Union leader: Minimal rule changes
Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, listens to the idea that baseball needs to step up with the times and just doesn’t buy the need for dramatic change.
Clark assured reporters Sunday afternoon in a 90-minute news conference that the only potential rule change this year would be the possible altering of the intentional walk. That’s it. He scoffed at the idea of imposing an extra-inning rule at the big-league level that would start the 10th inning with a runner at second base, as MLB will experiment with deep in the minor leagues. There won’t be a pitch clock. And the elimination of the low strike, which naturally invoked a difference of opinion be- tween hitters and pitchers, won’t change, at least in the near future.
“So how do you have a conversation about more offense in less period of time,” Clark said, “with a guy on the mound dictating terms?”
The game of baseball, Clark insists, even with games lasting three hours, is doing just fine.
“There has been so much dialogue the last few years,” Clark said, “that changing or making adjustment is becoming more challenging when taking into account the industry as a whole and how it’s doing.
“Guys understand innovation. I don’t know if there’s a more vested group than the players when it comes to the always-dangerous proposition of our game turning into something that, love it and respect it, (they) don’t recognize it as much anymore.”
Sure, games lasted three hours last season, but Clark doesn’t see the dead time in games, saying instead baseball should use the time to educate the public on its nuances.
Clark, 44, a 15-year major league veteran, addressed myriad topics:
He was perturbed by New York Yankees President Randy Levine’s comments ridiculing the $5 million arbitration request by reliever Dellin Betances and his agent, even after the Yankees prevailed at $3 million.
“The most troubling thing is that conversation and the particulars related to that case was made public,” Clark said, “which is unprecedented and unprofes- sional and should never have happened in the fashion it did.”
Clark will closely monitor effects from executive orders on immigration signed by President Trump. St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Dexter Fowler told ESPN that he was upset that the ban of immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries might prevent him and his wife, Darya, who was born in Iran, from visiting the country in the near future.
“There are a lot of concerns,” Clark said. “There have always been a lot of concerns. We have challenges every offseason, but, admittedly, the climate is even more different than it has been in the past. … We don’t know how it will affect our guys.”
The union is concerned that Major League Baseball is open to the idea of revisiting its stance on legalized gambling on baseball.
“Yes, particularly considering our history,” Clark said, “and everyone in here knows it very well.”