SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Major League Baseball jumped into the 20th century last year — nevermind that we’re 15 years into the 21st century and the NFL did it way back in 1985 — when they adopted limited video replay.
But it worked. And nobody freaked out. Baseball games didn’t suddenly devolve into malfunctioning robots smashing fans in the face with circuit boards. Nobody desecrated the grave of Mel Ott. Old-timers were bummed out that they didn’t have anything to complain about.
So MLB got goosed. The future is fun! Let’s change some more stuff!
Baseball team owners, biting their nails about the length of game, hired a commissioner to kick the game in gear. The Kids, they fear, can’t focus on baseball. They’re like dogs with three-second short-term memories.
“I have a passing familiarity with that generation,” MLB commish Rob Manfred said Monday, at least admitting he’s kind of out of touch. “And one thing I can say for sure is their attention span seems to be shorter than the rest of ours.”
Manfred, assured in his passing familiarity, announced last week some new rules to speed up the game.
Starting this season, hitters must keep one foot in the batter’s box (except after swinging strikes) and hitters and pitchers must be ready to play right after television commercial break.
Wait, aren’t those rules already on the books, you ask? Yes. But nobody cared about them in the past, so nobody enforced them.
Now they really matter.
“The issue of attracting a younger audience and a pace of game is related,” Manfred said. In 2014, the average length of a big-league game was 3 hours, 2 minutes.
“I’m really intent on the idea that we’re going to have an average game time that’s going to start with a ‘two’ next year as opposed to a ‘three.’ “
MLB also liked their experiment with a 20-second pitch clock in the Arizona Fall League, so they expanded it to Double-A and Triple-A. Manfred said he’s had “very positive” discussions with the players union.
The players, though, are leery. They’re keeping mum for now, but some foresee more fines and higher tension.
What happens when a hitter sees a called strike he thought was a ball, but can’t walk away from the umpire to blow off steam and mutter insults under his breath?
What happens when an ump starts nagging at guys to get in the box after they’ve already argued a call?
“You can do the things you need to do to clear your mind as a hitter, with one foot in the box,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. “You can do your breathing, hit the reset button, give the ump a dirty look if that’s what you want to do, but you can do it with one foot in the box.”
Weiss said hitters will feel the change, but it’s worth it.
“It messes with some guys’ routines during an at-bat,” Weiss said. “But these aren’t drastic changes. … There is some unnecessary dead time over the course of nine innings.”
Chew on this
• MLB also tweaked it instant replay rules. This season, managers must stay in the dugout during video replay challenges. But it’s more like they get to stay. Nobody wants to drag out to shoot the bull with some ump while some other guy watches TV.
“It’s gonna eliminate some interesting conversations I had with umpires last year,” Weiss said. Sorry Bruce Bochy fans, you won’t get to see him moonwalk backwards out to an ump while he looks back at his dugout for a signal.
“It was awkward at times,” Weiss said.
• Hey Nuggets, don’t take this the wrong way coming off another horrendous loss — a in Denver — but :
• Denver’s Cat Zingano will fight for the UFC bantamweight title on Saturday in Los Angeles against Ronda Rousey, the so-far unbeatable champ. She’s fought and lost and hit and been hit in life more times than any fighter in the cage.
• Floyd Mayweather Jr., the pound-for-pound king of boxing, turns 38 today. In May, he’ll make more money fighting Manny Pacquiao than any athlete will make this year, including endorsements.
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickgroke
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