Baseball Rules

YOU WANNA SPEED UP THE GAME, MANFRED? TRY ENFORCING THE RULES YOU ALREADY GOT.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · , , , , , , ,

Hey there, speed bags. Yesterday, this season’s eventual World Series champion Chicago Cubs went down to the Marlins, 2-1, in a 17 inning marathon. Seein’ as how that mattress stain, Rob Manfred, has a major chubby over folding up a baseball game nice and neat-like so it fits into his pocket watch, I thought this an opportune time to throw out my own ideas for speedin’ up the game. I figure it’s gonna happen anyway, right? Fighting off Manfred-types is a full time job, and usually a losing battle. They’re everywhere, like [NAME OF LYING POLITICIAN, HERE] or [NAME OF ARROGANT HOLLYWOOD TYPE, HERE] who think they know what’s best for you, me and the rest of humanity, no matter what the subject. And they’re not the least bit shy about tryin’ to force their opinions — or if it’s Harvey Weinstein, his hairy, sweaty, lard-jiggling body — on anyone with a pulse.

In Manfred’s case — in spite of the internet rumors floatin’ around about him and the San Diego Chicken — I’m pretty sure it’s just baseball he’s systematically tryin’ to ruin. And by “just baseball”, I don’t mean to make it sound unimportant, cuz it is, my friend. How important? Well … if there was a moon-size asteroid headin’ towards Earth at a bazillion miles an hour, and we had a choice between figuring out how to avoid the destruction of all life on Earth, or savin’ baseball from the menstruation-like mood swings of Rob Manfred — I’d save baseball. No question. I mean, without baseball (which includes encased meat products, Old Style and curly fries) life’s not worth livin’ anyway. Simple choice.

So, without further adieu (or any adieu at all, for that matter) here are my speed up the game rule suggestions for Mr Womanfred:

Chuck instant replay for a coin flip. (Savings: Between 2 and 5 minutes per review.)

If there’s one thing baseball has done to slow down ball games more than anything (besides giving David Price and Daisuke Matsuzaka major league contracts) it’s allowin’ umpires to review certain plays using instant replay. Lemme tell ya, there’s nothin’ instant about it, pal. As soon as a manager points to the headset technician, you might as well grab your favorite reading material and go drop the kids off at the pool, cuz absolutely nothin’ is happening in the ballgame for at least 5 minutes. Seems like there are a handful of these in every game, too. Problem is, I only got so many kids that need swimmin’ lessons in any given 3 hour period, which makes for a lot of watchin’ umpires standing around.

You gotta ask yourself one question, though: Is the added review time worth gettin’ the calls right? Yes, is the answer. It’s worth it. As someone who’d rather have his left nut removed with a rusty hacksaw than have an umpire screw up a call, I’m willin’ to wait it out. (Boy, am I ever willin’ to wait that out.) But unlike the Commish, I don’t think there’s something wrong with the length of a ballgame.

Consider this: From 2014 thru 2017, there were 5,359 challenges issued in major league games, with the original call being upheld 50.96% of the time. Thursday — opening day 2018 — was right on track with that, too. Six challenges were issued — three upheld and three overturned. Basically blue is right only half of the time on close calls. Not good enough for me.

Now you could just do away with instant replay, which I don’t wanna, but you’d definitely save time. Or … you could replace instant replay with a coin flip. The home plate umpire flips a coin and the call is made by the manager issuing the challenge. The law of averages says it’ll work out about the same as having no replay at all — 50/50. But the arbitrary nature of it, which makes no sense at all, means its exactly like all the other changes Manfred has force-fed Major League Baseball, that also make no sense.

The Major League mercy rule. (Savings: Between 42 and 53 minutes.)

I’m sure half of Manfred’s itch to speed up the game has to do with him wantin’ to get home before his favorite nail salon closes. Here’s an idea … At the conclusion of the 7th inning, a team shall be declared the winner of the game if it has already accumulated a lead of three runs or more. If the differential favors the home team, this determination will be made after the conclusion of the visiting team’s turn at bat.

