Better-Baseball Brainwaves

(515 words / August 2012) 1. Restore the traditional larger strike zone and reduce the number of balls needed to get a walk from four to three. The offensive/defensive balance would be unchanged, pretty much, but the game would go faster. Batters couldnt wait for a fat pitch, hoping to eek out a walk. Theyd have to swing more often. And walks would be granted more quickly. 2. Enable the use of fields with too-short fences, like Seattles old Kingdome, by allowing 1) the use of a deader ball there, and/or 2) counting short homers (ones hit into the first five rows of seats, say, or that hit Plexiglas panels that raise the height of the fences) as ground rule doubles or triples. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to needlessly replace the Kingdome. 3. Perhaps embed homer/foul detectors or videocams in the foul poles. (In general, the ump should be killedi.e., automated away.) 4. Make bat manufacturers burn the exact weight of their bats into their knobs. (If they dont do so already.) Then only a scale would be needed to detect corking (or knob-forgery), not an X-ray machine. 5. Perhaps give teams that win their division a greater edge in the playoffs than mere home field advantage. E.g., maybe spot them a one-run lead in a few games. Not having such an edge devalues the importance of winning in their division. 6. Mound-chargers should be called out, as well as being ejected. This would work where fines, suspensions, and ejections (alone) have not. Thats because being called out would penalize the team, not just the player. That realization, plus peer pressure, would be effective (most of the time). (See also the next suggestion, which would further discourage mound-charging.) (The following reforms were suggested by broadcaster Red Barber in Can Baseball Be Saved, in the April 1969 Readers Digest. I strongly endorse them.) 7. Reward hit-batsmen with more than one base. For example, give him two bases if hit above the waist and three bases if hit above the shoulder. (Possible exception: if the batter is hit on the back by a slow pitch, the ump may choose to award only one base.) (Barber proposed four bases for head-hits, but thats too big a jump, IMO.) 8. Allow two more (say) designated hitters. Heres Barbers rationale: Baseball, like football, has many men who excel in one facet of the game. [With more DHs] fans could get to see the best

Roger Knights

batters batting, the best runners running, the best fielders fielding. They could see the game being played at its best all the time. Note that the standard objection to allowing a DH to bat for a pitcher (that it simplifies the game by eliminating agonizing over removing the pitcher) wouldnt apply. (Barber wanted to allow unlimited substitutions, like footballs, but thats a bridge too far, IMO.) 9. Shorten the season back to the old length of 154 games. Too many games, including the World Series, are now being played in football weather, which is ridiculous. (Barber wanted to shorten the season to 142 games.)