Baseball Rules

IS THAT A BONE IN YOUR HEAD, OR ARE YOU JUST ROB MANFRED?

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez, News · ,

BONEHEAD-MANFRED

Take a knee, Cubs-lovers.

So I’m watching Jake spellbind the Giros last night, wondering if he was facing a real Major League team or the consolation bracket in Williamsport, when, during a commercial break, I flip channels long enough to hear two jock-sniffing windbags calling a meaningless game in Boston or New York or You-Take-Your-Pick mention that the Commish is now considering — get this — a proposal from the owners’ competition committee that will do away with the intentional base-on-balls as soon as next year. No, hey, if you’re rubbing the eye boogers from your peepers right now wondering if you just read that right, believe me, I get it. I nose-farted Old Style all over the barcalounger! Oh, and that’s not all, sports fans. They also want to raise the strike zone to the top of the knee, probably because there ain’t a warm body on the planet that can hit Jake this year. Since Alex Cartright spit out is last chew, the only problem with the strike zone is that the boys in blue can’t seem to read it any better than a book of French poetry. Leave it alone, I say.

Let me ask you this, cheese doodles: is there a novocaine drip that leads directly to Robbie Womanfred’s ball bag? He’s pissed cuz the game is taking seven minutes longer this year. Seven minutes? Um, what’s the problem? The fans in Atlanta may not want to endure the pain any longer than they did last year, but at Wrigley we’re real fans who say, the longer the better. Hell, I can savor two more Old Styles and another Smokie in seven minutes! Let’s face it, hammer heads: either you’re a baseball fan, or you’re not. Don’t like being at the yard? Don’t friggin’ go! Besides, it’s not the stuff on the field that chaps my ass. It’s all the commercials and promotions and electronics and other “fan experience” crap required by the average Dodgers fan that brings the game to a screeching halt and sends me into sensory overload. Not to mention instant replay, which I hate as much as Steve Bartman must.

Now that MLB has adopted the NCAA’s sissy, college-boy slide rule, its next act could be simply signaling the intentional walk from the dugout without requiring the pitcher to make four pitches outside the zone. Is it me, or did somebody just fart? Look, pal, if you’re the Atlanta Braves and somehow find yourself in a close game with guys on second and third, one out, and — God, this is hard cuz that bunch of slapdicks doesn’t have a single good hitter — oh, I don’t know … let’s pretend that Chipper Jones is still playing, and Chipper is due up, and you know they’re gonna walk him, and (since we’re pretending) Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams is on the mound. Wouldn’t you want him to throw those four pitches and pray that one gets past the catcher so you could actually win a game? That’s real baseball, Cubcakes, not the cotton candy-suckin’ ballerina puss-chip thing Womanfred wants.

Let’s see, we already have a girly slide rule and a time limit on mound visits, thanks to the Commish. On the horizon is a new strike zone that will be even harder for the Cincinnati Reds to hit. And now we’re going to use the high school rule for intentional walks. That ought to speed the game up.

What’s next, Robbie, seven-inning games?

Joe

SLIDE RULES BELONG IN PHYSICS CLASSES, NOT AT SECOND BASE.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · ,

SECOND-BASE-SLIDE-RULES

Okay, cotton balls, take a knee.

Is it just me, or has the tendon that connects Rob Manfred’s cranium to his sphincter suddenly grown long enough to wrap around his man grapes?

As if the bonehead 30-second clock wasn’t enough to boil the cholesterol in my blood, the Commish’s office just approved a slide rule at second base. A slide rule at second base? Are you dry humping me? I thought we already had two slide rules at second base: 1) you better slide on a double play, so the shortstop’s throw doesn’t knock your teeth out; and 2) unless you knock the shortstop on his ass trying to break up the double play, don’t bother coming back to the dugout — just leave five hundred big ones on the skipper’s desk and beg his forgiveness at the hotel bar. Maybe he’ll let you play again in … oh, I don’t know … A FRIGGIN’ MONTH!

What are we a bunch of milksop, namby-pamby, pantywaist powder puffs since Reuben Tejada made the mistake of turning his back on Chase Utley in the seventh inning of Game Two of last year’s NLDS? Utley plays hard — frankly, I wish he was Cub — and, yes, he turned Tejada into a rag doll and ended his season. But you know what else Utley did? He sparked a friggin’ four-run rally that lifted the Dodgers over the Mets in Game Two of last year’s NLDS. (God, I hate the Mets, but that’s another story.)

What in theee HELL has baseball become under the new Commish? Well, I’ll tell you, pal. We got the Buster Posey Rule at home; the Chase Utley Rule at second; and coaches reporting to spring training two weeks before pitchers and catchers so they can practice running sprints from the dugout to the mound without having a friggin’ coronary.

Hey, Robbie, you know who plays with a slide rule and a clock? College kids, that’s who. Hey, if I wanted to watch kids play I’d drive the Pinto up to Northwestern. No, thank you, Mr. Womanfred. I want to watch MEN play — hard-nosed, hairy-backed, tobacco-eatin’ men like Ty Cobb who’d wipe out a second basemen just for standing NEAR the bag. Slide rule? Please. What’s next Robbie, friggin’ Cross Out?

Joe

DID SOMEBODY CUT THE CHEESE, OR WAS THAT ROB MANFRED WITH HIS 30-SECOND CLOCK?

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · , , , ,

ROB-MANFREDs-30-SECOND-CLOCK-STINKS

Tighten up, melon balls.

I got a craw, and there’s something jammed in it pretty tight. Actually, really tight, you know? Like pickles. Sardines. Like a Krakus canned ham. Know what I’m sayin’?

It’s called the Commissioner’s Office and it’s got me feeling a little salty.

Far be it for yours truly to criticize the genius sitting in that particular ivory tower, but didn’t Bud Selig retire? I kinda hoped when he broke wind in his high-back leather chair for the last time he’d be taking his ham-fisted decisions with him. (Can anyone say inter-league play, and a 7-7 tie in the FRIGGIN’ ’02 ALL-STAR GAME?!)

No such luck, pallie. It seems while I was outside grabbing some air after Selig finished crop dusting the room, Rob Manfred stepped in to give us — after, like, nine hundred years of sports perfection — a clock on the field to limit, of all things, the time a coach takes to start and finish a mound visit. I’m sorry, cheese doodles, was that a problem? I got news for Robbie: the only thing wrong with the game is the amount time I spend waiting for the Old Style vendor to reload. Other than that, the game’s fine. Leave it alone.

Let me spell it out for you, sports fans: the commissioner is going to make the game better by speeding it up. And the way he’s going to do that is by starting a 30-second clock when the coach leaves the dugout on his way to the mound? Hey, I’m all for fast games — win or lose inside two-fifteen, I say. Nobody likes their infielders falling asleep, and since they stop pouring beer in the eighth … well, I start to get a little parched. Know what I’m sayin’? But is making a coach run to the mound and back really the answer? Hey, Robbie, you think for two seconds how much time it will take for the paramedics to resuscitate Chris Bosio when he collapses on the infield grass? Hell, Lou could light up a pitcher for thirty seconds before he crossed the foul line. Makes no sense to me.

Want to make the game faster, Robbie? Lose the DH in the sissy league, instant replay, and inter-league play. And for God’s sake stop letting TV dictate when the next pitch is thrown.

Joe