Is There Anything I Can Do to Change That and Be Cool Again
In America, baseball game is the beginning: the first love, the first to capture our imagination, the first to radio and Tv set, the first to integrate, the get-go to innovate. It's America's pastime, because it was born in America and it is America.
Just along the way, we've grown jaded. While social club sped up, with its smartphones, social media, rapid-burn dribs and drabs of data and rapidly shifting news cycles, baseball has remained abiding. The game is supposed to terminal nine innings, but it lasts as long as information technology must to decide a winner. The season stretches for months and months, while the leaves change color and fans ditch their cargo shorts for peacoats.
A sport that seems stuck in time actually has encouraged the iconoclast and rewarded the edgiest amid usa. It'due south just that the rebel ethos has been lost underneath a seemingly impenetrable layer of tradition that overlooks baseball's function in moving America frontwards.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were considered one of the "coolest" teams of the 1970s, from Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter while on acid to winning the World Series in 1979. (Getty Images)
Await no further than the Pittsburgh Pirates of the tardily '70s and early '80s, featuring the legendary Dock Ellis—a pitcher who threw a no-hitter while tripping on acid in 1970—and the smoothen-swinging, mustachioed first baseman Willie Stargell cutting an effortlessly cool figure on the basepaths. It was a team and then hip it adopted "We Are Family" past Sister Sledge, the hitting of 1979, equally its theme song.
Today, you'll rarely hear a baseball role player name-checked in a hip-hop runway, and Drake is not exactly roaming the stands at Bluish Jays games, merely it doesn't take to be that manner.
Ken Griffey Jr. turning his chapeau backward, Jackie Robinson breaking barriers, Joe DiMaggio hitting the town with Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Damon and the idiots of the Red Sox, the improbable Cubs laughing all the way to a Globe Serial and the undeniable charisma of Bryce Harper—that'southward baseball. Innovations over the years like the designated hitter, the wild card and interleague play were designed to make the sport more than entertaining to fans, and that'southward great.
READ More FROM THIS Serial:
• Ken Griffey Jr., Bryce Harper & More on B/R Mag's Commission of Cool
• Inside the Fabulous Life of MLB Prodigy Hunter Greene
• We Re-Designed v MLB Jerseys for the 21st Century. Want One?
• Listen to the B/R Mag Show for More than Ways to Save Baseball…
But as you'll see in B/R Mag's Make Baseball Absurd Again special, there remain plenty of things we can practice to aid baseball repossess its rightful place in our culture: more scoring, more bat flips, better nicknames—hell, peradventure fifty-fifty a dunk tank.
Every bit St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Dexter Fowler told B/R Magazine's Make Baseball game Cool Over again Commission: "If the fans don't think it'due south cool, then I guess it'due south non cool. But there's ways to make it cooler." Here, with the help of more than a dozen other players, managers and baseball-watchers who spoke to us over the first half of the MLB season, are B/R Mag's not-and so-modest proposals for looking forward, in 4 fan-first categories. —Dave Schilling
3 Piece of cake THINGS Baseball CAN DO RIGHT At present…BEFORE THE NBA EATS Information technology Live.
1. Embrace the Handshake, LeBron-Style
(Illustration by Peter Gamlen)
If MLB one-ups the NBA'southward culture in one area, it's the handshake. Truthful story: In athletics, the high 5 was invented on the baseball field, when Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Glenn Burke artsy his arm back and raised it exterior the dugout upon greeting Dusty Baker, subsequently Baker's 30th home run in 1977. Baker reacted past slapping Burke's paw, and so a tendency was born.
At present, forty years afterward, the simple high 5 has been overtaken past the dap and intricate handshakes rooted in black culture. So permit's own information technology, expand it and celebrate celebrating.
"I've e'er been a fist bump guy," Athletics reliever Sean Doolittle says, "because I've had problem remembering some of the steps of the handshake. Merely now it seems like almost every guy has a choreographed bargain with another guy on the team—at least 1, but there'south some guys who have one for just near everybody."
After Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Doolittle said he saw LeBron James execute a dissimilar handshake for every player on the Cavaliers, and that gave him an idea: "That might exist something we tin work on in spring training." —Scott Miller
2. Embrace the Fearless, Fireballin' Closer, WWE-Style
The default stone star of every baseball team is the closer. He comes in. He throws gas. He goes home.
Closers even go entrance music, which is possibly less stone 'n' roll and more WWE. Kenley Jansen, the Dodgers' loftier-priced firefighter, strides to the mound to the sounds of 2Pac and Dr. Dre's "California Love."
