Why the MLB’s New Intentional Walk Rule Is Awesome
And six other ways to improve the MLB
Professional baseball, the only event with more sleeping attendees than a narcoleptics anonymous meeting, and more senior citizens in the audience than a Paul Simon concert, has stressed shortening games as their top goal for improving the game. Because, apparently, the only thing better than baseball is literally anything else.
Don’t get the wrong idea.
I like baseball.
A game is good place to toss back a couple $12 beers with friends. Who knows, you might see something exciting, a streaker, a bat flying into the crowd, something.
To the MLB’s credit, they’ve implemented a handful of time-shaving techniques to try and shorten the average length of games. Clocks between pitches, pitching changes, and innings have helped. So has encouraging batters to stay in the batters box while at bat. However, despite their best efforts, the average length of an MLB game in 2017 has inflated back over three hours, to three hours and eight minutes.
This year they enacted a landmark new rule to further their efforts: the new intentional walk rule. Now, if a manager elects to intentionally walk a batter, that decision is simply communicated to the umpire and the batter takes first. No more waiting though four tosses from pitcher to catcher before the batter heads down the line. It’s simple. It’s brilliant. The fans lose nothing. The game is faster.
During the first of two MLB games I’ve been to this year, I noticed the intentional walk rule in action. I was surprised that America’s crusty letterman’s jacket in the attic — sorry — pastime, had adopted such a progressive rule. I was happy. But a friend I was at the game with proceeded to inform me about how much of the game is lost when pitchers and catchers aren’t forced to play catch for thirty seconds every time they want a batter to take first. Apparently overthrows happen way more often than I realized. The ultimate message was that a proud American tradition was being tarnished. “What about the proud American tradition of entertaining me?” I thought. My friend’s lecture fell flat. I loved and still love the rule.
The second game I attended went 11 innings and felt like 22. The only things holding my attention were the scathing heckles from fans and my lament over the 7th inning beer cutoff. The game lasted five hours. Five hours! I’m never getting those hours back. This solidified my realization that the intentional walk rule, though helpful, is nowhere near enough to pull baseball into 2017.
The new rule — like all the new game shortening rules — is awesome because it (hypothetically) gives the fans more time for themselves. Ironically, you are probably spending all the time that the new rule has gifted you so far this season on reading this article. To that I say: Thank you, and thank you MLB!
So I want to pay it forward.
Because I’m pretty sure that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred — I just had to Google ‘MLB commissioner’ — reads OffTop, here are six new ways that the MLB can save you, the fan, even more precious time, while simultaneously improving their entertainment product.
1 Only fastballs and changeups in extra innings. Let’s make it a guessing game. If the batter guesses right, you get to see a moonshot. If the batter guesses wrong, you get to watch him de-cleat himself trying to recalibrate his swing.
2 Fireworks after every strikeout.
3 During pitching changes, the team that’s fielding must select one of the batting team’s pitchers to race their oncoming pitcher to the mound. If the oncoming pitcher loses, the team at bat gets one run. The 100-yard dash is the most thrilling 10 seconds in sports right? Well, this 60-yard dash might be most thrilling 20 seconds in baseball. Tell me you’re not getting your money’s worth when Heath Bar — I mean Bell, and Vicente Padilla have a footrace for a run.
4Ten run lead limit. If a team gets up by ten they win and the losers have to walk around the stadium in a conga line while fans “shame” them Cerci-style and throw water balloons. Whether you win by ten or lose by ten, you get some family-friendly, riot-style catharsis at no extra cost.
5 Anytime after the sixth inning, if a pitcher strikes out the side or batters hit back-to-back homeruns, the game is over. Picture this: Your team is down by nine runs at home. It’s the top of the ninth. Your ace, who just raced an opposing pitcher to the mound, and won, to keep the game alive, has struck out the first two batters, setting off fireworks over the outfield, and now has a full count against the opposing team’s best hitter as he shakes off the catcher’s second sign. Don’t blink.
6 If it’s tied after 12 innings, a seven-minute MMA match between first base coaches decides the game. I’ve already talked to Herb Dean. He’s down.
I, realistically, don’t expect these tweaks to be made until after the all-star break. So, until then we will slog through the dog days of summer and continue to thank Internet Jesus for Wi-Fi connections in ballparks.
Godspeed.
