TAMPA – Baseball officials need to address what has become a mounting level of attention-suffocating inactivity during games.
There is no perfect way to do that. The most imperfect decision, however, would be to do nothing, to continue to act like this is not a problem that is hurting the game overall, particularly in recruiting a younger demographic of fans.
So new commissioner Rob Manfred moved it to a top priority of his administration and on Friday – in conjunction with the Players Association – announced several items intended to address pace of game.
Immediately, you could see problems in implementation of, say, asking players to keep one foot in the batter’s box at all times. There is a gray area of when a player may abandon even that one foot and further gray area of how each umpire will interpret when players can ignore the rule.
There are going to be trouble spots with this and also with MLB installing clocks in each ballpark designed to have action re-launch as soon as commercial breaks between half-innings end. It could, for example, cut into the routine of how a pitcher warms up. The press release on this matter acknowledged alterations might need to be made with the season in progress to address defects.
But this is really about goodwill with all on the field – players, managers, umpires – seeing the big picture: All the standing around is not good for the present or the future of the game. Not when short attention spans see the dead time as a reason not to attend a game or to click their remote to something else.
The goodwill has to be there because right now the punishment for these new rules is essentially a warning, with fines assessed only for the most flagrant of offenses and only after April is complete.
Manfred is trying to be proactive here. Yes, the game is popular and financially flourishing. But let’s not act like this is not an issue that won’t mushroom if not addressed. Heck, I would have gone much further. For example, forbid all visits to the mound by players, coaches or managers except to remove a pitcher from the game.
And Manfred’s administration might try to go further. He already has ordered installing pitch clocks at all Double-A and Triple-A games as a forerunner to potentially bringing it to the majors.
At present, the union appears against such an implementation. Fine. Then bring the goodwill to this to make it work, and then all the clock in the minors will be is a further experiment to gauge how it works in games and a learning tool minor leaguers will have in their heads when they graduate to the majors.