State of Cape Cod

It's past time to dress up the old pastime…

Every sport needs serious Spring Cleaning

Let's shove politics, regionalization, taxes, crime, and the like into the background. It's time to deal with something really important.

After near-record snow falls and seemingly endless days of freezing temperatures, we are approaching the heart of yet another baseball season. Here it is, the middle of May, with the new pennant chase in full sway and the Cape Cod League not far behind. Unfortunately, amid the excitement of a new and promising campaign, a few things that seriously detract from the sport of baseball are painfully obvious. In a word, steroid scandals aside, the game itself is often very long and boring, and the officiating stinks.

The outcome of nearly every contest, in every sport, is too often controlled by the officials. In football, for instance, a penalty could be called on every play. There are so many rules and so many players on the field that it's impossible for an official not to see multiple infractions as each play progresses. Usually the doctrine of ‘No Harm, No Foul' prevails and the game is allowed to continue with relatively few interruptions, but there are too many instances where non-calls, wrong calls, or unnecessary calls can ruin games and change outcomes.

Basketball is out of control. Travelling, palming the ball, and hard contact occur constantly while infractions are called selectively, erroneously, or not at all. Isn't it odd that the home team routinely shoots more foul shots than the visitors? Don't visiting players foul out more often than those on the home team?

Expulsion after five fouls (six in the pros) should be eliminated. It isn't fair to the fans nor the teams. If memory serves, in the old ABA, after a player committed his sixth foul he stayed in the game but the team which was fouled retained possession of the ball after the free throws. It made for a better game. After all, if you paid big bucks to see a Paul Pierce or a Kobe Bryant perform, you don't want to watch him sitting on the bench with four or five fouls for most of the game.

Hockey is beyond mentioning. To the great detriment of the game, violence, condoned by the officials and beloved by the fans, has replaced skillful play despite occasional lip service to the contrary. As the saying goes, not without a grain of truth, "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out."

Baseball has no instant replay and it's the only game in which one rule in particular is willfully ignored. Each umpire has his own strike zone. Everyone, fan and player alike, knows it and accepts it, even though an official strike zone is clearly and precisely spelled out in the rule book:" the strike zone extends from the batter's knees to the letters across the front of his uniform. To be called a strike, the pitcher must throw the baseball across home plate, an area 17 inches wide (0.4318 meters), and between the knees and letters as indicated."

While the height varies with the size of each individual batter, the width of the strike zone never changes. Today's technology could easily determine the position of the ball as it crosses home plate in relation to both the vertical and horizontal parameters of the zone. This would guarantee absolute consistency. Along with instant replay for all questionable play calls, it's high time organized baseball allowed balls and strikes to be determined electronically, at least in the major leagues and the high minors.

Die hard fans, local players, and coaches of my acquaintance won't accept these changes. They cite such nebulous nonsense as tradition, the human element, and the charm of the status quo. If baseball nabobs do nothing else they should implement at least this singular change. Everyone should play every game to the same standard. It would make pitching and batting statistics much more meaningful and each victory and defeat would be achieved under the same conditions. The outcomes would be far less controversial.

There are other, more or less minor, changes which would help make things more interesting. To relieve the boredom of four-hour games, for example, time-outs should be strictly limited. Every other sport does it: why not baseball?

We don't need those tedious conferences at the mound. Imagine a football coach walking out onto the field, talking to his quarterback for a while, then taking the ball from him and waiting until the replacement he summoned gets onto the field. Think of sitting there while that substitute player warmed up before the game could continue. In the same vein, no hitter should be allowed to step out of the batter's box once he enters it. There should also be a clock on the delivery of the ball to the plate by the pitcher.

The showpiece of the improvements would be the conversion to two platoon baseball - a major innovation whose time has come. The defensive team would consist of eight position players. That much is obvious. Except for a few exceptional two-way athletes, they need never come to bat. The offensive squad consists of six batters. Three men could be on base at one time, and three would always be ready to hit.

Since potential steals would add to the excitement of the game, pinch runners could be used at will with the batter for whom they ran remaining in the game. Pitchers, once removed from the game, would not be allowed back, in order to avoid constant righty-lefty pitching changes, which could actually lengthen games.

There it is. A relatively simple formula for taking the former national pastime out of the dark ages and into the Twenty-first Century. The term ‘former' is used advisedly. Baseball, once indisputably number one on the American sports scene, has been eclipsed in popularity by football. If attendance and television viewing statistics are any indication, golf and NASCAR auto racing will soon outdraw baseball as well, if they haven't already. If efficiency and excitement are not sufficient reason for making changes, declining popularity indicates that it's past time to dress the old pastime up a bit.