There you go, Lord Manfred. The first step toward seven inning games, which I know is what you really want.

The three foul ball rule. (Savings: About 1 minute per foul ball saved.)

This would be an addendum to Rule 5.09, “Making an Out.” To the long list (15 in all) of stipulations defining when a batter is out, Manfred could add the following:

A batter is out when, with two strikes, he accumulates three foul balls:
(a) In addition to any that resulted in either or both of the first two strikes;
(b) None of which is legally caught by a fielder;
(c) None of which are foul tips caught by the catcher.

I’ve been to games — tons of ’em — where guys foul off 8 or 10 pitches in an at bat. It’s like Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky on a diamond. (No, White Sox fans, they are not in the Hall of Fame.) It’s friggin’ awesome! Especially when it’s a Cubs player doing the fouling off and a guy like Kershaw getting meat-grinder arm. But Manfred’s bird brain doesn’t understand how great that is; it doesn’t see a duel of wills between pitcher and batter; it doesn’t feel any edge-of-the-seat tension. The Manfred brain just counts the extra minutes that are being added to the elapsed time of the game, which in turn sends signals to the glass-shard, acid-coated, beachball-sized burr he’s got lodged in his backside that make it rotate a time or two.

Note: Based on last years numbers, the rules committee is considering adding a 16th sub-item to “Making an Out” in the official MLB rule book, which would read as follows: “If the player’s name is Jose Bautista.”

Pitching change, smitching change. (Savings: About 12 minutes.)

A helluva lot of extra time is introduced into ballgames due to pitching changes. Limiting them would speed the game up a ton. It sounds like a crazy idea — and it is, my friend — cuz it removes a good portion of the strategy available to managers. Of course, that’s what the Designated Hitter rule did, too, and that sissy thing has been around the junior circuit for decades.

But let’s take a look at the numbers. In 2016, for instance, each team used 4.15 pitchers per game. That means, on average, you’re stoppin’ each game 6.3 times to bring in a new arm and give him his eight warm-up tosses. I figure that’s about 18 minutes.

Possible Manfred rule: Limit pitching changes to two per team, including the closer, should the manager decide to use one. An exception would be made for injury, but other than that, just two pitching changes per nine innings.

Enforce the rules you already got. (Savings: 45.75 minutes.)

Plain and simple, baseball doesn’t need more rules. In fact they could stand to repeal a few, most especially that Designated Hitter abomination. And in regard to speedin’ up the game, Manfred only needs to open up his 2018 Major League Rule Book and check out page 35. Rule 5.07(c), “Pitcher Delays”, which reads as follows:

When the bases are unoccupied, (like anytime the Cubs are playin’ the Cards and the Cards are battin’) the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call “Ball.”

The 12-second timing starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball and the batter is in the box, alert to the pitcher. The timing stops when the pitcher releases the ball.

The intent of this rule is to avoid unnecessary delays. The umpire shall insist that the catcher return the ball promptly to the pitcher, and that the pitcher take his position on the rubber promptly. Obvious delay by the pitcher should instantly be penalized by the umpire.

Given that whiffle ball head of Manfred’s, it’s possible that rule 5.07(c) went in one hole and out another. There’s a good chance of that. Or maybe his dog ate page 35 of his rule book. Whatever it is, we don’t need a pitch clock and rules defining it. Instead, Womanfred needs to man up and tell that group of narcissist’s called Major League Umpires to do their friggin’ jobs and enforce the rules baseball already has.

And here’s why:

Daisuke Matsuzaka’s pitch pace is the slowest in Major League Baseball, averaging a turtle-like 25.9 seconds between pitches. Mark Buehrle gets the rabbit award with a 16.4 second interval. So even though Buehrle is the lightning bolt of big league pitchers, there’s still a lot of molasses in his gearbox.

