Caption
Close
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is determined to quicken the pace of his sport, even if he steps on the toes of tradition along the way.
Manfred spent most of the time during a press conference Thursday pushing for a series of changes (Hat tip: ESPN.com) he hopes will create more action in the national pastime with less dead time.
Among his ideas include raising the strike zone, eliminating four-pitch intentional walks and finding better ways to streamline instant replay.
And most notably, he remains sold on the controversial rule that would start extra innings with a runner on second base as a way to boost scoring after the ninth inning, which will be employed in the Gulf Coast League and Arizona League this year.
While Manfred said he never expects the rule to be implemented in the majors, he believes it still has merits.
“A lot of those games are played in high temperatures, there’s very small crowds,” Manfred told reporters. “They’re really developmental activities, and we felt that that rule would bring a quicker end to games. There’s really no need in those games to play 18 innings.”
The timelessness of baseball remains to many one of its intrinsic delights, although it doesn’t necessarily jive with the demands of many Millennials.
“A quicker pace is good for fans. What we want is a well-paced game with action regardless of time of game,” Manfred said. “We’e never set a goal in terms of time of game, because time of game is really beyond your control. You can have a three-hour game with a lot of action in it that’s just fine.
“Our concern has always been pace of game. We’re concerned about dead time in the game –delays, pitchers who don’t work quickly, batters getting out of the box. We’re going to continue to work hard to eliminate that dead time.”
Some baseball officials have been pushing for many years for a pitch clock that Manfred says has some advantages.
A few of the ideas may be strange to traditionalists and those fans have typically been the bedrock of the sport’s support.
But Manfred appears willing to think outside the box in his bid to make baseball more attractive to younger fans who might have drifted away from the sport.
Tgriffin@express-news.net
Twitter: @TimGriffinBig12
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
