In his first few days as commissioner the most positive reaction that Rob Manfred has inspired is that he is open to this or that idea, which is just weasel talk for "I'm not quite as dumb and lazy as my predecessor, Allan Huber "Bud" Selig".
On the commissioner's MLB Network former player Eric Byrnes babbled something that simulated an endorsement of a semi-radical idea without quite being explicit. Byrnes seems to have a couple of brief fleeting experiences with starting the count at 1-1. I have long advocated starting the count at 3-2 but Byrnes had tried to articulate the only thing that could possibly be interpreted as an innovative idea during the 22 year Selig-Manfred reign of terror (terrible ideas). Byrnes said that he was much more alert as a batter when his plate appearance started at 1-1 and that the pace of the game speeded up considerably. Unfortunately, Byrnes prefaced his halting comments by stating that he did not want baseball to descend into beer softball. Softball but without the beer. Slow pitch softball is the essence of the game: hitting, fielding, base running. Quick play at a rapid pace with plenty of action.
Manfred, the A-Rod slayer, is comfortable with the two conferences having a different rule, designated hitter (DH), and with the All Star game determining the home field/rule advantage in a possible game 7 of the tournament finals. That level of thought pretty much tells all you need to know about "Bud Light".
1 comment:
You must be out of your mind with your crazy ideas. Start the count at 3-2!!! Without a doubt, that is one of the worst sports ideas I have ever heard. If you're so obsessed with drastically speeding up the great game of baseball, I strongly suspect that you do not care much (and that's putting it mildly) for MLB in its present form.
Even starting the count at 1-1 would be a strong turn for the worse, as beginning with a 1-1 count would drastically alter (completely screw up) pitchers’ game stats, seasonal stats, career stats and make comparisons with pitchers from earlier baseball generations for all intents and purposes "impossible" and put a tremendous kibosh on all record breaking. Conversely, it would do the same thing to the hitting side of baseball. I strongly doubt that you know by heart many MLB records and stats that many diehard baseball fans (such as myself learn and retain to memory for decades). Baseball, the most perfect of all team sports, has scores of great things about it, and stats (and their inherent beauty) rank near the top of this “beauty list”. Why don't you just become a dedicated (and solely) slow pitch softball fan, spectator and/or player? Slow pitch softball, a game requiring far less skill than the major league form of baseball, is nowhere near the game of MLB. You praise base running of slow pitch softball despite the disallowance of leadoff and stolen bases! I also strongly suspect that you do not realize that MLB baseball requires far more skill (and coordination) to play than NBA basketball or NFL football, and that baseball is a far better sport. I believe that if you’re a person who likes multiple sports, baseball is not one of them. In addition, I simply do not believe that you have the best interests of baseball at heart when you make or propose such a radical and unfounded suggestion. I really doubt that you will not approve my comment (thus it will not be published).
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