Baseball has changed quite a bit from the game that was originally played in the 19th century. However, those changes have been so gradual that the modern-day fan is often surprised to hear about some of the old rules. Even today’s young fans have always watched the game with a Designated Hitter in one league and the infield-fly rule in both.
I don’t care for some of the changes that have happened in my lifetime while there are others that I believe were a good idea. Some of the changes are in the rulebooks and some of them have to do with baseball in general.
For example, the rotation of umpiring crews through both leagues during the season was an excellent change. There was always a notion that the strike zone differed between the leagues. Now it would be difficult to make that claim when comparing pitchers’ stats, since the same umpires are calling the balls and strikes in both leagues.
The aforementioned infield fly rule was a good addition to the rulebook. Nowadays one rarely sees a player let the ball drop deliberately, because there is still the chance that a runner could try to tag up and advance.
It occasionally occurs to me when I’m watching a game or reading a recap that there are some changes I’d like to see. Some of them are my idea and some have been suggested every season without real consideration by MLB. They pertain to rules or to procedures in general. I’m serious about (almost) all of them.
Official Scorekeeper – The official scorekeepers are employees of the commissioner’s office, but they usually work only one ballpark (or two if they reside in an area with more than one team). Sometimes there is a rotation of scorekeepers for one or two ballparks in an area.
For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area there are four scorekeepers who rotate between Pacific Bell Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants, and Network Associates Coliseum, the home of the Oakland Athletics. They are scheduled by one of the team.
MLB should rotate scorekeepers throughout the leagues, just like they rotate the umpiring crews. Scorekeepers would travel in teams of two, and be scheduled by the league. Again like the umpires, a team would work one series and then move on to another series in another ballpark.
Although I am sure the majority of scorekeepers are fair and do the best job they can, home team bias often influences a decision. While a scorekeeping decision usually only affects player stats, sometimes the effect can be major.
An example would be a ball put into play, when the pitcher is throwing a no-hitter. If the fielder does not make the catch or field the ball sufficiently to get the runner out at first, it is up to the official scorekeeper to decide if the batter gets a hit or the fielder gets an error. Often the decision is made in favor of the home team.
Rotating scorekeepers would virtually eliminate the chance that the decision would be biased. Having two scorekeepers per game would also give two perspectives or total agreement.
Day Game After Traveling – Teams sometimes have to travel across the country after a night game to start a series the next day. Oftentimes the first game of the series is a day game. This is especially difficult when flying from the Left Coast to the East, since the traveling team also loses three hours.
If a team’s getaway game is a night game and they have to travel to their next series that starts the next day, the first game of the series should be a night game also. This would at least give the traveling team an opportunity to get some sleep and shake some of the jet lag before taking the field.
This should be across the board no matter where the team has to travel, whether it be from Los Angeles to San Diego or Seattle to Tampa Bay. There have been times when a team has asked their host to reschedule the get away game to a night game and the host has refused. That may be part of the strategy of the game, but it jeopardizes the health of the players and really does not put the best product on the field for the fans.
Fines – Let’s see fines become a bit more equitable. Instead of letting MLB arbitrarily assign fines for infractions such as bumping an umpire, arguing strikes, etc., how about if MLB makes the fines a percentage of players’ gross salaries?
How many times have we felt disgusted when some big-money veteran gets fined a couple of thousand for throwing his bat, since we all know that’s just a spit in the ocean to a multi-million dollar player? On the other hand, the same fine to a kid making the major league minimum may seem unfair.
I suggest that fines for the big infractions be set so that the fines actually are a deterrent to the behavior. Isn’t that supposed to be the point of fines in the first place? If a player knows he is going to be fined, say, 5% of his monthly gross income if he bumps the umpire, maybe he’ll think twice whether that 5% equals $1500 or $25,000. Relatively either of those figures could represent a big chunk of change.
On the other hand, if a player knows he is going to get fined a half-percent of his monthly salary if he mouths off about a strike call, maybe it would be worth it to him to go ahead and mouth off. Anyway you perceive it, letting MLB arbitrarily decide on the amount of fines is archaic at best.
Warning Both Benches After A Batter Is Hit – Currently it is up to the home plate umpire to decide when to issue a warning after a player has been hit by a pitch. Most of the time the umpire doesn’t issue the warning until a player from both teams has been hit.
The umpire should not be able to issue the warning UNTIL both teams have had a player hit. The first team to have a player hit deserves the right to retaliate. Should that team choose not to retaliate, no harm done. If retaliation happens, then the umpire can issue the warning.