Let’s shove the probe up that donkey just a little bit further:

Now take the average between Matsuzaka and Buehrle — 21.15 seconds between pitches — and use that as the average pace for all pitchers. That’s 9.15 seconds over the 12 seconds allotted under Rule 5.07(c). Multiply that figure by the number of pitches in a game — 300 (approximately 150 per side, on average) and you get a total of 2,745 seconds. That’s 45.75 minutes. I think there are some marsupials that have shorter gestation periods than that.

So, Manfred, enforce the friggin’ rules you already got, and keep your sticky fingers off of the perfection of the game.

For anyone who feels I’m unfairly pickin’ on Manfred …

Not so. I’ve picked on every Commissioner baseball has ever had, equally. Besides, they haven’t averaged more than 23 brain cells between them (although that figure would be higher if you took Bud Selig out of the equation). Manfred is just the most recent example of the destructive effects that pathological stupidity can have on the game of baseball. Unfortunately, he won’t be the last.

Joe

PUTIN AND MANFRED: DICTATORS SEPARATED AT BIRTH.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez, News · , , , , ,

Not unlike Russia’s Vlad Putin, who pretty much put the “dic” in “dictator”, here in the US-of-A we got ourselves Rob Manfred, who’s doing a bang up job of puttin’ the “dic” in “dictatorial.” In fact I think he’s tryin’ to slip a high hard one into to the sacred and holy game of baseball. One thing is for sure: these two guys are snipped outta the same blood stained cloth, my friend. It’s basically, stand back or take your friggin’ chances.

If you wanna get a feel for how high Manfred’s “Putin factor” is, cast your eyeballs on the statement (below) he made about the new pace-of-play rules he’s ramming down the throats of Major League Baseball. It’s right outta the Kremlin; autocratic totalitarianism veiled in diplomacy, but with spaces between the lines you could parallel park a mobile ICBM launcher in.

“I am pleased that we were able to reach an understanding with the Players Association to take concrete steps to address pace of play with the cooperation of the players,” Manfred said. “My strong preference is to continue to have ongoing dialogue with players on this topic to find mutually acceptable solutions.”

What does that mean in English?

It means that Manfred, in true Omega House fashion, would prefer it if ball players just winced out a “Thank you sir. May I have another?” with each of his Neidermeyer rules, delivered with a sting in the name of speedin’ up a game that’s never ever ever never been based on time. Baseball has a seventh inning stretch, for Chrissakes. It’s a game that unfolds, my friend. It ebbs and meanders. Occasionally it explodes, other times it languishes. Except for trades, though, it doesn’t have a deadline. No clock. No timekeeper. No buzzer. Time doesn’t run out on baseball, no matter how much Manfred and the Snap Chat, instant-gratification, short-attention-span millennials that call themselves “fans” would like it to.

As a result, Lord Manfred is in the midst of makin’ up rules to make baseball more like football — an inferior sport in every way, with the notable exception of cheerleaders. It started with Rule 7.13 and Rule 6.01, both of which take away the freedom of a runner to break up a close play. The reason for these rules, they say, is to protect players. This is a sport, mind you, where guys are throwin’ what basically is a rock about 97 miles an hour within inches of your location. And sometimes they can get a little Wild Thing on you. Follow Manfred’s “protection” logic and it’ll only be a matter of time before hard balls are outlawed and he places an 80 mph speed limit on fastballs. It’s kinda like the NFL and their sissy penalty for tripping. You got 300 lb guys tryin’ to rip each other’s heads off, but you also got a penalty for tripping? What?!

Tictoc, tictoc.

Hell bent on turnin’ baseball into a 30 second commercial, Manfred will see some of his clock management dictates implemented this season. There’s gonna be a timer for pitching changes, for example. Brilliant. What’s that gonna save…a few seconds for each one? It’s not the time it takes to change pitchers that’s too long, it’s how many friggin’ pitching changes are made in one game. If you got a couple of Mike Scioscia’s in the dugouts, you might not get home before your carriage turns back into a pumpkin.

