There are different approaches to life.

Some people are “givers,” and others are “takers.”

Givers are the salt of the earth. They are dependable, caring and put others ahead of themselves.

Takers are always looking for new worlds to conquer. They are greedy and they can suck the life out of the most optimistic people on earth.

Baseball is on the verge of becoming a taker.

Commissioner Rob Manfred implemented some radical changes to the sport a couple of years ago aimed at making it a more attractive product for fans in ballparks and watching and listening at home, and they have worked beautifully.

Compared to three years ago, games take more that 20 minutes less time to play, the standing around between pitches is over, the catchers' visits to the mound after every pitch in an important moment don’t happen anymore — and it’s all because of the pitch clock, a limit on mound visits and other rules changes that have pointed baseball in the right direction.

So, rather than sit and give these new rules time to give us a large sample size and to create data points in fan reaction, Manfred is conjuring up other things he can change.
For example, his office says there is a proposal being considered to realign baseball’s divisions.

In order for this to happen, expansion from 30 to 32 teams would have to take place first.

The thought would be to add two new franchises to the major leagues. Charlotte, Nashville and Portland would all be considered leading candidates for those spots.
One popular model would include Charlotte and Portland, and then baseball would be split into 2 leagues and four divisions.

The commissioner’s office has expressed a fascination with organizing these eight divisions to be hyper-focused on geography.

Yes, the current six-division format is geographically based, but what is being considered would be even more so.

For example, one proposal would put the Cubs and White Sox in the National League Midwest Division with the Cardinals and the Reds.

The Rangers, Royals and Astros would all switch over to the NL and join Colorado in a division. Milwaukee would go back to the American League and be in a pod with Minnesota, Detroit and Toronto. The mythical Portland team would join Seattle, the Athletics and the Giants in the National League.

The question you are asking is the correct one: “Why?”
The idea is that these new divisions would be aligned in such a way as to significantly reduce travel within the division.

But that falls apart because the league has spread out the schedule in recent years so there are fewer interdivisional games in favor of all teams visiting all league cities for one series each year. They would have to reverse course on that and go back to playing more games within your pod.

But now you would have only 3 opponents in your division. If you went back to the old scheduling philosophy, you’d be looking at playing those 3 teams 20 or more times per season. Think about that. A team could win 110 games in a season just because their division is weak.

You’d also be throwing giant buckets of ice water on rivalries like the Cubs and Brewers.
This is Rob Manfred being greedy. He’s not banking his wins from the last round of changes and letting them grow on us.

He’s overdoing it.

What he really should be worried about is finding people, men and women, who know what the strike zone really is and calling balls and strikes accurately.

I believe that I am ready for the automated strike zone.

It would combine the technology of cameras, GPS and AI to allow batters and catchers to challenge pitch calls made by humans.

There is no one moment that brought me to that conclusion. I have just gotten to the point where I am tired of watching batters be called out on three pitches, of which none of them were actually over the plate between the knees and whatever they use for the top of the strike zone these days.

I believe the commissioner has taken his eye off the ball.

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This is the second in a three-part series on things in sports that need to be changed, updated or significantly improved.

Today’s edition focuses primarily on Major League Baseball.

I have three things in baseball that clearly need attention, and it would take very little effort to make the changes needed.

The first is fighting in baseball.

Baseball players have become very sensitive souls. Pitchers don’t even have to make them duck out of the way to trigger them to stare out at the man on the mound.

Part of this is just the fact that a growing number of people in our society are looking for opportunities to fight. I haven’t been able to put my finger on exactly why that is, but it most definitely is a fact. We are becoming a fight-first world, and it has not made us better.

Baseball can’t fix that, nor should we expect it to.

What they can do is try, as best they can, to manage that mentality and try to minimize the potential damage.

The best part of this problem is that another sport has already given us the solution.

In hockey, if two guys drop their gloves and square off to fight, the linemen will try to jump in and stop them. If they can’t, and often they can’t, the boys fight and the linesmen jump in as soon as it’s appropriate.

Two other guys might also decide to fight, but it is never 2-against-1. The rule is called the “third man in rule,” and it says that when two guys fight and a third person intervenes, the third guy is automatically given a game misconduct penalty — he’s ejected from the game.

And the players respect this rule, and they follow it.

My solution: if the batter charges the mound and the pitcher fights back, they both are automatically ejected and the league will hand down appropriate suspensions. Anyone else who leaves the position they were in when the batter crosses into the grass from the dirt at home plate will automatically be ejected and suspended for 16 games (about 10-percent of the season).

