Just Throw The Ball Already…
Time never stops, yet there is never enough of it. The things that occupy our days always take too long. We are finite beings wrestling with infinity. Our clock is a snake eating its own tail, methodically ingesting its many ribs collared to its long scaly spine, until the snake unhooks its jaw and swallows its own head forming a black hole which then consumes the universe.
Major League Baseball will not implode — there’s too much money to be made in it! — but its bureaucrats are playing the part of the snake, myopically gnawing at the meat of their own body with its institution of certain rule changes at the start of the 2023 season.
For certain aesthetes or purists, the pitch clock is an affront. The new rule which requires pitchers to start their delivery within 15 seconds or 20 seconds (depending if there are runners on base) after receiving the ball, will not change baseball’s foundational measurement of outs and innings rather than periods, quarters, and halves — but it does introduce worldly mechanics that baseball operated outside of for its 150 year history. The pitch clock is a Trojan Horse, and whether a bunch of Greeks charge out of it burning Troy to the ground from the inside, or not, there is still an ugly, wooden horse inexplicably clogging up the main thoroughfare day in and day out.
There will now be digital clocks on either side of the batter’s box for the pitcher to fret over as he digs into the rubber, rubs up the mutable quality of an official Rawlings baseball, ponders the predetermined game plan against the count, the situation, the hitter, the feel he has for his pitches. Another clock will be present somewhere beyond centerfield visible to the batter counting down when the hitter has to be in the box and ready to hit (8 seconds left) before the umpire awards the pitcher a strike. If the pitcher doesn’t initiate his motion before the clock runs out the batter is awarded a ball and the clock resets.
It isn’t just that baseball isn’t governed by time, it openly mocks it. One of the only major sports (other than cricket) in which the defense holds the ball, the game is an exercise in patience, manipulation, focus, intimidation. Dave Stewart’s dark glare glowing like ash-bedded embers from under his bill; Randy Johnson’s 6’ 10’’ height lofted to 7’ 8’’ looking down on his opponent; or Gaylord Perry’s feeling up his belt, his neck, his bill, his brow, his ear, his chest, his lips, his sleeve as the batter waits. The horsey champ of a fidgety pitcher shaking off pitch after pitch, the disengagement from the rubber, the walk around the mound, the quick pitch — it’s all about creating one’s own time in direct opposition to the hitter’s.
In baseball there is no objective clock to manipulate. Like the Kansas City Chiefs using their final possession to shave more than a minute of time from the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl in what could’ve been the most exciting period of meaningful football in its most important game; or in the Manchester United- Leicester City game I’m watching right now in which Man U owns a commanding 3-nil lead in the 75th minute, commencing the childish play of flopping, of sitting down, of adjusting one’s shin guards, untying to re-tie one’s laces all in the name of running out the clock. Win the game by not playing the game — this irony is what time’s governance allows.
Pre-2023 a pitcher could hold onto the ball for as long as he wanted, but he inevitably had to throw it. He had to forfeit its control and initiate play.
Now, in theory, a game in the Major Leagues could be won without a pitch being thrown. A pitcher that holds onto the ball will now violate a clock which will award a ball to the batter. Do this four times and the batter takes first. Do this again and again, a run is eventually scored. Or disengage from the rubber a third time during one at-bat (another 2023 rule change) and the runner advances on a balk. Or if the batter is not properly set in the box, a strike could be called. Do this twice more, the batter is out. Six more times after that and the half-inning is over. 27 outs could be recorded, or an infinite amount of runs tallied, without a single pitch thrown.
Philosophically, theoretically, aesthetically — practically is what’s important to most fans. For MLB, an average game time of 3-plus hours was unacceptable. They view it as a barrier to the game’s growth and appeal to young fans. After its implementation in the minor leagues, the pitch clock shaved on average about 30 minutes from each game. Less is more for some people — but again the business of baseball threatens to eat the product. The most profitable thing would be football: One game a week, 16 games, single-elimination play-offs, play clocks and game clocks and 2-minute warnings! The pitch clock and codifying the Manfred-runner (starting extra innings with a runner on second, another new 2023 rule) is baseball inexplicably wanting to hurry along the most exciting part about baseball. Soon 9 innings will become 7 innings which will become 6, or whichever happens first: 18 outs or 2-hours. The game will be reduced to feats of strength, Statcast Olympics: who can hit the ball the hardest, the farthest? Who has the fastiest fastball?
It’s fun to preach doom and gloom. There will never be a game in which a baseball is never thrown (how artsy that would be???) — the tragedy of these rule changes won’t manifest in the extremes, but in the small alterations to the game’s character. Tension in the later innings might be dulled by the clock. The long look-ins, the camera close-ups cutting from pitcher to hitter back to pitcher won’t rise to quite as high as a fever pitch. The multi-faceted play of the pitcher in terms of game control will be reduced — from artist to vehicle, just throw the ball already.