But that’s not the clock that matters. Womanfred also wants to hamstring the drama between pitcher and hitter by instituting a 20-second countdown timer between pitches, and a between-batter clock, so hitters can’t screw with a pitcher’s rhythm. These are time honored traditions that are part of the game, not somethin’ you send to baseball Siberia on a personal whim. The good news is the trouser snake didn’t get either one. Not yet, anyway.

Manfreds misguided mandates.

What he did get was a win on mound visits, now limited to six non-pitching-change pow-wows per nine-inning game, with one added visit permitted (gee-wiz, thank you, your worship) in each extra inning. And I’m not just talkin’ managers and coaches trottin’ out to the bump, either. It means any player (including the catcher) leavin’ his position to chat with the pitcher counts as a visit.

It’s also considered a mound visit if the pitcher leaves the mound to confer with another player. Question: How the hell can it be a mound visit if it ain’t on the mound?! That’s like sayin’ a ball landing in foul territory is fair. Of course as long as you have CB Bucknor out there, that’s always a possibility. But I’m just sayin’.

There will be free trips to moundville to check on an injury, or after a new hitter is announced, or if there’s confusion between pitchers and catchers over signs. (I predict about 30-40% more confusion this season.)

Thankfully, the MLBPA ain’t exactly skippin’ to My Lou with Womanfred on this crap. In fact the Union hasn’t formally consented to anything. They’re goin’ along … for now. But as Player Association Chief, Tony Clark, put it, the players “remain concerned about rule changes that could alter the outcome of games and the fabric of the game itself.” Of course he might as well have been speaking Russian as far as the Commish is concerned.

I’ll point out here that Womanfred has the right to institute rules changes without an agreement from the Union with one year notice. Which means, next year, you can count on havin’ the pitch clock, two strikes and you’re out, games shortened to seven innings, and the death penalty for giving up more than three walks per nine innings.

The pièce de résistance.

The proof that Manfred and Putin are evil twins comes into sharp focus when you take a look at this year’s new extra innings rule in Minor League Baseball, which is really the rule testing ground for Major League Baseball. They already have the pitch clock, for instance.

This season, extra innings throughout the minor leagues will start with a runner at second base. CAN YOU FRIGGIN’ BELIEVE THAT?! That’s the kinda crap you did for your younger brothers when you played whiffle ball — a game whose ball looks exactly like Manfred’s brain. And just to make this pinheaded rule more convoluted, the runner who starts an extra inning at second will be counted as reaching on an error for purposes of determining earned runs, but no errors will be charged. How the F does that wash? The guy technically reaches second on a two base error, but nobody is charged with one?

How ’bout Manfred? Now THERE’S a guy that should be charged with an error. A fatal one. One that boots his communist ass back to Moscow where he and his long lost brother can reunite and lay plans to get that bozo in the White House re-elected. Or maybe shorten the Indy 500 to the Indy 200. Or perhaps mandate shorter winters, 20 hour days, and partial amputations for anyone over 5’6″.

Joe

PS. I leave you with a quote from the great philosopher, Stormy Daniels: Shorter may be easier to take, but it isn’t necessarily more fun.”

THE SOUR TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON.

· 2017 Cubs, Baseball Rules · , , , , ,

BONEHEAD-MANFRED

Greetings and salutations from the glow of the cheap seats, fellow Cubs fanatics, where I still bask in the Cubbie blue afterglow of a World Series championship. It’s like sex … only it smells like leather, cheesy fries and beer. Actually, that would be sex for Cardinals fans. But I digress.

One might think winning the last game of the playoffs would take the edge off the Schlombowksi razor. And one would be correct. Right up until Rob Womanfred poked his head outta the backside of his jackass.

That’s right, sports fans. Manfred is back at it — attacking the perfection of baseball by tryin’ to institute pinheadian rule changes to “speed up the game.” Thankfully, just one of his brain farts snuck through this season, leaving Robby Boy foaming at the mouth in frustration with the MLBPA.