Keeping admission, refreshment and parking prices affordable for families wouldn't hurt, either, but that's for another time and applies not only to baseball but to all sports on the major league level.Let's shove politics, regionalization, taxes, crime, and the like into the background. It's time to deal with something really important. After near-record snow falls and seemingly endless days of freezing temperatures, we are approaching the heart of yet another baseball season. Here it is, the middle of May, with the new pennant chase in full sway and the Cape Cod League not far behind. Unfortunately, amid the excitement of a new and promising campaign, a few things that seriously detract from the sport of baseball are painfully obvious. In a word, steroid scandals aside, the game itself is often very long and boring, and the officiating stinks.

The outcome of nearly every contest, in every sport, is too often controlled by the officials. In football, for instance, a penalty could be called on every play. There are so many rules and so many players on the field that it's impossible for an official not to see multiple infractions as each play progresses. Usually the doctrine of ‘No Harm, No Foul' prevails and the game is allowed to continue with relatively few interruptions, but there are too many instances where non-calls, wrong calls, or unnecessary calls can ruin games and change outcomes.

Basketball is out of control. Travelling, palming the ball, and hard contact occur constantly while infractions are called selectively, erroneously, or not at all. Isn't it odd that the home team routinely shoots more foul shots than the visitors? Don't visiting players foul out more often than those on the home team?

Expulsion after five fouls (six in the pros) should be eliminated. It isn't fair to the fans nor the teams. If memory serves, in the old ABA, after a player committed his sixth foul he stayed in the game but the team which was fouled retained possession of the ball after the free throws. It made for a better game. After all, if you paid big bucks to see a Paul Pierce or a Kobe Bryant perform, you don't want to watch him sitting on the bench with four or five fouls for most of the game.

Hockey is beyond mentioning. To the great detriment of the game, violence, condoned by the officials and beloved by the fans, has replaced skillful play despite occasional lip service to the contrary. As the saying goes, not without a grain of truth, "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out."

Baseball has no instant replay and it's the only game in which one rule in particular is willfully ignored. Each umpire has his own strike zone. Everyone, fan and player alike, knows it and accepts it, even though an official strike zone is clearly and precisely spelled out in the rule book:" the strike zone extends from the batter's knees to the letters across the front of his uniform. To be called a strike, the pitcher must throw the baseball across home plate, an area 17 inches wide (0.4318 meters), and between the knees and letters as indicated."

While the height varies with the size of each individual batter, the width of the strike zone never changes. Today's technology could easily determine the position of the ball as it crosses home plate in relation to both the vertical and horizontal parameters of the zone. This would guarantee absolute consistency. Along with instant replay for all questionable play calls, it's high time organized baseball allowed balls and strikes to be determined electronically, at least in the major leagues and the high minors.

Die hard fans, local players, and coaches of my acquaintance won't accept these changes. They cite such nebulous nonsense as tradition, the human element, and the charm of the status quo. If baseball nabobs do nothing else they should implement at least this singular change. Everyone should play every game to the same standard. It would make pitching and batting statistics much more meaningful and each victory and defeat would be achieved under the same conditions. The outcomes would be far less controversial.

There are other, more or less minor, changes which would help make things more interesting. To relieve the boredom of four-hour games, for example, time-outs should be strictly limited. Every other sport does it: why not baseball?

We don't need those tedious conferences at the mound. Imagine a football coach walking out onto the field, talking to his quarterback for a while, then taking the ball from him and waiting until the replacement he summoned gets onto the field. Think of sitting there while that substitute player warmed up before the game could continue. In the same vein, no hitter should be allowed to step out of the batter's box once he enters it. There should also be a clock on the delivery of the ball to the plate by the pitcher.

The showpiece of the improvements would be the conversion to two platoon baseball - a major innovation whose time has come. The defensive team would consist of eight position players. That much is obvious. Except for a few exceptional two-way athletes, they need never come to bat. The offensive squad consists of six batters. Three men could be on base at one time, and three would always be ready to hit.

Since potential steals would add to the excitement of the game, pinch runners could be used at will with the batter for whom they ran remaining in the game. Pitchers, once removed from the game, would not be allowed back, in order to avoid constant righty-lefty pitching changes, which could actually lengthen games.

There it is. A relatively simple formula for taking the former national pastime out of the dark ages and into the Twenty-first Century. The term ‘former' is used advisedly. Baseball, once indisputably number one on the American sports scene, has been eclipsed in popularity by football. If attendance and television viewing statistics are any indication, golf and NASCAR auto racing will soon outdraw baseball as well, if they haven't already. If efficiency and excitement are not sufficient reason for making changes, declining popularity indicates that it's past time to dress the old pastime up a bit.

Keeping admission, refreshment and parking prices affordable for families wouldn't hurt, either, but that's for another time and applies not only to baseball but to all sports on the major league level.
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