Role of the closer's job is to win games. The other part is to go fans on their feet after eight innings of hot dogs and flat beer. "People recollect an out is an out, but not all outs are created equally," old Rangers, Mets and Ruby Sox managing director Bobby Valentine told B/R Magazine recently while promoting a baseball game prediction app called WinView.
Slowly merely surely, baseball analytics fiends have de-emphasized the function of the fireballing closer. Cleveland employed a hodgepodge of relievers in various roles during its run to the World Series last year. Mathematically, it seems more beneficial to transport out pitchers based on situational superiority.
Dodgers closer Kenley Jensen (left) and "Wild Thing" (right), portrayed past Charlie Sheen in "Major League," are responsible for winning games and bringing people to their anxiety. (Getty Images)
But some of the most colorful characters in the sport were fearless closers. Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Rod Brook, Eric Gagne. It's no coincidence that the nearly dramatic moment in the the classic baseball film Major League revolves around flammable pitcher Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn striding to the mound to go an out in the late innings of a crucial postseason game.
The closer role is inherently dramatic, a one-on-one battle of wills between the pitcher and the batter that requires what Valentine chosen "a mental presence as well as a physical presence" by the closer.
It'due south pure drama and sets baseball apart from every other sport. —D.S.
3. Encompass Latin Culture Already!
On Opening Day, of the 868 players on MLB 25-man rosters and inactive lists, 218 were natives of Latin American countries. That's a full 25 percent, and the numbers—and influence—are growing.
But allow's forget the numbers and await at merely how much fun players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Republic of cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico are having. Along with world-class pitching, hitting and fielding skills, these players bring real emotion to the sport. My goodness, they even exercise so during the games!
Of those antics, the former school says: Human action like you've been there, son, and do not dare do annihilation to asperse the Grand Old Game. New schoolhouse says: Let's throw abroad some unwritten rules, cover the game's melting pot of cultures and celebrate personalities similar information technology'due south the Earth Baseball Archetype.
"We play the game the right mode," Manny Machado tells B/R Mag. "We play the game difficult. Nosotros play information technology with emotion." (Getty Images)
"This is how we play," Orioles tertiary baseman Manny Machado, who's from Florida simply played for the Dominican in the WBC, tells B/R Mag. "We like to take fun. Why are you walking effectually with a [serious] face? We play the game the right mode. We play the game hard. We play it with emotion."
Chanting fans, elaborate paw and arm signals from the players and—hey, why non stage the Wild Card Games in Puerto Rico or Mexico? "That would be really cool, man," Kansas City shortstop Alcides Escobar says. "But one game, you lose, you lot go dwelling. That would exist awesome." —Scott Miller
4 Dominion CHANGES FANS WOULD Actually ENJOY…
Purists freaked out when fifty-fifty the possibility of testing new rules surfaced earlier this year. But as Commissioner Rob Manfred told B/R, "Y'all spotter what happens and perchance yous become an idea." We'll come across your lilliputian changes, Commish, and enhance you.
1. Actress Innings with a Man on 2d → Home Run Derby Tiebreaker!
(Illustration past Peter Gamlen)
What practise fans dig? The long ball. What does MLB despise? Pitcher injuries and lonn(zzzzz)nng games. So, if nosotros're nevertheless tied after nine innings, permit's pit ane slugger from each team against each other to settle things, mano a mano.
"Nobody likes playing the long, extra-inning games," Diamondbacks commencement baseman Paul Goldschmidt tells B/R Mag. "Fans don't like it either."
While he doesn't necessarily support a Home Run Derby-style showdown to decide the effect, Goldschmidt says he thinks the idea is "100 pct" interesting enough to explore, "like hockey has a shootout, soccer equally well."
It's not a simple proposition, he says: "There's a lot of things that go into it. Notwithstanding many swings you have, the number of outs. Is information technology like the Home Run Derby for the All-Star Game? Is there a time limit? What if you have a really skillful guy equally a home run hitter, but he's on the bench and not in the lineup? Exercise yous put him in there?"
One thing is for sure, Goldschmidt says. "A lot would exist riding on i guy." —S.1000.
two. xxx-2nd Replay Reviews → 20-Second Pitch Clock!
Not to name names, just when Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Pedro Baez takes 40 freakin' seconds to deliver a pitch, the dead time begins to stack up. Await: One of baseball game'south charms is that it operates without a clock, only too many people are taking advantage. Throw the damn pitch within 20 seconds, or the umpire calls a ball.
