MLB Gets A Clue

Shift all ya like, at your own risk; but that other stuff is BS.  They'll probably foist the DH on the NL, tho'.

Thank goodness. Those little league & t-ball rules were the worst thing to happen to baseball since maybe ever.

And since the league is so obsessed with shortening the games it's odd that they're so pushed about the shift that they'll make rules to force teams out of it.

Without shifts hitters are going to be even more pull-happy than ever, and there will naturally be many more hits, baserunners and scoring, which will make the games longer.

Which is all fine with me, but I hate to see it being done with rules that dictate where teams can place their players.

But I'll happily take that, and even the 10-player softball rules DH (which dumbs down and also lengthens games) if it means being rid of 7-inning games and runners on base to start extra innings.

Now.....

GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!

i remember seeing pete rose.

I remember seeking willie Mays

Yeah well MLB and the  networks have been trying to turn  the game into slow pitch  softball for years- been a real drag.

Glad some sense is coming back into it .

I saw Willie play - and Pete Rose.

Great news. Shoot then hang whoever made those horrible decisions in the first place.

I was at every 77 + 78 playoff game vs the Royals at The Stadium,, 2 phenomenal teams. Blew my money load on em, so I never made a WS game.

Manfred is the worst commissioner in modern US sports. The downward spiral of MLB during this tenure is startling.

And the players (who's union also shoulders some of the blame) will most likely strike next year, exacerbating the league's problems.

It's all like a slow motion car accident.

^^^Maybe not the worst^^^   From Bleacher Report....2012

While Gary Bettman does face stiff competition to be known as the worst commissioner in American sports, the NHL lockouts gives him that title.

This is the second lockout in eight years, and the last time the league went down this road, an entire season was canceled. That was the only instance of labor negotiations consuming an entire season, and it happened under Bettman’s watch. For the third time in three tries, Bettman has failed to avoid a situation that hurts the fans. While other league's commissioners have certainly dealt with criticism, none of them are performing as poorly as Bettman.  His past record of letting games get scratched off the schedule is completely unacceptable, and it is why Bettman is unquestionably the worst commissioner in sports. Unfortunately, he has not reached rock bottom yet.

I think it used to take an hour and a half to play nine innings way back when.

I agree Tatters.

>>>I think it used to take an hour and a half to play nine innings<<<

Yeah, I remember games like that, and YUCK!

That's like going to a concert and getting a 45-minute set.

I have no issue with 3 - 4 hour games, especially considering the time and money it costs to go, and I can't believe most real baseball fans are that concerned with the length of games either. That's all about TV money. What's making baseball games more dull lately is the obsession with home runs & strikeouts, which takes away the action of the game and the mental side of pitching & hitting.

Starting pitchers nowadays are all groomed to just blow it out at 95+ and go five or six innings, then have two or three relievers blow it all out, and hitters are all focused on launch angle and home runs, since that's what gets the big money when contract time comes around.

At least the league is noting that and is looking into ways to get the "game" back in the games. I'm not sure I'm going to like the changes they're talking about - no shifts, moving the mound back, making the bags bigger to encourage more stealing and more aggressive base-running, etc. but as much as I enjoy a good Giants dinger, I miss base stealing, double-steals, hit-&-runs, sacrifice/safety/suicide bunts and lots of action on the bases.

I've got a simple solution that would solve all of those issues naturally; move all fences back 35-40 feet. Make it almost impossible to hit home runs and hitters would start focusing on line drives again, shifts would disappear, pitchers would have to focus on craft & deception more than pure MPH, speed would become a major asset again and the game would settle back to a team sport again. Of course that would never happen, mainly because teams would have to take out seats to move the fences back, and that would cost them money.

Anyway, even with the way it's played now, when you're actually at the game baseball is still beautiful to watch.

And Pete Rose? Whoo boy, what a great player, and partier.

In the '70s a friend of mine had an older brother who was good friends with Bill Plummer, the backup catcher for the Big Red Machine, and every time they were in town he'd get great seats. In return for the great seats he would meet up after the first game of every series and supply his buddy with a wide variety of "goodies", and then go back to their hotel and have a real good time with most of that team, with Rose always right in the thick of all of it.

He told some pretty wild stories about that team. He should have written a book.

I got to go one of those times, not to the hotel but I did get to meet Plummer, who introduced us to Johnny Bench & Joe Morgan.

Which was pretty cool.