11 Changes To Make Baseball Fun Again
Time to stir up some excitement at the old sandlot
I love watching baseball. It’s the only thing I watch on TV anymore. It’s my nightly meditation. I follow different teams, different players, different pitchers. I love the competition, the strategy, the energy of the game. I’ve been watching for a lot of years now, and who knows how many hours I’ve enjoyed either focusing on the games or leaving them on in the background while I’m doing other things.
But, all things evolve.
Including sports. And watching baseball isn’t as much fun as it has been in the past. Some of the ways that the players and managers approach the game now have taken away some of the competitive spirit and the excitement that has kept me interested for so long.
So I came up with a set of 11 changes that will make baseball more fun again.
I split these changes up into four pieces.
- Three physical changes to the game.
- Three structural changes to the game.
- Four changes that deal specifically with pitchers.
- And one change that will add some pizzazz to all the games that are going into extra innings.
I don’t believe it’s the players’ fault that the game is becoming a little duller. I think it’s because the rules are structured in a way that has allowed them to dent the integrity of the system. Bigger, stronger players with different financial incentives hooked into their playing style mean the essence of the game has changed quite a bit, and not necessarily in a good way. My changes will bring back some sparks of uncertainty as well as some requirements for deeper thinking and more action during the games.
So first, some physical changes.
One, I want to get rid of the first and third base coaches. In tee-ball, sure. But in the pros, I want players to think for themselves on the field. I want them to have to look to see what’s going on with the outfield to know whether to run or slide or steal a base. Players can look to the dugout. That’s fine. But no more base coaches telling you what to do. Get smart. Get aware.
Second, no more getting rid of equipment or getting extra stuff between the time you step up to the plate to hit and the time you finish running home or the inning is over. Whatever protection you have on your body when you go up to bat, that stays with you. If you need an oven glove for sliding, you have to have that with you when you go to the plate. Put everything in your pockets, or find some way to carry it all. You are a soldier out there. You take your tactical gear with you — no giving stuff to the sidelines, and no getting stuff from the sidelines.
Third, players will no longer be able to take cheat sheets with them out on the field — no more cards with statistics on them. No more pieces of paper stuck in pockets, gloves, or brims of hats. If you want to know the statistics of the people on the other team, you have to know them in your head. This includes catchers — no more wristbands with data on them. I want you guys to use your brains and study the game to be free from the distraction of easy stats.
Now for the structural changes.
First, I want the baserunners to go clockwise during even innings. There are so many statistics that suggest having right or left-handed pitchers and right or left-handed first basemen have advantages or not because the baserunners are always going counterclockwise. By having it so that the players go clockwise every other inning, it disrupts these advantages and would make the game way more interesting.
I am one of the people right now that feels like home runs are ruining the game. Because everyone is swinging for the fences and either hitting it out of the ballpark or striking out, action on the field is going down.
So my next rule change — a home run only moves the batter. Whether there’s one, two, or three people on the bases, if someone swings and hits a home run, only they go around to score. Everyone else stays where they are. This would mean that people can swing for a home run in very different strategic circumstances.
But most of the time, they would be swinging to get a hit to move runners on the bases. This would make the games so much more interesting because the athleticism of the infielders and outfielders would be pitched against the eyesight, ability, and strategy of hitters that are intentionally keeping the ball down. It would be amazing!
For my final structural change, I would make it so that if you’re sliding to a base or getting to a base, you don’t have to keep touching the bag after you get there. Especially with video challenges in play now, runners are punished because they don’t have something touching the base for a split second after they’ve made an incredible physical play to just get to the bag in the first place.
With my rules, if you reach the bag with any part of your body, you are safe. If you overrun the base, you are still safe. If you slide past the base, you are still safe. As long as you don’t actively move toward the next base, all you have to do is touch it to be considered safe at that position. This rule change would make people far more likely to steal, and the process would be much safer because you know you only have to tap the base and you don’t have to necessarily collide with anyone else to keep some part of your body stuck to the bag. Think of the action — bodies flying everywhere!
Now for the rule changes concerning pitchers.
First, I would make it a rule that the American League and National League both have a DH and both have a spot for the pitcher to hit. So there would be a ten-person lineup for the hitting order. And wherever the pitcher is in the lineup, they are an acceptable fourth out. So during an inning, the opposing team needs to get three outs plus the pitcher if he is in that sequence.
I love watching pitchers hit. It’s either hilarious or awesome watching them knuckle down against their pitching counterparts.
I think every pitcher should be required to hit. But I think their slot should create a fourth-out opportunity, so the opposing team doesn’t just get to use them as the weakest link in their zero-sum strategy.
Second, there should be a microphone and headphone piece between the pitcher and the catcher. So much of the game gets screwed up because of the extra time required for signs, especially when some suspicious team has someone hanging out on second base. Communication would be faster and more consistent. This would make for a safer game because there wouldn’t be any cross-ups. And it would add a huge degree of consistency with the timing between the pitcher and the catcher.
The microphone and headphone piece wouldn’t necessarily need to be used for full speech (oh the hackers would have a heydey). The pitcher and catcher could decide on a number of clicks for example, or some tapping noise or ticking. The point would be to eliminate signs that are visible to cameras and the other team.
This lack of signs would also force the players that are on the pitcher’s side to be more aware of sequencing. Because they can’t see the signs either, they would have to adjust their playing style based on some other kind of communication that they could determine.
The way that pitchers are used these days for specialized purposes doesn’t always strike me the right way.
It’s so specific of a strategy that the statistics get in the way of the flow of the game.
So, as a new rule, after a coach decides that a pitcher is coming out, that pitcher would still have to face one more batter. This would mean that a team has to have a very different strategy because they can’t pull a guy out as quickly as they want. The pitching coach would have to make the decision knowing that once they threw the hook out there, the man on the mound would still have to face one more person.
That would naturally lead to another change that I would make — every pitcher that comes onto the field has to face at least two batters. No more having a surgeon come out and face only one person. Because of the other rule change just mentioned, even if you decide to take a pitcher out immediately after putting him in, he would still have to face one person and then the next.
My last rule change would be to help push through the extra innings of baseball games.
Starting with the 10th inning, teams would lose one defender every new inning. So, in the 10th inning, there would only be eight players on the field. In the 11th inning, there would only be seven, and so on. Opening up all of this space would mean additional areas for hitters to work with, and it would drastically speed up the dynamics of the game.
Those are 11 of my best ideas for making baseball fun again. Changing any one of them has the potential to create intriguing ripples in the game. But imagine instituting them all at the same time!
Games would be faster, harder, more challenging mentally and physically, and less prone to long lulls in the action.
Home runs and strikeouts would go way down. Everyone would get to see their favorite pitchers in uncomfortable positions. Players would have to be smarter to make up for the lack of coaches on the field.
It would be a fascinating way to focus on the athleticism and intelligence of the players. Otherwise, the game is turning into the statistic-keeping abilities of the management and team owners, and pay-for-play incentives for hitters that are contrary to the fun of the game.
If anybody knows Rob Manfred, send him my way!
