Baseball’s history is intertwined with America’s in numerous complicated ways. From racial integration to labor issues to players literally leaving the sport to fight during wartime, the sport has earned its calling as America’s pastime.
So I’m not here to argue that nothing should ever change or that all progress is bad. We don’t need to Make Baseball Great Again or anything.
But with all due respect to Major League Baseball history — and its crucial improvements over time — it’s hard not to feel like the league is overcomplicating things these days. In its ongoing — and quite American — quest for higher ratings and revenues, the league has taken to tampering with some of the nuances that make the game beautiful. And it’s fundamentally changing the experience of watching a game.
The debate over pace of play is the main culprit these days. But if baseball games are taking too long, why are we pausing the game to watch replay reviews? It’s such a massive interruption to the flow of a naturally slow game. At some point we decided that we can’t live with the types of missed calls that have been part of baseball for more than 150 years. Instead, we get camera shots of helpless managers standing on the top dugout step looking backward at a coach on a phone asking the team replay guy whether to challenge the call. They’re literally phoning a friend to see what they should do in a baseball game.
If these obnoxious delays weren’t bad enough, the replay rules have taken away one of the more narrative aspects of the game: managers arguing with umpires. Forcing Major League Baseball managers to stay in the dugout or be ejected upon setting a second foot onto the field is basically un-American. These interactions were often relevant strategically (also funny — go watch YouTube videos of the best managerial blowups) and important for managers to affect the game’s flow and to rally their guys. It’s not only for the amusement of witnessing the guys in the blue shirts being belittled or publicly humiliated — it’s OK that they miss calls now and then — it’s just part of the game. And it was interesting and amusing.
At least it was before MLB installed all these rigid machinations to ensure that every call is right.
Remember when catchers used to call timeout after a foul ball bashed a home plate umpire in the shoulder? The unnecessary jaunt out to the mound was a gesture of consideration unparalleled in major sports — there’s no harm in wasting a few extra seconds during a baseball game to give a man a breather. Umpires would, of course, reciprocate after a particularly nasty foul drilled a catcher. It’s funny how many unnecessary tasks umpires can find to kill a few extra seconds, from refilling their pouch of balls to wiping off home plate to slowly walking halfway to the mound before tossing a ball to the pitcher. Just a couple grown men wearing lots of padding for three hours during a 90-degree summer day, feeling each other’s pain behind home plate.
Unfortunately for umpires today, such a gesture by a catcher would cost the defensive team an all-important “mound visit,” MLB’s version of a sacred pilgrimage that both honors one’s ancestors and ensures that viewers see one additional Chevy commercial per hour. But that sort of pause was never really the problem, and another damn number counting down on the scoreboard isn’t going to add to the game’s excitement. The fact that pitching coaches feel the need to walk their old asses all the way to the mound to settle down a rattled hurler just goes to show how cerebral the game actually is. Sure, they also do it to waste time while relievers warm up. But it’s still part of game strategy and actually quite interesting — a few moments that allow broadcasters to reset the scene the same way the pitching coach is for the entire infield.
Which brings us to the obnoxious concept of pitch clocks. And starting extra innings with a runner on second base. These are the worst of the worst new ideas, and it would be hard to imagine Major League Baseball even considering such radical, obtrusive changes if we hadn’t already seen how willing the league is to change what doesn’t need to be changed.
You can’t force the type of tension that makes baseball so different than other American sports — it’s a slow grind over 162 games all summer long, every contest a “titanic struggle,” as Cincinnati Reds hall of fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman would say.
Baseball doesn’t need to be “fixed.” It’s been just fine for a long time, and it would be great if everyone could calm down and enjoy it — however long it takes.
Follow Danny @_dannycross_.
