Throw the ball

I love baseball. Always have, always will. There's no doubt in my mind that it's the greatest game ever. Yet that doesn't mean that I'm blind to its flaws.

Major League Baseball is set to end the seven inning double header games as well as the runner on second rule for extra inning games next year. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say. But the National League is expected adopt the Designated Hitter for the pitchers next year. I don't like that but it's hard to fight the future. Still, I am happy that Shohei Ohtani stuck to his guns as a pitcher in that he wants to bat too. He may be the most complete player in the history of the sport.

What galls me the most though is the pace of the game. In watching old ball games I notice that the pitchers, at least with no one on base, tend to deliver pitches about ten seconds apart. The locally famous Fidrych game on Monday Night Baseball in June 1976 in just under two hours was exciting and compelling and Fidrych THREW THE BALL with a decent pace, a pitch every ten to twelve seconds as I alluded to a minute ago. I know: I began timing, because I was amazed at the pace. These days pitchers stare at the catcher, set, look around, stare at the batter, and finally offer a pitch every twenty seconds or so. And that's if the batter hasn't asked for time, to saunter into his own delays.

Throw. The. ball. Stay in the batter's box. You're either overthinking things or playing a stupid intimidation game of some sort and both stink. Play the game. Throw the ball. That by itself ought to cut half hour off game times, and would be a whole lot more entertaining to boot.