TAMPA, Fla. _ Regarding his pace-of-play initiatives, Commissioner Rob Manfred had us at hello. The promise of shorter games, earlier finish times, and just a better, neater baseball product was easy to climb on board with in these days of ever-shrinking attention spans.
But the clumsy rollout of the pitch clock, and its use as a political sledgehammer by Manfred against the Players Association, now has us thinking much differently about the entire process.
After Manfred basically told us back on Feb. 17 that the pitch clock would be used in spring-training games with the purpose of implementing it for the regular season, MLB is retreating from that plan, a source confirmed Tuesday, based on recent negotiations with the union.