"I don't know nigh 20 seconds," Royals outset baseman Eric Hosmer tells B/R Mag. "I would definitely say you go along somewhat of a steady step. Only I don't know if you can put a time limit on these things."
Hosmer says a lot is going on inside the listen of the pitcher and hitter in those seconds between pitches: "The hitter is thinking near his plan. The pitcher is thinking nearly his plan. So xx seconds might be a little tight. But information technology definitely shouldn't be a infinitesimal-and-a-half or something like that."
Vii-inning games might exist a little extreme, but MLB'south equivalent of the shot clock has been a long time coming. Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer says the league could go one footstep farther: "You've gotta crack down on the pitchers, and the fashion you do it is incentivize guys to work quick and not get out the mound," he tells B/R Mag. "Fine them if they practice." —S.1000.
iii. No-Pitch Intentional Walk → Three Pickoffs Immune
Consider the possibilities: If, with a runner on start base of operations, a bullpen was limited to three throws over until that runner advances, call up of the strategy involved, the daring. It would speed up the game and encourage more than stolen bases, an fine art form that is fast disappearing—along with the retentivity of characters like Rickey Henderson and Deion Sanders who infused countless cool on the basepaths.
Aside from the triple—and, arguably, the domicile run—the stolen base is equally exciting a moment as there is in a game that is begging for more action between all the strikeouts and walks.
"I would dear that," Nationals shortstop Trea Turner says. "You use all three, you lot're done."
Rickey Henderson (left) and Trea Turner (right) are known for sparking excitement on the bases. (Getty Images)
Turner is skeptical that the rule would always be adopted. "Simply as a base of operations stealer, it would make a huge divergence. I'm sure pitchers would effort to effigy out a way to exploit information technology, mayhap make information technology benefit them, merely I would dear it."
Afterwards that 3rd and concluding throw over, exactly how big a pb would Turner have? "You could exercise whatever you desire, really. I guess there would be a penalty if you threw over once more."
Regardless, pitchers would take to adjust, Turner says, "and it would arrive more than heady because more people would try to steal bases." —S.Grand.
4. DH in the National League → Get-Off-the-Mound-Free Carte du jour!
Let's face up information technology: Too many National Leaguers and their fans are clinging to the quirk that is pitchers hitting. Which...fine, but how about this: Each manager can use a pinch hitter i fourth dimension, whatsoever time, during a bullpen's starting time, and that starting pitcher can re-enter the game.
Hate starting pitchers striking in a cardinal spot? Bring a big bopper off the bench to bat for your ace with the bases loaded in, say, the 3rd inning, then send your starting pitcher right back to the mound.
Dear geeking out on in-game strategy? What could be more strategic than a manager deciding whether to use and so lose that item pinch hitter in a tertiary-inning opportunity or opt to salve that hitter for afterwards in the game?
Cubs manager Joe Maddon has what he thinks is a better idea: "Let's simply go National League rules in both leagues. The National League game is a much more interesting game. It's a much more thoughtful game."
Not that Maddon discounts the value of a DH. He knows the Cubs would not accept won the Earth Series terminal year without it. "Sometimes it'southward very beneficial," he says. "But with the AL, it'south the occasional pinch hitter, the occasional pinch runner and when am I going to take my pitcher out? That's nigh information technology."
Maddon much prefers the NL game: "I mean, the double-switches, moving lineups around, pinch hitting for the pitcher, batting a pitcher eighth for a variety of reasons. All those things, to me—I'chiliad telling you, they make information technology a lot more interesting." —S.M.
3 Ways TO TAKE THE BEST OF Baseball Culture...AND PUT IT ON STEROIDS
Including, merely not express to, Zorilla.
1. Make the Bat Flip the New Finish-Zone Dance
(Illustration by Peter Gamlen)
An unassailable rule of thumb in today's Snapchat guild is that bat flips always go viral. To vilify them takes 1 of the most exciting moments in sports—the habitation run—and makes it more than subdued (and maybe, ahem, ho-hum).
NBA stars like Steph Back-scratch practically trademark their own three-betoken celebrations, so why non endorse signature bat flips? Everyone loved the ol' Sammy Sosa Hop, so why not co-opt and modernize information technology?
Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig, he of the ii-finger salute, is all for information technology. "Information technology would be super cool," he tells B/R Mag, "because sometimes you strike out two or three times in a game—and and so in the ninth inning, you lot hit a dwelling house run, your team wins, and the starting time thing you practice is throw your bat."