The position players will not rush in. The runners and on deck batter stay still. The benches will not clear. The bullpen pitchers stay where they are.

You move, you’re out, and the league would like a word with you.

The first base and third base umps observe the benches, the home plate ump manages the players on the field, and the second base ump and security officers keep the pitcher and batter from killing each other.

Shorter skirmishes, fewer injuries, more baseball.

And finally, the check swing.

Baseball can’t figure out how to determine what’s “a swing” and what isn’t, and it’s very disappointing.

For whatever reason, no one can figure out a uniform procedure for knowing when a batter has gone too far with the bat on a pitch.

My solution: If any part of the bat crosses the front corner on the opposite side from where the batter stands, it’s a swing and a strike. It’s that simple.

Another aspect of my solution is that only the first and third base umpires would be allowed to make this call.

The home plate umpire would no longer be able to call it himself. He has enough to worry about calling the pitch, which more and more umpires are proving they aren’t capable of doing.

The catcher would appeal directly to the first base umpire, taking the home plate ump out of the process completely.

Ball parks would be fitted with special cameras in line to make this call, and check swings would be reviewable.

And finally, major league baseball needs a mercy rule.

There is nothing worse than having the first basemen or the left fielder come in to pitch in the eighth or ninth inning because the losing manager doesn’t want to waste their pitchers on a game where they are getting blown out.

What results is a farse and dreadful excuse for baseball. Guys are throwing 50 miles-an-hour to batters who don’t know if they should swing hard or play along with the gag.

It’s dumb, and it needs to stop.

My solution: A mercy rule for the majors.

Under my plan, the losing team would have the option in either the eighth or ninth innings to just say “we give up” and the game would end. This could only happen after the team that is losing is down by 10 runs or more after the end of the seventh inning. The home team would still get the final at bat in any case.

You ask about the fans getting cheated out of watching innings? A rain-shortened game does the same thing, and no one is concerned about it then. And if the score is 17-4 in the eighth inning, how many people are sticking around to watch the final out?

None.

I’ve got more things to fix, but I have run out of space for this week.

We’ll keep going next week.

The post Things that are broken, Part Two appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

WARSAW — I know, Halloween was yesterday.

But I spent a few minutes watching the Charlie Brown Halloween special this week, and it got me thinking about the concept of trick or treat when it comes to sports. Who has been a trick, and who has been a treat for sports fans?

As a lifelong personal policy, I save the best for last. But for this discussion I start with those people who have been a “treat” in sports.

Let’s start with Manchester football, who won 3 games out of 9 in the regular season but have won 2 in the 2A playoffs. Like the kudos I hoisted toward Wawasee last week, I do the same for the Squires this week.

They could have just taken their lumps and went on to the next thing, but they chose the hard road and they have been rewarded.

Here’s hoping the underclassmen for those two schools have found a renewed motivation to work on football to make those programs better for next August.

Also a treat this fall is the story of Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent.

This kid literally came out of nowhere to make the Bears roster in August. He went to Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia — enrollment about 3,200. Two years ago, he won the Harlon Hill Trophy in 2021, which is best-described as the Heisman Trophy of Division II football. He passed for 5,000 yards with 53 touchdowns in 15 games.

He came to the Bears as an undrafted free agent who was given a tryout, and he made it into a preseason game and looked like he belonged.

Last weekend, he started for the Bears on Sunday Night Football.

It’s a reminder to everyone that if you are good enough to play at the next level—whatever level in whatever sport you’re talking about — people at the next level will find you.
I have no clue how long it will last, but it’s a fun story to tell.

My other treat is Blackhawk rookie Connor Bedard.

The hype about this kid has been outrageous since about Christmas time last year when experts started crafting their NHL Draft boards.

He’s 18 years old, and when you take a look under his helmet he looks very much like and 18-year old guy.

But he doesn’t skate like he’s 18, he doesn’t handle the puck like he’s 18, and he doesn’t talk to the media like he’s 18 either.

Chicago won’t make the playoffs this season, but they most certainly are showing potential free agents that Chicago is a team on the rise.

How about one more?

The Major League Baseball playoffs have been fun to watch this month. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fact the teams who had the best records and got a few extra days off as a reward for their great regular seasons were ushered out of the playoffs early.

Look, the organizing body of the sport can only do so much to help the No. 1 seeds advance. The teams still have to win games to win championships.

