I will miss the MLB runner on second base to start extra innings
The 2021 Major League Baseball regular season is over, which means we’ve likely seen the last of the controversial runner-on-second-base rule in extra inning games.
The rule, which was put in place for the 2020 regular season as a way to shorten games during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been maligned by many fans, especially the more-traditional fans. They complain that starting an inning with the “Manfred Man” on second base just isn’t real baseball.
The rule was kept for the 2021 season (regular season only), but commissioner Rob Manfred has hinted that it will be gone in 2022.
If that’s the case, I will miss it. Not because I consider starting an inning with a runner on second base to be real baseball I’ll miss it because it adds excitement and I really have no interest in watching a five-and-a-half hour baseball game.
This season, the average length of a nine-inning MLB game was 3 hours and 10 minutes. That’s more than enough time for a game, especially when you consider that teams play six or seven games per week. They don’t need to be burning through their entire bullpen in one game. In Japan, games are declared a tie if no winner is determined in 12 innings or 3-and-a-half hours.
Fans also don’t need extra baseball, especially if the extra baseball isn’t exciting baseball.
The great thing about the runner on second isn’t just that it speeds up the game. It’s that it also immediately creates exciting situations where teams have an opportunity to score.
Many other sports employ overtime rules based on similar concepts. In college football, teams start their possessions at the opposing 25-yard line. In the NHL, teams play 3–on-3 hockey — which creates more scoring opportunities — for five minutes before going to a shootout. In both cases, games are decided quickly and in exciting fashion.
The NHL is the best parallel here because that league only uses those overtime rules in the regular season. In the playoffs, the rules go back to old-fashioned overtime rules; first team to score wins, no matter how long it takes.
Last season and this season, MLB used the new extra-inning rules for the regular season only. Postseason games go back to the old-fashioned extra-inning rules, where real baseball is played until there’s a winner, no matter how long it takes. Just the way it should be for games played when the stakes are that high. (Fun fact: In Japan, if a playoff game isn’t decided after 12 innings, the entire game is replayed.)
If we’ve seen the last of the “Manfed Man,” I will miss him.
I won’t really miss the 7-inning doubleheaders, which are also probably on the way out, because that’s not something we would ever see in any other sport. NFL teams don’t play 40-minute games when they have to play on Sunday then again the following Thursday. College basketball teams don’t play 30-minute games when they play four days in a row in a conference tournament.
But I will miss the quick and exciting resolution to extra-inning baseball games that we got to see the last two years.
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