I have sort of a love-hate relationship with George Will when it comes to baseball.
He and I were born at opposite ends of the same decade and have lived on opposite sides of the political spectrum. He’s conservative, although thankfully not of the MAGA tribe. We don’t agree on much politically, but I take the position that anyone who loves baseball can’t be all bad.
Even if he is a Cubs fan.
Each year on Opening Day, Will publishes a very intelligent, very difficult baseball quiz. Most years I feel fortunate to get 60 percent of the answers right, but this year I topped 70 percent.
One thing Will and I have in common (no, we don’t both have Pulitzer Prizes) is that we’re somewhat traditionalists when it comes to baseball. We’re not big on constantly changing the rules, so I believe we were both skeptical about this year’s changes.
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see Will’s column in the Washington Post today, titled “After a month of baseball’s new rules, it’s time to rejoice.”
You see, we agree on just about all of them. The two best are the pitch clock and the abolition of the infield defensive shift.
Just yesterday I was watching an afternoon game in Washington between Will’s Cubs and my favorite Washington Nationals. Between the new pitch clock and two teams playing well, the 4-3 Washington victory was finished in 1 hour and 55 minutes. When George and I were young, it wasn’t all that uncommon for games to finish in less than 2 hours.
It hardly ever happens anymore.
It’s not the long games that bother me. I’m happy to watch for 3-4 hours if the games lasts 15 innings, but I don’t want to watch for hours when half the time is pitchers stepping off the mound or batters stepping out of the cage.
With the new rule, a pitcher has to throw to the plate within 15 seconds, 20 if there is a man on base. The batter must be in the box waiting when the clock is down to 8 seconds. Both pitcher and batter can step out once during an at-bat.
As part of that, there’s also a limit on how many times a pitcher can throw over to a base to try and pick off a runner.
Between the limit on throws and the larger bases, stolen bases are up so far this year. The rule ending the practice of putting three men on one side of the infield and making all of them stay on the infield dirt is a good thing too.
I’m not thrilled with the National League having to adopt the designated hitter on a permanent basis, but I figured it was inevitable. The only rule I really dislike is the continuing rule of starting extra-inning games with a runner on second base.
But playing a nine-inning game in less than two hours makes up for a lot.