Getting to Second Base (Not What You Heathens Think)

I'm a traditionalist, conservative by nature. I don't care for change. Yet this doesn't mean that I cannot adapt, that I am incapable of accepting new ideas.

Take baseball, for instance. I love it. Greatest game ever, hands down, absolutely no doubt about it. But I do like that the game has instituted a pitch clock. Things were simply taking too long and something had to be done. Similarly, I like the ban on defensive shifts. It makes the participants be athletic and make plays rather than automatons instructed to do this or that. 

See? I'm open to change.

What I don't like however is placing a runner on second base at the start of extra innings. That, bluntly put, strikes too much at the essence of the game. You're supposed to have to put men on base in order to score, not give them a head start of half way around the diamond. That's a tradition I will fight for. You don't alter the basic point of anything in the name of making it better. Period.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my Detroit Tigers lost last night because of the rule. Not one iota.

Well, all right, maybe a little. But my point still stands.