SPANISH HARLEM – Welcome to Opening Day for Major League Baseball. I will be at work for the New York Yankees home opener, which sucks because I can’t be as invested in the game. What’s worse is that that Yankees will be off Friday for some stupid reason and that needs to change. It seems like every year they play one game and have an off day, only to reconvene against the same team a day later. That makes no sense, whatsoever, but enough about that, let’s get into the reason I am here… the 3 major changes to the game this season.
Pitch Clock
You either love it or you hate it. I’m all for making the game faster and more fluid so count me in for the loving it part. This new rule has been in works for years and implemented in the Minor Leagues before making its way to the Majors this year. We all knew this was going to happen at some point and now we get to see how it will impact the game, good or bad. Baseball is awesome but I understand that something had to be done to limit games going over 4 hours. I’m all for making the game faster and hope it somehow improves the action going forward.
The Shift
Baseball was hard enough as it is but the shift just made things worse. I was never for it, even though I understood why it was done by every team. The shift worked possibly too good, as we saw batting averages go down… like way down. What normally would be a hit in the 1990’s were sure outs in the 2000’s. Even more so if you batted lefty and sure, we could sit here and say “hit it the other way,” but try doing that when a guy throws 100 mph, with back-breaking curveball and nasty slider. I’m just glad the powers-that-be understood that this had to change.
Bigger Bases
I assume this was done to encourage more base stealing and when you add the limit on throws to first base, I can see a lot more movement on the base paths. I grew up around the time when Rickey Henderson stole more than 100 bases. That is unheard of and downright amazing when you consider stealing 30 bases in today’s game is considered A LOT for a season. Maybe, this will bring back the hit-&-run… remember when those were a thing? Yeah, I sure hope so because those were fun to watch. I know most teams want to minimize outs but baseball is way more fun when you take chances.
That’s it for now, come back tomorrow for Haywood Jablomie.
