Another Tradition Dying... GOOD!

if baseball started enforcing the actual strike-zone as it is defined in the rules of baseball, and maybe even started requiring middle infielders to have possession of the ball and touch 2nd base AT THE SAME TIME to record the force out while turning a double play.

Those 2 things would more than make up for the 4 or 5 times a year a HR and foul ball are mixed up.

should NOT be allowed to not wear uniforms.

Technical balks? Give me a break.

We’ll see how instant replay works. If they use it for calling home runs good or bad when it’s questionable, then fine. These cameras aren’t exactly going to be calling plays at the plate.

is the technical fouls they give to players. It tends to be biased and is inconsistent from quarter to quarter, let alone game to game. That is a bad idea for “technical balks” in baseball. Maybe one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard, and I say that will all the respect in the world.

them get rid of the ball beat him so he must be out call. Happens all the time on steals and plays at the plate.

I also hate the umpire is out of position (facing the defender’s back) out call. How can you possibly tell that the runner was out if he can’t see the glove or the ball….

but I love watching guys like Maddux get an extra inch or two on the outside corner. It’s baseball, it’s not the NFL, its not the NBA…and it doesn’t need to strive to be more like either of the two.

Nothing like reading two people arguing over how others should be arguing. I call “technical balk” on both of you.

where the batter and runners already on base would have ended up, if a ball initially called a home run is then ruled to be in play because of ground rules or fan interference after replay? There was that ball Soto hit in Houston that was questionable as to whether it was a home run or not. To Soto’s credit, he flew around the bases and was credited with an inside-the-park home run.

Let’s say the umpires had initially ruled that a home run. If, because of replay, umpires had said that ball should have been in play, what base would Soto have been awarded? Will such balls be ruled ground rule doubles? Let’s say there was a runner on first, would that runner have been awarded home or third?

after reading all the garbage on this thread, I think I got it figured out. DeBard actually is a little league umpire and he is getting tired of all the parents ranting about all his bad calls and wants the power to get rid of them, but first he has to get MLB to crack down on the players so he can go back and crack down on allthe people he annoyed with his calls.

The bottom line…Baseball is ALL about tradition. Tradition is what brings us back over and over to the game. You don’t mess with tradition.

Kasey

really…I’d like to get his take.

I would not be against the managers wearing the trousers and team polos. I am for leveling the playing “center” field at Minute Maid Park. I can’t agree with the “technical balk” call. The answer to excessive bellyaching by players and managers should be stiffer fines and longer suspensions.

I like the idea of instant replay. However, I wish instant replay would get a trial run in the Arizona Fall League or spring training before being used in regular season MLB games. There will be unforeseen problems that pop up. MLB needs to know how to deal with them before implementing an instant replay system for real.

Check THIS out…

http://www.journaltimes.com/articles/2008/08/12/local_news/doc48a0a35b69001098424000.txt

Honestly, umpires already have a ton of power. If a player looks at an ump funny he can eject him, and has no recourse. Scarily enough, it’s only the weight of tradition that is stopping umpires from ejecting anyone that steps out of line already.

...after a while, you realize the pig enjoys the mud more than the wrestling…

The freaken All-Star exibition game determines the friggon home field of the World Series.

Or Joe Morgan being in the broadcast booth on Sunday Nights :)

I think that they do make that choice themselves, even though nobody’s worn street clothes in over 50 years. The last one was Burt Shotten, who managed the Dodgers in the early 1950s…

Now I think that looks a lot more dignified than a 60 year-old man stuffed into a baseball uniform. Still, you might need a rule change to get managers to stop wearing the uniforms because a 60 year-old man just isn’t going to change his style of dress unless forced to, even if the alternative is “normal clothing”.

Finally, the managers should wear street clothes because it would make arguments far more interesting to the fans. For example, we could have seen Billy Martin berating an umpire in this lovely outfit or we could have seen Earl Weaver try to strangle an ump with his necktie…I cannot understand why baseball has denied its fans that spectacle.

I guess my brain was fried from reading this thread and I typed “umpires” instead of “managers”.

...to a finite number because it recognizes that the vast majority of fans find a certain flow to the game to be a positive viewing experience and it also recognizes that population of reviewable plays approaches infinity if you don’t put a cost on the choice, it also increases the cost through the loss of the TO. This is brilliant in my opinion. If you don’t put a cost on something then the eye n the sky doing his job will make the game unbearable.

MLB will be wise to give the managers a low number of challenges. If grown men cannot decide what’s important then they shouldn’t be in charge of the team to begin with.

There’s holding on almost every play in the NFL. Nearly all NBA players travel when they showboat their dunks. (Actually for me being a hockey guy first and foremost, I’d like to see full contact allowed in the paint. A guy tries that showboat stuff? Drill him with a good shoulder check.)

I’m in full agreement with the replay so long as there’s clear documentation on what constitutes a HR in every one of the 30 ballparks. AND, the rule is for HR’s only…That one game where the [fair] pole actually had a ball’s scuff mark on it was interesting. That has to be known when the rules go into effect. The system also has to be quick and concise. No BS’ing around like the NFL replay. I like the NHL’s system the best. All the goal replays go to the “war room” in Toronto for review.

As for the umps, and BB has commented on this often, the umps are not part of the attraction. They too often are confrontational, looking for a fight with the manager, being agressive by pulling the mask and walking towards the dugout. No changes here are needed other than the umps should go back to being part of the background instead of trying to be part of the show.

Technical balk? No…that’s silly. It’s way too hard to manage logistics and just a sorry-ass sign of the PC culture infecting this country. Managers should be allowed to argue, period. No changes to the count, nothing. Just play the damn game.

Strike zone? Could be a little modification here, but not too much. I’m more concerned with a “zone” changing throughout the game. If he calls that low outside corner to a righty in innings 1-3, it had better be called in inning #9.

Apparel? The last thing I want MLB to do is mimic anything from the NFL. Baseball is America’s past-time, not football. I could care less if a manager doesn’t look GQ in the uniform. It’s been part of the game for well over a century. It’s a baseball game, not a fucking fashion show.

Ballpark quirks? Eh… While I can’t stand Houston just because it looks like a sissy place with the dome, that damned choo-choo, short porch in LF & RF plus that stupid pole, it’s one of those attraction things newer parks sometimes do. I care more that these parks take elements from Wrigley and put it in their park. Hey, what’s that stuff growing past the CF wall in that southside shit-hole?