Quote:
Originally Posted by RainMaker
I don't understand this argument. The game is now being played at the same pace it was 40 years ago. The 4 hour baseball game was a new phenomenon and this rule changes simply brings it back to the pace of an era that traditionalists claim they love.
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I am not a serious enough baseball fan to be considered a traditionalist IMO. Guys stepping out of the box every pitch, lefty/righty pitching changes every other batter and stuff like that never bothered me personally. That was just the game.
As I said, I appreciate the pace of play rule changes. But for me, when I watch or go to a baseball game, I expect to see nine innings of baseball but I understand the potential of rain outs, shortened games and extra innings. I don't consider how long those nine innings are going to take. Over the next couple of weeks, my son and I are going to two Rays games. One is on a Tuesday, the other is the following Wednesday. As we have done in the past, we will stay until the end of the game. Last year, it meant getting home by ten. Before that it meant getting home right around midnight if we were lucky. If getting home at midnight was not an option we did not go to the game that night. The issue was never the length of the game, it was whether it was enjoyable or not. I will much rather have a four hour game with good pitching, hitting, fielding and base running as opposed to a two hour game with thirty strikeouts, fifteen walks, five home runs and zero stolen bases.
Let's put it a different way. Do we know if the teams want to play this way? Because at least at the games I have watched, teams looked like they were forced to play this type of baseball which they are under the new rules. Now I understand that part of that is teams and organizations were developed for the old rules and it takes time to make those changes organically. However, I suspect that if teams thought that stealing bases, no shifts, and making relief pitchers pitch to at least three batters increased their chances of winning, they would have already been doing it and we would not have needed the rule changes.