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No, Baseball Isn't 'Doomed' Or Even Broken -- It's Still Beautiful

No, Baseball Isn't 'Doomed' Or Even Broken -- It's Still Beautiful

Now that the Major League Baseball season is well under way, with fans like me relieved and happy to have our absorbing summer pastime back, spectators returning to the ballpark, and interesting playoff races in all six divisions, it's time for the annual spate of "baseball is doomed" articles presaging the game's inevitable decline and fall.

"Baseball Is Broken" reads a prototypical headline in The Atlantic, of all places, not normally known for sports writing. "Once a generation," according to author Devin Brooks" the game of baseball suffers through a fun crisis, and the story of this MLB season so far is how alarmingly not fun baseball has become."

The big complaint is that pitchers—bigger, stronger, and throwing harder than ever—have gotten the upper hand over batters, leading to an MLB-wide decline in batting averages and a whole lot of strikeouts. Also a decline in situational hitting, i.e. hit-and-run plays, hitting behind base runners to move them along, bunting, and so on.

Many fans have been complaining, particularly in New York, where the Yankees have been whiffing at prodigious rates. I can't say I was personally disappointed to see eight of the last nine Yankees batters fan during a taut contest against the Red Sox last week. Boston pitchers threw some unhittable stuff. When it's 97 mph on the black edge of the plate at the knees…

Well, you try to hit it.

As a one-time pitcher during the Late Middle Ages—we played with rounded stones and cudgels—I found it thrilling. The Red Sox won zero games at Yankee Stadium during last year's Covid-shortened season.

Besides, the two teams will square off another 18 times during the regular season. Part of the beauty of the game for serious fans is that they do it almost every day. You know how your grandma used to watch her daily TV soap opera? For me, that's MLB baseball: an entertainment, an ongoing saga, and a refuge from…

Well, what have you got? For me it's mainly politics, a couple or three blessed hours without a word about Democrats, Republicans, or even the happy peregrinations of "The Second Gentleman."

It's definitely a TV show. Due to a combination of circumstances, I watched four consecutive Red Sox broadcasts last week with four different announcing crews: Houston's, Boston's, Fox Sports' and ESPN's.

Regardless of which team you support, it makes a big difference. The Astros need a serious energy transfusion in the broadcast booth. For all his star power, ESPN's Alex Rodriguez was droning on like a priest saying a 6 a.m. mass until he hit upon the topic of the 2021 Yankee team's deficiencies. That earned him a well-deserved headline in the New York Times.

Good pitching really plays on TV, especially with an expert commentator (and unabashed flake) like Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley calling them. "If he throws this guy another piece of high cheese," Eck will say, "he'll miss it by a foot." And most often, that's exactly what happens.

But back to The Atlantic and baseball's "fun crisis." What apparently set author Devin Brooks off was a seeming misunderstanding. His piece appears with the following correction: "This article previously misstated that Tyler Duffey beaned Yermin Mercedes. In fact, he threw behind Mercedes."

That is, instead of assault with a deadly weapon, the Minnesota Twins pitcher made a symbolic gesture to convey the message: "We didn't like you showing us up yesterday. You need to show more respect."

Duffey was suspended for three days, and his manager for one.

What precipitated the whole kerfluffle was slugger Mercedes ignoring a take sign from his manager, the venerable Tony La Russa, and hitting a 3-0 meatball from a position player, catcher Willians "La Tortuga" Astudillo, 420 feet for a home run in the ninth inning of a 15-4 game.

See, by bringing in a position player, Minnesota was conceding the game, and by hitting what amounted to a batting practice home run, Mercedes was rubbing it in. Baseball's unwritten rules can be subtle. Had the count been 3-1, it would presumably have been OK.

La Russa said his player had a lot to learn, several of his White Sox players said their manager himself was out of line, and then the Twins "retaliated." In short, as Brooks comments, "pretty standard big-league macho posturing."

Even if La Russa himself had made the ultimate rookie mistake of playing the "Do you know who I am?" card during a DWI bust last October and flashing his World Series ring. (He eventually pled guilty.)

The only serious baseball issue here is Mercedes ignoring a sign and White Sox players basically saying nobody needs to pay attention to grandpa. If so, then the 76 year-old Hall of Famer (and baseball's second-winningest manager ever) may have lost control of his team. And that wouldn't be funny at all.

