The author proposes 7 inning games. My first reaction was to get all irate.
The more I thought about it…
It’d help the league make stars. In theory, pitchers are the most likely baseball players to become stars — they’re on the field 50% of the time, they’re (literally) the center of attention, and TV shows 1,000 close ups of their sweaty faces every game.
A seven inning game would emphasize the starter even more. It’s his show, it’s his game. A rotating cast of relievers won’t be there to steal his thunder in the late innings.
via How To Save Baseball.
They’ve already wrecked all the numbers. There was a silver age of baseball from 1961-2004 and now we’re in the steroids age. Even if the steroids age has ended (I personally have a suspect list), 2012 double wild card baseball is not the same as 1927 baseball.
So…7 innings. Faster game. Get the hell to bed at 9:30. I don’t hate it.
Discuss!
Very interesting. Maybe cut rosters to 23 players? Save teams some money and they could pass it along to us? Lets get crazy and cap the game at 9 innings. If no one wins batting practice pitchers come out and throw to 3 players on there own team. Which ever team hits most homers win. You think our ADD society would like that?
@Rob I hate the shoot out for hockey in regular season games , I would hate this too.
The premise of emphasizing the starter is wishful thinking. You’d just end up seeing lefty/righty match-ups with 2 out and 2 on in the 5th and the setup man taking the mound in the 6th.
I like Rob’s idea of cutting the roster back to 23 players. Let’s also cap the number of pitchers at 10. (I could easily see American League teams dumping bench players instead of trimming bullpens, otherwise.)
All this lefty-righty matchup nonsense is killing my enjoyment of baseball, and it’s going to continue to be a problem even if you shortened games to 7 innings.
C’mon, there are plenty of ways to “save” baseball other than to wreck part of its beautiful symmetry –
1. Limit rosters to 24 players and 10 pitchers
2. Umpires actually enforce rules to get batters in the box during an at-bat and pitchers minimizing time between pitches
If you want to get more radical, do this:
3. Limit a team to one pitching change per inning with the exception of an injury.
If you really want to get radical:
4. Schedule playoff and World Series games in the afternoon, or no later than 7:05pm for 1st pitch… Not scheduled on TV for 8:00pm followed by a bloated-with-commercials pre-game show and over-blown pre-game ceremonies featuring: honorary captains; on-field intros of EVERYONE including bullpen catchers, assistant trainers and ball boys; and celebrity National Anthem singer with giant flag on the field so the first pitch happens around 8:35pm.
You want to save baseball, that’s what you need to do.
Oh, and get rid of the DH.