I will take this a bit further – if one team is doing all the plunking, the umpire should be able to warn just that team. There is no reason to take away the other team’s right to retaliate. The past two years it seems as if the umpires are warning the benches much too soon.
Random Drug Testing – Just do it. The list of banned substances should be reviewed and made current, and then random testing should be implemented. Not all players should be tested but all players should be subject to testing at any time during spring training, the season and the postseason.
The players’ union be damned. This is too important to players’ health and the health of thousands of young athletes who look to these men for inspiration.
Baseball Commissioner – Get Bud Selig out of there. He says he’ll step down in 2006, we’ll see.
And now some I would like to see that probably won’t happen:
Sugar – Most ballparks will not sell alcohol after the 7th inning. I propose that they stop selling sugar to anyone under 16 years old at the same time. Drunks are bad enough, but the 10-year-olds full of cotton candy, malts and churros can be worse by the time the 8th inning rolls around.
I had one kid in my row that got up to buy something at least three times an inning until there were no more vendors to be seen. Since I sit on the aisle and he was 10 seats in, I saw the entire inventory of what the kid consumed in two-and-a-half hours and it wasn’t pretty. By the end of the game he didn’t look so much like a boy as he did a Tasmanian Devil in full spin. He wasn’t being naughty, he just couldn’t keep still.
Let’s cut off the little monsters’ fuel supply in the 7th. Wait, let’s do it in the 5th.
Guarding The Line – How many players does it take to guard the line while the reliever is warming up in the bullpen? If you’re the Philadelphia Phillies, the answer is “as many as we can crowd behind the bullpen catcher”.
The Phillies aren’t alone either. In those ballparks that have the bullpens down the lines, it is customary to have a player guard the line to either warn the bullpen denizens to get out of the way, or to run after errant balls that escape from the bullpen.
I sit in front of the visitors’ bullpen at Pacific Bell Park, and I sat in the same basic area at Candlestick when it was the Giants’ bullpen. I’ve seen as many as four players standing around behind the bullpen catchers watching the game. They all block at least three sections’ worth of view from the fans in the first five rows. It's like trying to see the game through a forest of tree trunks.
One guy guarding the line is enough! And it doesn’t have to be the tallest or widest guy, either. All the rest of them should go back to the dugout or the seats in the bullpen or the showers. Just get out of our way.
One last thing. Can someone please bring back the game-winning RBI stat? I liked that one. I don’t know why. I miss it.
http://www.jtthebrick.com/fanclub/mlbfans/article.asp?team=MLB&id=38852
I don’t care for some of the changes that have happened in my lifetime while there are others that I believe were a good idea. Some of the changes are in the rulebooks and some of them have to do with baseball in general.
For example, the rotation of umpiring crews through both leagues during the season was an excellent change. There was always a notion that the strike zone differed between the leagues. Now it would be difficult to make that claim when comparing pitchers’ stats, since the same umpires are calling the balls and strikes in both leagues.
The aforementioned infield fly rule was a good addition to the rulebook. Nowadays one rarely sees a player let the ball drop deliberately, because there is still the chance that a runner could try to tag up and advance.
It occasionally occurs to me when I’m watching a game or reading a recap that there are some changes I’d like to see. Some of them are my idea and some have been suggested every season without real consideration by MLB. They pertain to rules or to procedures in general. I’m serious about (almost) all of them.
Official Scorekeeper – The official scorekeepers are employees of the commissioner’s office, but they usually work only one ballpark (or two if they reside in an area with more than one team). Sometimes there is a rotation of scorekeepers for one or two ballparks in an area.
For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area there are four scorekeepers who rotate between Pacific Bell Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants, and Network Associates Coliseum, the home of the Oakland Athletics. They are scheduled by one of the team.
MLB should rotate scorekeepers throughout the leagues, just like they rotate the umpiring crews. Scorekeepers would travel in teams of two, and be scheduled by the league. Again like the umpires, a team would work one series and then move on to another series in another ballpark.
Although I am sure the majority of scorekeepers are fair and do the best job they can, home team bias often influences a decision. While a scorekeeping decision usually only affects player stats, sometimes the effect can be major.
An example would be a ball put into play, when the pitcher is throwing a no-hitter. If the fielder does not make the catch or field the ball sufficiently to get the runner out at first, it is up to the official scorekeeper to decide if the batter gets a hit or the fielder gets an error. Often the decision is made in favor of the home team.
Rotating scorekeepers would virtually eliminate the chance that the decision would be biased. Having two scorekeepers per game would also give two perspectives or total agreement.
Day Game After Traveling – Teams sometimes have to travel across the country after a night game to start a series the next day. Oftentimes the first game of the series is a day game. This is especially difficult when flying from the Left Coast to the East, since the traveling team also loses three hours.
