Baseball exec: Reduce games to seven innings

Jesus, I hope baseball survives with everything that is wrong with it

 

Yeah, it's such a waste of time to keep taking balls out of play. Every single pitch in the dirt is now cause for changing balls. Yet all the ump does is toss it to the ballboy, who puts it in the bag of balls that he eventually brings out to the ump later in the game. So, essentially, the ball is still used in the game. Even worse, they change balls after every pitch in the dirt, but a ball that's hit on the ground to an infielder and thrown to first for the out is tossed back to the pitcher and almost never taken out of play.

 

Wasn't it a thing for pitchers to scuff their own balls by throwing them in the dirt and then they had something to work with when they got it back? Or am I just dreaming that?

 

Limit the number of pitchers a team can use. You should not need 6 or more pitchers in the course of a nine-inning game. Sheesh, in my generation, starting pitchers often pitched complete games. Now it's almost never. I'm fine with bullpens, but when you bring in a pitcher to get one out and then change again...... yeah, it slows the game down.

 

That's pretty damn good.

 

The idiot does make a good point here.

Increase the minimum batters faced to two or three at least. Or limit the on-mound pitching changes to two per team per game, with no more than one in any inning.

 

Eliminate warm up pitches when coming in from the bullpen

 

That's good.

Also: Any mound visit, except for injury, must result in a pitching change. These guys have sophisticated communications systems that allow them to relay every pitch call from the dugout. Surely they can get the message out to the shortstop whether to play in or at double-play depth.

 

In what we consider the four major sports -- baseball, football, hockey, basketball -- baseball is the only one that does not have a "delay of game" penalty. Five yards in football, a technical foul and free throw in basketball, two minutes in the box in hockey.

If the pitcher doesn't throw within a certain amount of time, it's a ball. If the batter steps out too many times or for too long, it's a strike. Repeat violations result in an automatic walk or out. If they can give you a power play, 5 yards or a free throw, then baseball can assess an out or a walk.

 

I'd amend my 4) above to make it a 60-second count from the moment the manager signals for a pitching change until the first pitch must be delivered. If the reliever can jog in from the bullpen within 30 seconds or so and have enough time left to throw two or three warmup pitches from the mound, OK. But when that one-minute clock hits :00, be ready to pitch.

 

So if they shorten it to seven innings, do the players get to go out for pizza and ice cream with mommy and daddy after the game?

 

Line up at the concession stand for free snow cones.