This new rule is a perfect illustration of just how friggin’ constipated Manfred’s whole speed-up-the-game movement is. According to ESPN’s Howard Bryant, Major League Baseball plans to use a dugout signal in place of issuing four balls for a intentional walk this season. If you look at the numbers you’ll see that eliminating the 60 seconds saved by not actually, physically throwin’ 4 balls is like takin’ a bucket of water outta Lake Michigan. If the average game is 3 hours long, that 60 seconds represents 1/2 of 1% of the time it takes to play it. Wow! Brilliant move, Baseball. I can only imagine how the Gross National Product is gonna soar with all that extra time that won’t be wastin’ on a ballgame. Friggin’ genius.

This whole thing reminds me a Star Trek episode, appropriately titled, “A Taste of Armageddon.” During this episode the crew of the Enterprise visits a planet whose people fight a computer-simulated war against a neighboring planet. Even though the war is just pretend, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside “disintegration booths” to meet the casualty counts of the simulated attacks.

Well, this walkin’ guys without walkin’ guys is the same kinda thing.

It’s complete donkey doo. It doesn’t speed the game up (as if that needed to be done anyway) in any noticeable way, and it robs fans of the chance … the possibility … the anticipation that some yay-hoo pitcher with the control of a young Randy Johnson tosses one of his pitches to the backstop. Pathetic.

If you really wanna improve the game of baseball, consider gettin’ Manfred together with one of those disintegration booth thingies.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I’m not.

Joe

SHOULD MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL GAMES BE SHORTENED TO 7 INNINGS? ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING?!

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · , ,

MLB-CLOCK

Yesterday, ESPN’s Buster Olney wrote a piece about the nine ideas that would improve baseball — not a “fix”, but things that would help the game in one form or another. Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with baseball, outside of we don’t have cheerleaders. You hear that Manfred?! We want cheerleaders! The game is nearly flawless (unless we’re talkin’ about Starlin Castro’s glove). Time has confirmed the perfection of its geometry. It ebbs and flows like a lazy summer stream, but it’s also punctuated by the violence of the bat, the improvisation and acrobatic of great defenders, and the drama of a single pitch upon which the outcome might rest. There’s no clock savin’ anyone’s ass. Yeah, there’s a clock — one of Manfred’s brain farts intended to speed up the game. Idiotic. But there’s no game clock. As Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” which can only be associated with the purest forms of sport. There’s no timer that can be manipulated — completely independent of athletic skill — to one’s advantage.

This is where I got an issue with the list in Buster’s piece. At lease item #1. I’m not finger pointing, since the list was generated with help from the Mike & Mike audience. At least it sounds like that’s the case. But that number 1 item on the list reads as follows:

Reduce the games to seven innings. A longtime executive mentioned this idea to me a couple of years ago, a dramatic change that would accelerate the adrenaline of the game and greatly reduce the time of game, something MLB has aimed for in recent seasons. You can shave the commercial time between innings or ask batters to stay in the box, but those are minor adjustments that make a small difference. This change would get the time of game closer to between two and 2 1/2 hours.

No question: Shavin’ commercial time, keepin’ batters in the box, limiting the time for mound visits … None of that makes much of a difference. BUT REDUCING GAMES TO SEVEN INNINGS?!!! Give me a friggin’ Kit Kat break. Is the goal to turn Major League ball games into Little League games? That idea reaches a point on the stupidity peak that’s never been conquered before. Congrats to whoever came up with that, and the “long time executive” Buster refers to. You guys all get the pointy hat prize.

First, is it life’s goal to make everything as frantic and abbreviated as possible? Cuz if it is, maybe we should put some kinda clock on nookie time, too. Do you get what I’m sayin’? Not everything should be measured by the same instant gratification, sound-bitten, 4-second-page-load limited brain chemistry the Internet has brought us. There are some activities in life that should be allowed to unfold instead of being ripped open and tossed aside so you can get on to hyperventilatin’ about the next item on your to-do list.