MLB Games Keep Getting Longer: 4 Fixes To Pick Up The Pace

MLB Games Keep Getting Longer: 4 Fixes To Pick Up The Pace

When the world threatens to get you down, there is always baseball — an absorbing refuge, an alternate reality entirely unto itself. To a person of my temperament, the MLB package on satellite TV constitutes the entertainment bargain of the century. A man can read and write only so many hours a day.

Sit down, put your feet up, turn on the Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, etc. and it’s certain that He Who Shall Not Be Named, won’t be. Regardless of the follies and imbecilities on the news networks, the focus is on the never-ending narrative and deep minutiae of the game.

There can be controversy, even fierce argument. How dumb were the Red Sox not to sign a power-hitter over the winter? Can a third baseman be found to fill that void? Who to trade? You can’t get something for nothing.

On the tactical level, what was Farrell thinking about bringing Kimbrel on in the eighth? And so on. Any serious fan can talk about such things for hours.

To hear some people tell it, though, the sport’s in trouble. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred worries that the pace of the game is too slow to tear millennials away from their iPhones. No less an authority than conservative columnist (and baseball savant), George F. Will complains that the games are too long: “This year the average nine-inning game is 3 hours and 4 minutes, up 4 minutes from last year and 14 minutes from 2010.”

Actually, that seems about right to me.

Will also frets that there are too many walks, too many strikeouts, too few balls put in play, maybe even too many home runs. Too many relief pitchers over 6-5 throwing 95 mph fastballs at batters swinging from their heels instead of bunting, executing hit-and-run plays, and playing old-fashioned, hit ‘em where they ain’t country hardball.

Few seasoned observers watching all those home runs flying out this season doubt that the baseballs have been “juiced” somehow — although people have been saying this since the 1950s to ritual denials.

If so, it surprises me that some enterprising physics professor can’t prove the contention one way or the other.

But hey, it beats arguing about steroid junkies and Pete Rose.

“MLB’s worsening pace of play,” Will warns, “will not attract generations shaped by ubiquitous entertainments.”

Problem is, nothing in the physical world will tear addicts away from their glowing screens. I sometimes used to tell people who find baseball boring that I found them boring. But the truth is that I became obsessed playing endless hours as a lad. If I’d been good enough I’d have kept playing until they retired my number.

My wife’s childhood friend Brooks Robinson did that, and I pretty much decided I needed to marry her when he gave us World Series tickets one year. She shyly asked would I take her? Um, yeah. I definitely will. Kids who play the game love the game. That’s basically how it goes.

OK confession time: one reason I don’t care so much about long games is that the DVR is my friend. If the broadcast begins at 6 p.m., I begin watching around 7:30, giving me 90 minutes to burn. I watch only commercials featuring Lilly, the endearing AT&T girl.

A reliever ambles in from the bullpen, takes eight warmup pitches, and then there’s a conference at the mound. I zip through the whole thing in maybe 30 seconds. Play ball!

On my TV, that three hour game runs maybe 2:15. Doesn’t everybody do this at home? Why not?

That said, there are several simple rule changes that would definitely perk up the action. First, and most obvious, a 20-second clock between pitches. Some guys just work too slowly on the mound. It’d make them concentrate better, and keep infielders on their toes. It’s already working in the minor leagues.

Second, designated hitters in both leagues. A few pitchers, like San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner, can hit. So let him hit every day. The rest are wasting everybody’s time. The DH extends player careers and makes for more offense.

Third, keep instant replay, but limit umps to 90 seconds. They’re not negotiating the Treaty of Versailles.

No to robo-umps calling strikes. Humans play this game.

Fourth, and maybe most controversial, do away with formerly rare, now-ubiquitous (and stifling) defensive shifts. You want more situational hitting? More singles, doubles, hit-and-run plays? I’m with Yankees manager Joe Girardi: The rule should be two infielders positioned on either side of second base.

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson has another idea. “I would require a pitcher to throw to three hitters,” he told the New York Post. “One, it would speed up the game. Two, and more important, it would change the dynamics of the game in the late innings.”

Boy, would it. Alas, too much to be acceptable to traditionalists like me.