Dear Baseball, It’s not me, its You

I have always been a big baseball fan.  Some of my fondest early childhood memories are going to Yankee games with my dad, counting the stripped cars on the side of the road on our way into the Bronx.  The other day, a little league game had a higher TV rating than an important MLB game.  Hearing this news made me sad but also made me realize that it is time for baseball to change, because times have changed, and the sport is just too fucking boring to watch on TV on a regular basis.  Going to the game is still a great experience, but the TV experience, where a ton of the money is made, is just god fucking awful…like watching Lizard Lick Towing or a movie sex scene with your parents in the room.  I have decided to take it upon myself to save the sport with a couple of small necessary changes that should get people to actually watch it on TV.  There are a couple main areas that need to be addressed, the pitcher, the batter, extra innings, and the baseball purist,  but we will start with the two people that have the most control over the flow of the game…The pitcher and the batter.

The pitcher is one of the biggest road blocks to an exiting baseball experience on tv.  You would think something as simple as throwing to someone 60 feet away would not be much of a problem but it is..and its a big one.  They get the ball back from the catcher and start walking around the mound in circles rubbing it with their hands…where the hell are you walking to? Just get back up on the mound and throw.  Do you really need to adjust your cap every pitch?  If you do, your fucking hat doesn’t fit right so go get a new one.  The catcher is right there, dead center, 60 feet away.  There are no defenders or weird Wipeout style obstacles in your way. Your job is simple.  Throw it past the guy that has the bat.  And if he does hit it you have 8 other guys on the field to help you catch the ball or throw him out at a base.  Most people would kill for just one other person helping them at work with the only thing they are responsible for…you have 8 so get off your ass.  Just throw what the catcher tells you, get the ball back, and repeat.  But that isn’t what we get.  We get long stares, spitting, cleat cleaning, rosin bag juggling, catcher visits to the mound, contstant step offs, finger licking, crotch shifting, and about 10 other useless bullshit things that keeps us from staying awake long enough to see the actual pitch.  If you saw one of your friends doing any of these things at any point you would ask them to stop or recommend a CT scan because they most likely have some kind of brain tumor.  The solution to this problem is simple…a pitch clock.  Put it on the wall behind the catcher and set it to 6 seconds.  That is more than enough time to throw a pitch.  If you don’t, it counts as a ball.  Violate the clock more than 4 times in a game and  you are thrown out and we get someone in there who is interested in actually pitching.  Also, the catcher is only allowed to come out to the mound 3 times per 9 innings and the conversation also falls under the 6 second clock.  If the pitcher keeps shaking off your sign, use one of the visits to slap his face so we can get on with the game and enjoy our lives.

Next we have the batter.  They are not as bad except for those guys that are constantly stepping out to adjust their batting gloves…and there are a whole bunch of these guys.  If you don’t swing, you don’t need to adjust your damn batting gloves because you didn’t even use your hands…you just stood there.  It would be like someone tying and untying their shoes while standing in a line…no one does that.  The gloves should be just as tight as when you tightened them 90 seconds ago…for the 5th time.  See the video below to get an idea of what I am talking about

Holy crap that clip is boring!  This guy was called the human rain delay…that’s right…he was so bad he was actually compared to a natural weather event that can cancel games!  He is so bad even the pitcher looks bored.   This still happens all the time in baseball…why?…there is no good fucking reason for it.  If your equipment needs that much constant adjusting there are only two answers.  1)  The equipment is faulty or 2) You have a severe case of OCD or Tourette’s syndrome and should seek professional help instead of boring the shit out of the rest of us.   New rule…once you get in the batters box you can’t get out.  You leave the box and you are out.  Go sit down so we can move on to the next guy who actually wants to earn the ridiculous amounts of money you are paying him.

Finally, extra innings.  For most baseball fans extra innings aren’t a problem, which is why they call it “bonus baseball”.  Unfortunately this is not a “bonus” for the casual fan both at the game and at home on TV.  There just simply isn’t anything bonus about another 5 innings of the same crap I was complaining about earlier.  For them, it is like going to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned and then receiving a “bonus root canal” just when you though you were going to get the hell out of there.  The solution for this is simple and should be pretty entertaining.  Have two innings of normal extra inning baseball.  If it is still tied, you use a session of home run derby to break the tie.  Each team selects a single player and they compete in 1 on 1 home run derby.  Here are the rules.  Home Runs count as a point, everything else is an out.  Each guy gets 3 outs.  If it is still tied after the 3 outs, we go sudden death and alternate at bats.  If you are unable to match the home run the other guy hit, the game is over.  It will add some excitement and shorten the end of some of these ridiculous games.

There is a lot more that can be done, especially with playoff baseball and the ludicrous amounts of pitcher changes for right and left hand batters, but that requires its own post. I also left out the new instant replay rules that are just a complete cluster fuck…seriously, no one really knows them or what the hell is going on with it…classic baseball right there.   I did mention earlier the baseball purist.  These are the guys that never want the game changed to preserve the sanctity blah blah di fucking blah of the game.  I have simple note for them.  Get out of the way and shut the hell up.  You are hurting the game, not helping.  Things need to evolve in order to survive and if baseball doesn’t, no one will be interested in it anymore.  It is why the NFL is so popular and baseball is used to sedate patients before surgery.  They embrace change, technology, and make it their mission to stay ahead of the curve.  Baseball seems to exist in some weird time vacuum where everything is fine and it is still 1987..it isn’t, get your act together already!  Well there you have it.  A few simple tweaks that would easily help games get under the usual 3 hour and 45 minute mark they currently run at, and maybe, just maybe, help bring the casual fan back into the mix..which is vital for the survival of any sport in the modern age.

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