Baseball moving in wrong direction

Last weekend I saw one of the worst things to ever occur in baseball history.

No, it wasn't the Houston Astros cheating scandal. It wasn't eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox throwing the World Series. It wasn't steroids and no, it wasn't Kenesaw Mountain Landis not allowing Black players into the sport until 1947.

Those are all actually all worse than what I witnessed.

Still, what I saw last week irked me to no end — it was like the sport decided to take the best thing it had going for it and made it the worst. If this was a trade, it was Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson, Pedro Martinez for Delino Deshields.

Baseball traded having no clock to not only having a clock, but ending a game because of one.

It was only a spring training game, but Cal Conley of the Atlanta Braves had a 3-2 count in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded in a tie game against the Boston Red Sox. The crowd was on its feet anticipating what would happen next.

And the ending was worse than the Seinfeld finale.

Conly thought he had won his team's game with a two-out, bases-loaded walk. He began to go toward first base when the umpire, John Libka, said “You're actually out on strike three.” It turns out Conley wasn't set in the box as the clock wound under eight seconds. The penalty is an automatic strike.

The game was over and ended in a tie.

A tie. In baseball. Due to the game not moving fast enough.

Before this year baseball didn't have a clock, at least not like this. It was the one thing that made it better than any other sport.

I'm not saying every pitcher should be like former Los Angeles Dodger Pedro Baez, also known as the human rain delay, or every batter should be like former Cleveland Indian Mike Hargrove or former Boston Red Sox Nomar Garciaparra — each known to step in and out of the box so much you thought it was a square dance.