I think what they will ultimately come up with as a solution will be to add two more teams so that no teams get first round byes.

Of course, what will we do when that plan doesn’t work either? It’s baseball, right?

Those are not all the good stories from the fall sports season, but it’s a sample of them.

And who put the rock into our candy bag this autumn? Jim Harbaugh did.

Over the last three weeks the story of a Michigan Football staffer going to future opponents’ games has had sports fans scratching their heads.

If you haven’t heard about it, a Wolverine staff member bought tickets to opponents’ stadiums to scout their teams in person—which is a huge no-no….you can’t do that.

Now the “duh” part of the story is that he bought those tickets online under his own name! I am not a big fan of digital ticketing, but digital tickets made tracing this growing scandal back to the Michigan program simple.

And just like all of the other black clouds that follow Harbaugh around, he claims to have no knowledge of any of it.

Stunning.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Halloween Tip: Don’t hand out “Fun Size” candy bars. False advertising. There is nothing “fun” about bite-sized candy bars.

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Back in March, I prepped you for the new rules Major League Baseball implemented for 2023.

That was the week before the season started, and in that space, I had two objectives: to explain what the changes were and to guard us all against the inevitable overreaction that comes from major changes in the era of social media and fact-free opinion.

I said then that we needed to wait until the middle of summer to look at the data and see just how the game of baseball would change with the new rules in place, what the unintended consequences might be and whether we could live with it all.

One of the key phrases everyone was using when it came to the new rules and their objective was “pace of play.”

Almost all of the new rules that baseball put in were stoked around the concept of eliminating the periods between pitches where, literally, nothing is happening on the field.

For many years, those gaps in action were part of the charm of baseball. They allowed fans in the stands to have running conversations with each other about baseball things and non-baseball things and not miss a pitch.

But approaching the quarter pole of the 21st Century, the younger sports fan has very little interest in gaps, lags, delays and downtime.

They demand action, and baseball set out to deliver that for them.

They tested a lot of these rules in the minor leagues before turning them loose in the major leagues. They didn’t rely on gut feelings or hunches. They knew what they wanted to find, and they had a very detailed plan to get there.

So, how’s it going?

Last season, the major league average for a game was 3:04 (just over three hours) for the full season. At one point during the summer, it was 3:09. Compare that to the first two months of the current season where the average was 2:38.

That means, from a similar place last year, the new rules have shaved off a half-an-hour from game times. That’s a lot — 17-percent. For perspective, the average hasn’t been this low in about 40 years.

What they are doing is working. Why?

For one, the pitch clock works.

I don’t think anyone who was paying close attention to this rule change thought it wouldn’t have a significant impact. The one X factor in it was the question of whether it would be strictly followed by umpires … and it most certainly has been.

The only trouble I see with it — and I did say this before the season started — is that as the innings mount on pitchers and the thermometer creeps up and brings the humidity with it, it’s going to be hard for a starting pitcher to keep throwing pitches with only 15 or 20 seconds in between (depending on whether there are runners on base or not).

I think adjusting to 20 and 25 seconds would help even that out.

I thought the bigger bases were dumb before, and I still don’t see the point. However, adding an “orange” base at first base is still the next idea that needs consideration. We’ll delve deeper into that another time.

Baseball, however, credits the bigger bases along with the limits on how often pitchers can step off the rubber and throw over to first base with a renewed interest in stealing second base.

The people at MLB who were trying to craft these rule changes were trying to not only bring action back into the game but also show off the athleticism of the players on their rosters. The number of steal attempts is still only 1.8 per game this season—which doesn’t seem like a lot.

But factor into the equation that almost 80 percent of attempted stolen bases are successful (that would be an MLB record if it holds all season) and that change is working, too.

Plus, the silliness of pitchers just stepping off repeatedly has ended and it’s never coming back.

The other massive change was taking away the shift from defenses.

Making defenses play two players on either side of second base and no one in the outfield grass has allowed left-handed batters more room to operate on the right side of the infield. The collective batting average for balls put in play so far is .298, which is up six points from last year.

But left-handers are hitting 37 points higher on pulled ground balls and 28 points higher on pulled line drives than last season.

The truth is the rule changes are absolutely achieving the goals they were put in place to achieve. But, still, we need to let the rest of the season play out.

And if you think they work now in speeding up games, imagine what postseason games will be like.

* * * 

Roger Grossman has been covering local sports in Kosciusko County for more than 30 years and is employed with News Now Warsaw. You can reach him at  rgrossman@kensington.media.

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