A seven inning baseball game isn’t going to “accelerate the adrenaline of the game.” Not one friggin’ iota. (Whatever an “iota” is.) The game is gonna be played at the same pace in the exact same way as it is now. Shovin’ the bottom of the 9th drama to the bottom of the 7th just shifts it ahead. It’s not gonna fundamentally change squat. It ain’t gonna make things more exciting, or add more tension, or dial up the excitement. In fact, I would argue that it does the exact opposite. If you’ve got a shorter game, you’re also gonna have fewer home runs, fewer great plays, fewer dramatic moments of every kind that people say they like. Even the pin-heads who go to games cuz they wanna see Bryce Harper flippin’ his bat, and other stupid crap like that, are gonna see 22% less of it.

Baseball isn’t a Las Vegas show girl act. It’s not somethin’ you snort. It’s not a friggin’ Taylor Swift concert. So why do we need to measure how much fun it is by tryin’ to bend it in ways that make it more like whatever else floats your boat? If you can’t sit through 9 innings, leave. Go watch your local high school. Or just go do somethin’ else entirely. But stop whining about a sport that’s been proven over 150 years to be damn near perfect just the way it is.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I’m not.

Joe

PS. And if you actually do decide to look into “helping” the game — not that it needs it — don’t forget about that cheerleader thing, Rob.

IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE CODE OF BASEBALL?

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez, News · , , , ,

BASEBALL-CODE

Code:  \ˈkōd\
1) a set of laws or regulations
2) a set of ideas or rules about how to behave

Codes, unlike rules, are often unwritten and informal. No official book. No company manual. No government-like posters in the lunch room. They’re phantom collections of understandings between members of a group. For example, Chicago has a hot dog code that says you never, ever, never, never ever put ketchup on a hot dog; there’s no law preventing it, but if you’re from the Windy City you just wouldn’t ever do that. And if you did, you’d have to take the extra-large ration of doo doo — justifiable, by the way — that your friends would dish.

There are other kinds of codes, too. Like, say, a code of ethics. That’s the kinda thing Hillary Clinton wouldn’t recognize if it jumped up and took a bite out of her pantsuit-wearin’ donkey. Another would be a code of conduct. Donald Trump couldn’t identify that one if it was sittin’ on top of whatever it is that’s already sittin’ on top of his head. But that’s not what’s at issue here. In November, yes. What I’m talkin’ about now, though, is a code of honor. Semper Fidelis is the Marine Corp version. It means remaining faithful to the mission, to each other, to the Corps and to country, regardless of whatever kinda hell is happening all around them. Even the Mafia has a code. It’s called Omertà, and it means you never rat on your friends, you don’t cooperate with authorities, and you keep your nose outta the illegal actions of others. If you’re a wise guy, Omertà isn’t something you wanna treat with a casual attitude; like Alfonso Soriano used to have in the batter’s box. You could end up wearin’ cement shoes. If you’ve ever seen Prince Fielder run, you’d know that’s somethin’ you want to avoid.

Which brings me to the point; that unwritten code in baseball that says if one of your guys takes out one of our guys — whether it’s a hard slide into second base or some chin music that actually hits a high note — there’s gonna be some kinda retaliation. It’s part of the game — even the sissified, pink tutu-wearin’, give-a-warning-to-both-teams version Bud Selig turned it into. When I was a kid though, if you did a Chase Utley against the Cards, for example, you’d have to expect Bob Gibson to attempt a little brain surgery on you the next time you came to the plate. Not givin’ someone a tit when they’ve obviously tatted you is just plain cowardly, my friend. It’s baseball, not figure skating, and if you’re gonna put on the uni it’s your duty to stick up for each other. Period. Plus, it adds a dimension of Omertà to things, cuz you never know when, where or necessarily who is gonna pay the price. Bryce Harper thinks flippin’ bats and admiring your own work at the plate makes the game more interesting? That’s just ego in a very jackassian sorta way. Throwing a 97 mph heater at a guy’s numbers, on the other hand, tends to start a conversation — one that uses ALL the words in the english language, and that sometimes ends up in a spontaneous all-team dance on the infield grass. Now that’s interesting, pallie. You can keep your friggin’ bat flip.

