What's the hurry?

Baseball seems to be on a never-ending quest to make the game “more exciting.” Many of the ballparks have been designed as bandboxes, making home runs easier than during the prior 30 years. Both leagues now utilize the designated hitter in the hopes of creating more offense for fans to watch. Soon, a pitching clock will be introduced, requiring pitchers to throw their pitches in more rapid succession in order to move the game along. And maybe the game is becoming more exciting to more people as these changes have been made. But what gets lost is what made baseball unique and exciting from the start – it could be both a fast-paced exhibit of incredible athletic skill, and a slower chess match full of interesting strategic ploys and maneuvers.

The increasing ease for the average player to hit a home run has led to statistic-driven shifts in general game strategy. Historically, baseball was a station to station game; building runs and advancing runners in creative ways such as sacrifice bunts, double steals, hits and runs, and run and hits. The “easier home run” fuels modern data that indicates that it’s now better to stand around on base waiting for a two or three-run homer than to steal. To risk being thrown out stealing a base is not worth the possible lost multi-run homer opportunity. To ask a player to bunt is to take a chance out of his hands to hit a homer. There is minimal reliance on the century old concepts of "small ball." We now have more and more players jogging around bases after a home run and less players zipping from base to base, cutting corners, and rounding third, challenging a good throw from a fielder with a close play at the plate. It may be that by trying to speed up the game and making it more exciting, the net result is more guys standing around waiting for a guy to hit a ball so they can all jog together around the bases.

This wait-for-the-big moment approach is packaged in new stadiums featuring multiple scoreboards with image and information overload, making the ballpark look like a pinball machine. The stadium pumps constant entertainment and noise to create excitement as fans sit around waiting for the big blast. What is threatened is the days of fathers, mothers, sons, daughter, friends, little league players and coaches sitting in the stand discussing the game as it unfolds -- what the manager might do next or the myriad possibilities of what might happen. Gone is late inning strategy of when to pinch hit for the pitcher. A month of games can go by without a bunt. And as we leave the ballpark, we will likely have seen amazing athletic feats, but we may feel less intellectually satisfied and less fulfilled in our souls.