If a team’s getaway game is a night game and they have to travel to their next series that starts the next day, the first game of the series should be a night game also. This would at least give the traveling team an opportunity to get some sleep and shake some of the jet lag before taking the field.
This should be across the board no matter where the team has to travel, whether it be from Los Angeles to San Diego or Seattle to Tampa Bay. There have been times when a team has asked their host to reschedule the get away game to a night game and the host has refused. That may be part of the strategy of the game, but it jeopardizes the health of the players and really does not put the best product on the field for the fans.
Fines – Let’s see fines become a bit more equitable. Instead of letting MLB arbitrarily assign fines for infractions such as bumping an umpire, arguing strikes, etc., how about if MLB makes the fines a percentage of players’ gross salaries?
How many times have we felt disgusted when some big-money veteran gets fined a couple of thousand for throwing his bat, since we all know that’s just a spit in the ocean to a multi-million dollar player? On the other hand, the same fine to a kid making the major league minimum may seem unfair.
I suggest that fines for the big infractions be set so that the fines actually are a deterrent to the behavior. Isn’t that supposed to be the point of fines in the first place? If a player knows he is going to be fined, say, 5% of his monthly gross income if he bumps the umpire, maybe he’ll think twice whether that 5% equals $1500 or $25,000. Relatively either of those figures could represent a big chunk of change.
On the other hand, if a player knows he is going to get fined a half-percent of his monthly salary if he mouths off about a strike call, maybe it would be worth it to him to go ahead and mouth off. Anyway you perceive it, letting MLB arbitrarily decide on the amount of fines is archaic at best.
Warning Both Benches After A Batter Is Hit – Currently it is up to the home plate umpire to decide when to issue a warning after a player has been hit by a pitch. Most of the time the umpire doesn’t issue the warning until a player from both teams has been hit.
The umpire should not be able to issue the warning UNTIL both teams have had a player hit. The first team to have a player hit deserves the right to retaliate. Should that team choose not to retaliate, no harm done. If retaliation happens, then the umpire can issue the warning.
I will take this a bit further – if one team is doing all the plunking, the umpire should be able to warn just that team. There is no reason to take away the other team’s right to retaliate. The past two years it seems as if the umpires are warning the benches much too soon.
Random Drug Testing – Just do it. The list of banned substances should be reviewed and made current, and then random testing should be implemented. Not all players should be tested but all players should be subject to testing at any time during spring training, the season and the postseason.
The players’ union be damned. This is too important to players’ health and the health of thousands of young athletes who look to these men for inspiration.
Baseball Commissioner – Get Bud Selig out of there. He says he’ll step down in 2006, we’ll see.
And now some I would like to see that probably won’t happen:
Sugar – Most ballparks will not sell alcohol after the 7th inning. I propose that they stop selling sugar to anyone under 16 years old at the same time. Drunks are bad enough, but the 10-year-olds full of cotton candy, malts and churros can be worse by the time the 8th inning rolls around.
I had one kid in my row that got up to buy something at least three times an inning until there were no more vendors to be seen. Since I sit on the aisle and he was 10 seats in, I saw the entire inventory of what the kid consumed in two-and-a-half hours and it wasn’t pretty. By the end of the game he didn’t look so much like a boy as he did a Tasmanian Devil in full spin. He wasn’t being naughty, he just couldn’t keep still.
Let’s cut off the little monsters’ fuel supply in the 7th. Wait, let’s do it in the 5th.
Guarding The Line – How many players does it take to guard the line while the reliever is warming up in the bullpen? If you’re the Philadelphia Phillies, the answer is “as many as we can crowd behind the bullpen catcher”.
The Phillies aren’t alone either. In those ballparks that have the bullpens down the lines, it is customary to have a player guard the line to either warn the bullpen denizens to get out of the way, or to run after errant balls that escape from the bullpen.
I sit in front of the visitors’ bullpen at Pacific Bell Park, and I sat in the same basic area at Candlestick when it was the Giants’ bullpen. I’ve seen as many as four players standing around behind the bullpen catchers watching the game. They all block at least three sections’ worth of view from the fans in the first five rows. It's like trying to see the game through a forest of tree trunks.
One guy guarding the line is enough! And it doesn’t have to be the tallest or widest guy, either. All the rest of them should go back to the dugout or the seats in the bullpen or the showers. Just get out of our way.
One last thing. Can someone please bring back the game-winning RBI stat? I liked that one. I don’t know why. I miss it.
http://www.jtthebrick.com/fanclub/mlbfans/article.asp?team=MLB&id=38852
