’t forget, 4 balls in a row and the batter gets a free swing from their own pitcher).
Up or out minors: either advance a player to a higher division, increase their pay or release them. If you keep someone in the same division for three years they get half the MLB minimum pay in AAA and 1/4 the minimum in every other division.
The AAA Champions become MLB team for the following season until we get at least 60 teams. After we hit 60 teams, the worst team in the league drops to AAA.
Suspensions will be for number of innings not number of games, might make some of those extra inning games more interesting.
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Interesting idea, but not sure it would work given that most (all?) AAA teams are farm teams for MLB teams. If the Tacoma Rainiers were in the Majors, how would it work if the Mariners wanted to call “up” one of the players?
Personally, I would fiddle with the geometry to turn it back into a team game. The “it’s all about the batter versus the pitcher” is an artifact of improper scaling as the game went pro. While less obvious than cases like bowling and pool, where the competition has turned from “succeeding” to “seeing how many times you can clear before finally having a slight hiccup”, there’s still a significant difference between how the game plays non-professionally and professionally.
In amateur play, it’s easier to get on base and more stealing - both of which the game a lot more exciting to watch - and make the field players and their instincts about what to do with the ball once they catch it a lot more important. Instead of being about “can I hit a ball”, it’s a question of “can I penetrate through several layers of defense”?
Most likely the field needs to be made bigger, particularly the infield.
Additional edict: Pete Rose is banned from even signing baseballs for the next 268 years.
- No more designated hitter.
- The two teams I hate the most (Cardinals and White Sox) are relegated to AA, with no possibility of being promoted back up to the major leagues or even to AAA. No other teams may relocate to Chicago or St. Louis, leaving this territory to the Cubs alone.
- No player may use country music as his walk-up song. No country music will be played in the stadium at all, in fact. There will be large cash bonuses for players who pick Kesha songs as their walk-up songs.
- Batting helmets must be kept reasonably clean, with no ugly pine tar residue all over the place.
- I don’t like the teams that didn’t exist when I first started following baseball (1986). Therefore, the Marlins, Diamondbacks, Rays, and Rockies must make do with minimum-salary players. Obviously these teams will suck year after year, but that’s not my problem. (The Nationals don’t count because they existed as the Expos)
Not something that can (necessarily) be enforced from on high, but I sure would like to see some huge Forbes Field/Griffith Stadium sized behemoths, where home runs go to die, and the team then builds around relatively light-hitting speedsters. That would seem to be one of those little Moneyball style edges that someone could exploit, esp. given all of the home runs going out of the current ballparks.
Screwing with the infield will seriously fuck with the basic game, not to mention stats and history.
Even the infielders who’s arms are “calibrated” for the current size.
If that includes increasing the distance from the mound to the plate, that would destroy the game.
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Any fan that interferes with a ball in play or prevents a player from catching a foul ball is banned for life from all ballparks. His picture and name are put on the scoreboard as he is kicked out of the game. And a website with pictures of idiot fans will be created. (www.dumbassfans.com)
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In spring training, have MLB visit each team and tell them:
- Batters will be allowed/encouraged to do the bat flip.
- Pitchers will be allowed more expressive celebrations of strikeouts.
Taunting will be allowed.
Give the fans some entertainment.
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Bring back “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” in the seventh inning.
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Remove the stupid “defensive indifference” rule. If the defense doesn’t want to make an effort, screw 'em.
Guy on base + Guy runs to the next base = STOLEN BASE! -
Bring back the limo or truck or whatever to bring the reliever in from the bullpen.
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Hire a “Morganna the Kissing Bandit” to make the rounds of all the ballparks.
Who is she? Look it up. -
Use drugs, banned for life. Can’t go to ballparks, can’t get a job in MLB, can’t be in the Hall of Fame. Hey, that was easy!
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If you win the World Series, you don’t have to do ANY interviews after a game the next year. Even if you get traded. Includes manager and coaches.
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Pitcher can’t request another baseball. The one you’ve got is white with red stitching and is round. Throw it. It’s scuffed up and the pitcher can do anything with it? Then too bad for the batter.
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THE PERSON THAT THROWS OUT THE FIRST PITCH SHOULD ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO THROW A BASEBALL! I don’t mean older people or kids, but adults that can really do it and not bounce it 30 feet by the catcher or airmail it into the 20th row. No singers, actors or airhead bimbos.
I may be misremembering the rule but I believe the pitcher is responsible for the “purity” of the ball.
How often do pitchers reject a ball? I can’t think of a time I’ve seen it done.
Before Chief Wahoo is banned, proponents of such a ban must produce evidence of either actual harm or ill intent, neither of which has ever been produced to my knowledge. Saying, “It hurts my feelings and or self-esteem” doesnot constitute such evidence.
No, certainly not, not for white people.