baseball made more dangerous by being made "safer"

In the movie Bull Durham (the best sports movie of all time, by the way), a coach tells his players, “Baseball is a simple game.  You throw the ball.  You hit the ball.  You catch the ball.”  It is a simple game, which is why it is so frustrating when the powers that be simply don’t understand it.

Baseball made a number of rule changes today.  Meetings on the mound now have to be no longer than 30 seconds.  I can’t argue with that; no one wants to go to a baseball game and attend a committee hearing.  Runners will now have to slide into second base.  That makes sense; no one wants to see Chase Utley run half way to right field to fling himself at the knees of the opposing second baseman. 

But the they had to do what I have been afraid of since the brought instant replay to baseball: they are eliminating “the neighborhood play.”

You know, that play that doesn’t bother you when your team’s second baseman makes the pivot on a double play two feet away from the bag, but makes you scream, “He was safe!!!” at the TV set when the other team does it.  From time immemorial, second basemen and shortstops have been allowed to miss second base by a foot or two when making the pivot on the double play.  I knew once we gained the false accuracy of instant replay, someone would call for an end to the neighborhood play.

They play may require an inaccurate call—the ump calling the runner out even though the fielder never touched the bag—but there was a policy reason behind it.  You COULD insist that the fielder touch the base, but that would make him a target for the runner coming in hard.  So you turn a blind eye to the base being missed, and spare all middle infielders the possibility of damaged knees or worse.

In fact, now that base runners are being forced to slide into the bag, it makes it that much worse.  Baseball is forcing runners to slide into the bag, and fielders to touch the bag when making the pivot.  That means both runners will be trying to reach second base at exactly the same time.

Ok, kiddies, what happens when two objects reach the same place at the same time?  Right.  Boom.

While I support the concept on instant replay in certain circumstances (home run calls, fair or foul calls), I think it is largely inappropriate for the game of baseball.  In football there are only 16 games, so every win or loss counts.  In baseball you play 162 games; you lose a call today, you get one in three months.  It all evens out.

You can have instant replay, but does that answer the question of when does a first baseman catch the ball, when it hits the back of his mitt, or when it enters his mitt?  Such precision is an anathema to a leisurely game that shouldn’t be measured in micrometers.

So, in making the game safer, baseball has put more middle infielders at risk.  Kids can play baseball, but it takes adults to really screw it up.