Pitchers are notorious dawdlers. In between pitches, they aimlessly take a few steps on the mound, move their cap up and down a bit as if appearance counts for something, and perhaps take a quick glance at the baseball. Why, has it changed?
Then after a long squint toward home plate comes the inevitable debate with the catcher. Four-seam fastball? No. Slider? Nah. Sinker? Aah, yes, that’s it. Through it all, fans patiently wait. It’s America’s pastime, after all.
Well, no more dawdling.
The 2023 season got underway last week, and so did a bevy of rule changes for our Cubs, White Sox and the rest of Major League Baseball — including a pitch clock to quicken the game’s plodding pace. Pitchers will have 15 seconds between pitches to deliver the next pitch, and 20 seconds if there’s a base runner. Players get 30 seconds between batters to resume play.
Other rule changes include a limit of no more than two pickoff attempts or steps off the rubber per plate appearance, bigger bases, and a ban on infield shifts. That’s a defensive tactic in which infielders are aligned toward one side, a maneuver usually used against left-handed batters.
Of course, the sport has more than its share of purists ripping up their Rod Carew baseball cards in disgust. One of baseball’s hallmarks is its sense of tradition. Baseball’s National League got started in 1876, while the American League dates back to 1901 — and yet, interleague games didn’t begin until 1997. The distance between bases remains as it always has — 90 feet, and it’s still 60 feet, six inches between the pitching rubber and the rear point of home plate.
Tradition does indeed matter, particularly when it comes to the Boys of Summer. What would Wrigley Field be without “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” merrily sung by a capacity crowd under a warm July sun? At baseball stadiums across the country, devoted fans still dutifully log every play in scorecards — by pencil. Managers still cuss out umpires, and brushback pitches still send a message to batters that they’re leaning in a tad too much toward the plate.
An ancient Greek philosopher said that the only constant in life is change. That also goes for baseball — and every other sport, for that matter. It’s not as if decades of baseball have gone by without a few tweaks. During COVID in 2020, Major League Baseball started putting a runner on second base at the beginning of extra innings to speed up the game, and in 2023 the rule became permanent for the regular season.
In the late 1960s, the mound was lowered and the strike zone shrank to counter pitchers’ rising dominance of the game. Later, changes were made to make the game safer. Baserunners no longer could ram through catchers at home plate, a 2014 change, and in 2016 MLB banned runners from plowing into an infielder to thwart a double play.
Other sports have changed with the times. Basketball introduced the three-point line in 1979. There was a time when shootouts had no place in either hockey or soccer. Football seems to roll out rule changes every year, though lately few would argue against them — many of which are aimed at preventing long-term traumatic brain injuries and wrecked knees.
If there’s one aspect of baseball that should remain off-limits, it’s the postseason. Dream, if only for a whimsical moment, a Cubs return to the World Series. Chicagoans would hit the roof at the sight of Kyle Hendricks losing Game 7 on a pitch clock violation. Every minute of postseason baseball is something to savor.
With that caveat, we think regular season baseball needs streamlining. It won’t take the luster off the sport, and instead creates the opportunity for more games to conclude while young fans are still awake. Grand slams, pitching duels, dazzling double plays and suicide squeezes will still enthrall fans in bleachers and on couches, even if the pace of the game quickens a bit.
Opening day last Thursday at Wrigley Field provided a perfect example.
The Cubs’ Marcus Stroman pitched masterfully, striking out eight and giving up no runs. He committed Major League Baseball’s first pitch clock violation in the third inning, but it proved inconsequential. Shortstop Dansby Swanson’s debut included three hits and sparkling glovework. The Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-0.
The game lasted 2 hours and 21 minutes, a fact hardly on the minds of Cub fans at Wrigley, who gleefully waved their “W” flags and stayed in the ballpark long after the last out, belting out time after time, “Go Cubs Go!” That tradition is sacrosanct.
