INTENTIONAL SQUAWK
VACCARO: WHY RULE CHANGE IS BAD FOR BASEBALL
BASEBALL’S Players Association is always best when it keeps its membership wellheeled, squeezing every nickel for its rank-and-file millionaires from the billionaires who would keep that cash hidden in their mattresses.
As commandants of commerce, the PA knows few peers.
As guardians of the game, less so
The PA erred in a big way, and has put the sport in a quiet but very real peril. By refusing to negotiate a few issues that might have helped quicken the pace of play, the union nudged open a window and propped open a door to let the imagination of commissioner Rob Manfred roam free.
And that could be a very dangerous thing.
Altering the strike zone, installing a pitch clock and limiting the number of mound visits may sound like radical incursions to a game whose rules have been guarded with zeal for a century. But those three items have one thing in common: they all deal with variances and variables, not the heart of the rules themselves.
What Manfred has in his hands now is a cudgel of revenge, one that strikes at the game’s very es- sence. And that’s terrifying, because Manfred is brilliant enough to know how to use it — but his ideas are scary enough that allowing him access near the game’s soul threatens its essence. And you can believe he won’t be
afraid to use it. Manfred’s immediate weapon is to unilaterally enact a rule where intentional walks can be issued by proclamation from the dugout rather than issued from the pitcher’s mound. Forget again the long-forgotten outlier examples that surfaced Wednesday proving the IBB isn’t always an E-ZPass; for the first time, ever, a player. will be allowed to take first base without ever facing a pitch.
That is a fundamental change. You’ll notice that when the NFL grew tired of the extra point, it didn’t just settle for a sevenpoint touchdown, it made the PAT harder — but still included it. Because continuity in such matters are supposed to be important.
And here’s the thing: this is just the tip of the Manfred iceberg.
He has already shown varying degrees of support for such antipurist atrocities as starting extra innings with a runner on second base, and for reducing walks to three balls and strikeouts to two strikes. And, again, don’t blame Manfred here. He has identified slow play as the 1919 Black Sox of his tenure. This is his crusade. And his first offerings would have kept his fingers away from the rules of play.
The PA refused to talk about them.
And now what we all have is an emboldened commissioner ready to test his powers in a most extraordinary way. There is a simple solution to everyone’s problem here: make a small but essential change to replay.
Each team gets three challenges. But you get exactly five seconds from the umpire’s call to use one.
That’s it. Five seconds. Replay was supposed to eliminate egregious mistakes. If you need more than a few seconds to ponder it, it wasn’t egregious. And then move on.
That actually does help pace. It takes huge gaps of inactivity from the game. And maybe it buys time until Manfred can cast his eyes on other problems.
Preferably, ones that really are problems.