Puig acknowledges the other team may not like information technology: "Information technology'south non disrespect. It'southward just the outset thing y'all retrieve of. You're not doing a bat flip every at-bat because you're not striking a home run every time. But it's part of the game."
At least, Puig thinks it should exist. Others, withal, disagree.
"I retrieve information technology'southward gotten a lilliputian carried abroad at the large league level," says Hosmer, the Royals showtime baseman. "The bat flip stuff is all fun, but I recollect there are a lot improve things to focus on in baseball."
Yeah, similar who should be the judge of the bat flip contest. —S.K.
2. Ban the Wave and Give an Entire Section $5,000 for the All-time Cheer/Signs
Why the hell are nosotros still doing The Wave? Who on Earth thinks it'due south absurd? And if yous can identify that fan, delight send them our way then we can administer a good old-fashioned noogie. What is a noogie? Something that was popular when your parents were in school, just like The Wave.
Many baseball game fans accept not taken the hints to finish and desist—even from Thor himself, Noah Syndergaard, and that guy is definitely cool.
Noah Syndergaard @ NoahsyndergaardHome team stadium started the WAVE this evening. Lost xiv-four. Coincidence? #justsaying #🚫🌊
So nosotros say it'southward time for MLB to encourage creativity. How most throwing a small cash prize in the direction of the most entertaining (and, aye, respectable) department of fans?
Doolittle, the A's reliever, says, "I'm non a fan of The Wave, specially while I'm pitching. It'southward merely a little annoying, that's all."
The A'due south might not exist the Raiders, but the absurd thing about playing in Oakland, he says, is the fans' bleacher-brute behavior: "In left field, they have musical instruments. They've got drums. They're doing beats. They've got those vuvuzela horns like in the Globe Cup. They're rockin'."
Not to be outdone, the right field fans at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Doolittle says, "have creative signs and choreographed stuff for each role player when they come into the game or when when they go up to the plate."
All that, he says, "helps the atmosphere … creates a cool link betwixt the players and the fans."
Much more than effectively, we might say, than The Wave. —Southward.M.
3. Put Nicknames on the Backs of Jerseys
Babe. Mr. October. Charlie Hustle. Yogi. Baseball has had some of the best nicknames in all of sports. Merely in the past decade, MLB has ceded valuable nickname real manor to the NFL and NBA.
Of class y'all know who "Beast Fashion" and "Uncle Drew" are. But were you aware Ben Zobrist's nickname is "Zorilla"? Yous know, like a gorilla crossed with Ben Zobrist?
Thankfully, MLB has recognized its branding problem and designated the weekend of August 25 as "Players Weekend." During those iii days, players can customize their cleats, article of clothing patches on their jerseys and, more importantly, put their nicknames on their jerseys—an innovation fabricated famous by "He Hate Me" and the dearly departed XFL.
On a contempo road trip to Citi Field, Zobrist told B/R Magazine, "Everybody will want to wait around and see what each thespian has. And kids, they'll beloved it. It's very smart. Great marketing."
Isn't that who matters well-nigh to Major League Baseball game today?
While we're at it, let's give some of these immature players better nicknames.
Cubs slugger Kris Bryant will just wear his initials on his jersey during Players Weekend—because we're all as well lazy to think of something memorable. "But some of the other guys in here have some pretty good nicknames," Bryant tells B/R Mag. "Zorilla'south pretty cool."
If you insist, Bluish Krush. —Southward.M. and Danny Knobler
...AND three THINGS THAT ARE PRETTY OUT THERE
Hear usa out!
1. Trap. Door. On. The. Mound.
(Illustration by Peter Gamlen)
Another beleaguered reliever is getting knocked around like a birthday party pinata, and instead of sitting through some other interminable visit to the mound by your favorite director, that manager...never even leaves the dugout. Instead, he reaches for a push button right next to the pitcher phone. One press, the globe of the mound opens upwards to swallow the bullpen whole.
Come on: Who doesn't love dunk tanks?
Every bit the bullpen plummets, the manager remains unmoved in the dugout, seated, legs crossed, spitting out the shell of another sunflower seed, nodding like the badass he's only get.
Doolittle, the A'southward reliever, takes information technology i pace further: "And there'south like a slide that dumps yous right into your locker," he says, citing technology at places similar Google headquarters where the playground becomes the playing field.
Athletics managing director Bob Melvin facetiously endorses the idea as well: "I'm all for that," he tells B/R Mag. "I think the fans would enjoy it. It would almost await like something out of The Gong Show."
And, hey, if they tin bring back that one-time game show for 21st-century Tv set, why not try a stunt in the middle of the field? —S.1000.
