The fascists can't even leave baseball alone.

Just make the batters stay in the box and make the pitchers throw the ball. Simple.

Stop screwing with the best game EVER.

From Tom Gatto of The Sporting News:


MLB gets it wrong — again

I'm running out of clouds to yell at (and I'm not that old) when it comes to Major League Baseball. The commissioner and the players association keep changing rules, and the changes aren't for the better.

The announcement Tuesday that intentional walks will no longer require actual pitches being thrown is the latest miscue.

Beginning this season, hitters will be told to "Take your base" or something to that effect when they get near the batter's box. Just like that, they'll make their way to first base. It's all in the name of shaving seconds off the times of games, you know. And yes, we are talking seconds.

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Some quick math shows the folly of this decision.

Last season, major league teams issued 932 intentional walks. At four pitches per walk, that's 3,728 pitches. Granted, not every intentional walk included four intentional balls: Some were thrown after the count went to, say, 2-0, 3-0 or 3-1 as teams pitched around batters. But for the sake of this argument, let's say all the wide ones were intentional, with the catcher holding out his arm and all that.

FOSTER: Pace of play is just fine

That's 3,728 pitches spread out over the 2,428 regular-season games played in 2016. That is, on average ... 1.54 pitches per game.

MLB and the players, therefore, have agreed to jack around with game play to save the time needed to throw a pitch and a half per game. I don't care how long a nervous pitcher may need to throw that pitch and a half; it isn't nearly enough to merit such a radical change to the rules.

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And it is a radical change. Not every intentional ball is perfectly executed (see the ending to Tuesday's Stephen F. Austin-Texas A&M game). The Yankees' Gary Sanchez reminded us last September that a hitter can swing at any pitch, wherever it's thrown. That's why teams try (well, tried) to keep intentional balls far away from hitters.

The change to the intentional walk rule adds to baseball's growing rules Hall of Shame. The slide rule. Increased use of replay. The shrinking strike zone. The potential ruination of extra innings.

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Fans and pundits rightly complain about the real drags on the pace of play, such as the TV commercial breaks between half-innings (MLB responded to that by putting a clock on the players, as if they were lollygagging), multiple mound conferences and pitchers who take forever to go to the plate with runners on base.

The conferences are being reviewed, but there's little chance of the other two things changing. Owners won't give up a penny in rights fees so networks can show fewer ads, and the union is against a pitch clock at the major league level.

At least we don't have to sit through pitchers throwing four wide ones anymore. Nothing ever went wrong with them anyway, right?

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.