Ohtani’s greatness, Rangers title
The year 2023 won’t be remembered fondly among Red Sox fans, but across baseball as a whole this was a banner season that saw the game take big steps forward after years of stagnation and strife.
With the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockout fully in the rearview mirror, baseball turned its focus to the future and embraced long-overdue changes that helped reinvigorate the sport. The result was one of the most exciting seasons in recent memory.
Now as the calendar turns to 2024, here are some of baseball’s biggest and most important highlights of the past year.
Pitch clock changes the game
Every year it seemed like the games kept getting longer. There were more pitching changes, more stoppages and every pitch felt like an interminable slog. With apologies to Rob Bradford, baseball was getting boring, and even the sport’s most ardent diehards had to admit something needed to change.
Enter the pitch clock, which immediately helped set the game back on the right path.
It’s impossible to overstate the pitch clock’s impact on the sport. Without all that dead time games moved at a much quicker pace, with the same amount of action now condensed into a more enjoyable viewing experience. Shorter games also meant fewer games dragging deep into the night, which made it easier for fans to stay up and watch even when they had school or work the next morning.
Overall the average length of a nine-inning game dropped to 2 hours and 40 minutes, a 24-minute decrease from 2022, and according to MLB the sport also saw a spike in batting average and the most stolen bases in nearly 40 years. Even though the Red Sox still averaged some of the longest games in MLB, their games went from a bloated 3:11 to a much more manageable 2:45.
The pitch clock still has its critics, especially among players who feel it has contributed to a rise in pitcher injuries, but there’s no denying it’s had the desired effect on improving baseball’s lackadaisical pace.
Rangers end 62-year drought
A decade ago it looked as if Texas’ time had finally come. The Rangers made back-toback World Series in 201011 and in the latter instance came within one strike of finishing off the St. Louis Cardinals. Then the birds rallied in stunning fashion, and the Rangers were left to wonder how it all slipped away.
This time Texas wouldn’t be denied.
This October the Rangers ended one of baseball’s longest title droughts, winning their first World Series in franchise history by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in a decisive five-game beatdown. Having overcome a brutal run of injuries that nearly kept them out of the playoffs entirely, Texas rolled through the postseason and went undefeated in road playoff games, capping off its run with a 5-0 shutout in the clinching Game 5 at Chase Field.
With the win Bruce Bochy earned his fourth World Series victory as a manager, and the franchise snapped a 62year title drought stretching back to the club’s founding as the Washington Senators in 1961. The club relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and became the Rangers in 1972, and now Texas is well set up to contend for another championship in the coming years.
An all-time World Baseball Classic
Before the season even began fans were treated to an incredible showcase, as many of baseball’s biggest stars represented their countries in what was likely the most successful international baseball tournament ever held.
By most measures the 2023 World Baseball Classic was a triumph, featuring historic attendance and television viewership along with one of the most competitive fields since the tournament was established in 2006. You had the Group of Death featuring powerhouses like the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, along with Cinderella stories like Italy and Australia, each of whom beat out much larger baseball nations to advance to the knockout rounds.
Finally it all culminated in an epic showdown between the defending champion Team USA and Samurai Japan, which was fittingly decided by former Angels teammates Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout facing off against one another with the game on the line for the first time in their careers. Ohtani got the better of the three-time MVP, clinching Japan’s victory and cementing his status as one of Japan’s all-time sporting legends.