2. Or at Least Bring Back Pitcher Carts?
OK, OK, OK. Peradventure the dunk-tank matter is a little overkill—not to mention potentially injury-inducing. But as long as we're making relief pitching cool over again, allow'southward at least redesign bullpen carts and maybe install a souped-upwards sound system to play personalized archway songs throughout the stadium.
It would plough fifty-fifty a left-handed specialist into his ain personal DJ with a custom ride. Like so:
Joon Lee @ iamjoonleeThis is why Japanese baseball is amazing: Yakult Swallows closer Yasuaki Yamazaki comes in from the bullpen on a sports automobile. https://t.co/Cm19SHZxDa
"I've been saying this for a couple of years: If you want to speed the game upwardly, that would salve more time than the intentional walk affair," Doolittle says. He continues: "You could bring them in on a car, or an elephant, although that might take besides long. Merely you could come in on a equus caballus or something."
Royals closer Kelvin Herrera has a less complete embrace of the concept. He thinks "information technology would be more for the All-Star Game, like a show. Something like that. For the regular flavour, I think the jog to the mound is proficient. Yous go people yelling 'Ahhh!' and 'Yeah, let's go!' every bit you run in. I don't remember the golf cart would be the same." —South.Thou.
three. Just Juice the Damn Brawl Already
Whenever MLB scoring goes upwards, theorists and sabermetricians and pundits and ex-players all pop up like groundhogs in search of a shadow to offering their hot takes nigh the alleged return of the long brawl. It's nearly as though nosotros're non quite comfortable with the idea of baseball being fun to lookout, then we take to quantify it and rationalize it. It's like trying to demystify a Steph Curry half-courtroom boost rather than just reveling in it. Steroids! Expansion! Tiny stadiums! Juiced baseballs!
Aaron Guess (left), Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (center) and Cody Bellinger have 1 thing in common: the power to exist home run machines. (Getty Images)
In truth, all these reasons probable contribute to the home run explosion that's allowing thrilling young players like Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to flirt with record-breaking numbers. Only Major League Baseball continues to deny that its balls have been altered. Let'southward assume, for the moment, they haven't been. If and so, then the question remains: Why not?
If we have the technology to make the game more than engaging in the social media era, why wouldn't we? Ask a prolific hitter similar the Cubs' Bryant, and he'll start gushing almost juiced baseballs: "I would love it," Bryant tells B/R Magazine. "I think it should exist every game. If it's the ball that makes the ball become 500 feet instead of 420, information technology looks cooler."
Even though the almost home runs he's hit in a single regular flavor is a whopping xix, Mets infielder Jose Reyes is dubious. "That's not going to exist a lot of fun for pitchers," he tells B/R Mag. "That'd exist playing softball." —S.M. & D.K.
4. ...and the Real Hunt for October
Think March Madness with a Globe Series at the stop. Eight teams, single-elimination, with every contest having a Game vii atmosphere. Desire to make things even more riveting? Stick another merchandise deadline at the end of September and sentry rumors fly beyond social media as general managers sweat and every squad races toward the finish line.
"That's harsh," Maddon, the Cubs manager, tells B/R Mag when approached with our adventurous playoff solution. "Our game is pretty much designed for the all-time squad to somewhen survive. Depth matters in our game. Anything tin happen in i game of baseball. The worst team could admittedly shell the best team if you get a hot pitcher on a night or a team makes a mistake."
Maddon says Oct Madness would fly in the face of the "survival-of-the-fittest," long-term ethos of baseball. "If you're congenital for 5-game and seven-game series, yous take a much better chance than if you but get lucky for one dark," he says.
He acknowledges such a format would be interesting for the fans. "Simply to really detect out who the best team is, I don't retrieve it's appropriate," he says. "I've been in 2 Wild Bill of fare Games, which is the seventh game of the Globe Series in the very beginning game. Information technology's definitely exciting if y'all're watching it, but equally for the inner workings of the whole matter … I've fifty-fifty rallied for best-of-three in the wild-card situation."
So Joe, simply curious: In this format, terminal year, would the Cubs all the same take won it all?
"Of course we would have." —S.M.
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottMillerBBL
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball every bit a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @Danny Knobler
Dave Schilling is a writer-at-large for Bleacher Report and B/R Mag. Follow him on Twitter: (@Dave_Schilling) and click hither to subscribe to his new podcast, The B/R Mag Show, on iTunes. (Or here for iHeartRADIO or here for TuneIn.)
Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2718632-baseball-rule-changes-2017-future
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