Baseball: faster, maybe; dumber, definitely

The Committee for the Ruination of Major League Baseball has added “bonus runs” and a few more wrinkles to the 2021 minor-league season’s additional rules in an attempt to speed up the game.

“Whenever a player hits a home run, his trip around the bases will be timed,” Michael Hill, MLB Senior Vice President of On-Field Operations, said. “If one or more players from each team hits a home run, the team whose player circles the bases quickest will receive a bonus run for its next scheduled game.”

The only exception, Hill said, will be if that home run results in tying a game after nine innings “because goodness knows we don’t want players trying to subject our fans to more time in the ballpark than they’re spending now. In that event, the batter hitting the game-tying home run will spend the next half-inning in the penalty box and his position will remain empty.”

In addition to the previously announced increasing of the size of bases from 15 inches square to 18 inches square, presumably to reduce injuries and collisions, the width of home plate will widened from 17 to 24 inches to reduce the number of bases on balls and encourage batters to swing at more pitches.”

The “Defensive Positioning” rule, requiring a minimum of four infielders, has been met with some resistance, primarily from Los Angeles Angels manager Joe Maddon, a proponent of defensive shifts.

“If that’s the way they want to play it, I’m going to have four infielders but I’m also going to have four outfielders,” Maddon said. “There’s nothing in the rule book that says you have to have a catcher and if that’s the case those home plate umpires are going to be getting a lot of fastballs to the face, not to mention some, ahem, other body parts.”

Managers and pitching coaches will no longer be permitted to visit the mound. Pitchers will be required to wear a helmet with an earpiece to hear instructions from a manager or pitching coach, but without the ability to verbally respond. Nodding will be allowed.

Further, if a manager is contemplating changing pitchers, he must bring two warmed-up relievers into the dugout at the start of that half inning. When he decides to make a change, he tells the pitcher on the mound through his helmet, “Get in here” and one relief pitcher on the bench, “Get out there.”

Because the average replay review takes about two minutes, “demonstrably slowing the game,” Hill said, “replays will be eliminated in favor of the challenging manager and umpire crew chief playing rock-paper-scissors.”

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he and the league office will determine, following a year’s implementation, whether any of the new rules would be tried in the majors in 2022.

Dave Klein, assistant auxiliary deputy undersecretary-director of the Committee for the Ruination of Major League Baseball, explained the evolution of the new rules. “There’s no telling what some people with nothing to do will come up with,” he said.