The reason this is top of mind at the moment is because of what we’ve witnessed over the past few weeks. (Besides the Cubs continuing to clean their spikes off on the rest of the National League, that is.) There have been 3 obvious “code” incidents, where guys were throwin’ what I call “pigeon balls” — pitches that come with messages. Buster Olney wrote a good piece about this the other day, describing each of these exchanges and what led to them. The key questions Buster raises are 1) Is it acceptable for pitchers to throw a baseball at or near a hitter to deliver a message? And 2) Should a history of bad blood between teams and players matter? I say yes to both, just in case you haven’t been paying attention. Where Buster misses the mark, IMHO, is his dissatisfaction with how differently each of these events, although very similar, were handled by the umpires, and his call for “MLB to determine what will be tolerated and what won’t be, and to send a message of its own, loudly and clearly, perhaps by reaffirming the rules that should apply in these moments.”

Then there’s that pesky little Rule 8.02: Throwing at the Batter. It reads as follows:

The pitcher shall not intentionally pitch at the batter.

If, in the umpire’s judgment, such a violation occurs, the umpire may elect either to:

Expel the pitcher, or the manager and the pitcher, from the game, or may warn the pitcher and the manager of both teams that another such pitch will result in the immediate expulsion of that pitcher (or a replacement) and the manager. If, in the umpire’s judgment, circumstances warrant, both teams may be officially “warned” prior to the game or at any time during the game.

(League Presidents may take additional action under authority provided in Rule 9.05)

Rule 8.02(d) Comment: Team personnel may not come onto the playing surface to argue or dispute a warning issued under Rule 8.02(d). If a manager, coach or player leaves the dugout or his position to dispute a warning, he should be warned to stop. If he continues, he is subject to ejection. To pitch at a batter’s head is unsportsmanlike and highly dangerous. It should be – and is – condemned by everybody. Umpires should act without hesitation in enforcement of this rule.

Go ahead and reaffirm that rule. Not a damn thing will change.

Yeah, these incidents were kinda handled like they were from different planets. You read the rule … what can you expect? It’s full of words like “judgement” and “may” and “circumstances” and “should.” It’s dealing with something that’s not an absolute, which is why the rule was written that way in the first place. If the nature and severity of code retaliations were always the same, you could have one, all-powerful way of handling them. But they’re not. Too many variables. How hard was the pitch thrown? How close, exactly, was it? Was it really intended to hit a guy or was it just a “hey, I could hit you if I wanted to” thing? Where was it located? Is the pitcher a control guy, or not so much? What was the cause of the retaliation? How severe was it? How long ago was it? Yadda yadda yadda. This is an issue that’s never gonna be etched in stone, and if you try to treat it like it is you’re gonna have a lot more of the Syndergaard/Utley thing than you want. It’s a Pandora’s box, my friend. I say, lock the damn thing and throw away the key.

Look, there are two issues, as I see it: 1) The rule, as written, allows for a lot of interpretation on the part of umpires and 2) Major League Baseball has umpires. Like the code, umpires are part of the game. Do they get stuff wrong. Yeah. Does it drive me to the friggin’ moon and back when they do? Without exception. Do I wanna see Rob Womanfred and his band of merry minions continue to turn baseball into something I hardly recognize by turnin’ umps into zombies, or replacing them altogether with some sort of cyclops-techno-wiz-bang robot that you can’t kick dirt on? HELL no! This is baseball, not u-friggin-topia. The more perfect we try to make the game, the less perfect it’s becoming.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I’m not.

Joe